For Immediate Release

Anthropic's watermark scheme is the focus of so much discussion that you could be excused for thinking there was nothing else to talk about. For many, it's the solution to identifying all those evil-doers who offload their writing to large language models. But we are wasting far too much time trying to determine whether (and to what degree) AI was involved in creating content. Much more important is determining whether the content was crafted with respect for the reader, and whether the creator can stand by every word. That's the idea behind the new AI writing policy from the software company Clay, which makes far more sense than trying to detect a watermark.Continue Reading → The post FIR #526: Forget Anthropic’s AI Watermark. Can You Defend Every Sentence? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We have been hearing about work slop for a while now, and evidence is mounting that it can create long-term problems for companies. Yet we are hearing very little (if anything) about what businesses are doing about it. There's new research, which Neville and Shel discuss in this episode, along with some thoughts about actions companies can take.Continue Reading → The post FIR #525: The Consequences Businesses Will Face from Work Slop appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Most companies are experiencing some level of turmoil over their adoption of Artificial Intelligence. They should be able to lean on their managers to interpret these issues at the ground level. Research, however, finds that training has left managers out. They may be getting some of the same training all employees are getting, but nothing... Continue Reading → The post FIR #524: Are Managers Ready to Lead an AI-Fluent Workforce? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Neville has been ill and unable to record, so Shel is on his own in this episode (except for Dan York's Tech Report). This shorter-than-usual monthly long-form episode includes reports on rethinking thought leadership, maintaining "brand sovereignty" in the AI era, and whether hedging in your communication can serve a useful purpose. Dan's report was recorded in Vienna, Austria, where AI was front and center at the 126th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Dan also reports on Bluesky's Attie AI feature, Instagram's plans to charge for AI access, Beehiv's new community feature, WordPress's plans for version 7.1, and some UK social media regulatory updates.Continue Reading → The post FIR #523: No Brand Is An Island appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Neville and Shel dig into a provocative Harvard Business Review article that argues most marketing teams are structurally unprepared for the speed and scale that agentic AI now enables. The bottleneck, the authors contend, isn't the technology; it's the operating model. Neville and Shel connect the piece to conversations FIR has been having for the past year: AI as orchestration rather than automation, professionals shifting from supervisors of tasks to directors of systems, and 2026 increasingly framed as “the year of the agent.” At the center of the Harvard piece is the idea of a “brand code” — a machine-readable knowledge system that lets specialized AI agents continuously create, adapt, test, and optimize marketing in real time. Communications urgently needs its own equivalent: a “narrative code” containing executive voice profiles, message hierarchies, sensitive-topic guardrails, and escalation rules. Whoever builds it first, he warns, will inherit the agentic stack, and if marketing gets there first, comms will be stuck with a system never designed for crisis, controversy, or stakeholder complexity. The episode also includes some concrete examples and early thoughts on Hermes, Wispr Flow, and where human judgment still has to win.Continue Reading → The post FIR #513: Why Communications Must Build the Narrative Code for the Agentic Age appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The policies are clear and well communicated. The guardrails are firmly established. Every last employee has been trained. And someone in your organization still releases a public document riddled with AI-generated errors. What went wrong has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with internal culture and accountability. In this long-form April episode, Neville and Shel examine a company that seemingly took all the right steps yet still had to apologize publicly for a court filing riddled with hallucinated citations. Also in this episode: Gartner predicts that, by 2028, 75% of employees will rely on an internal chatbot to get the news that matters to them. How will internal communicators need to rethink their role to ensure everyone knows and understands what they should in order to achieve strategic alignment? One of the promises AI executives have made is a leveling of the playing field, giving lower-level employees the opportunity to excel and rise through the ranks. According to one new study, exactly the opposite has been happening. PR hacks have been accelerating the pace at which they churn out press releases and pitches. That has raised the bar for what it takes to earn a journalist's trust (and journalists do still rely on press releases, according to a survey of reporters). Apple's announcement of its CEO transition offers communicators a clinic on how to announce a new top executive. "Slopaganda" from Iran has proven remarkably effective, which means it is undoubtedly coming for your company or clients soon. In his Tech Report, Dan York outlines big changes coming with WordPress's next update.Continue Reading → The post FIR #511: Doing AI Governance Right and Still Getting It Wrong appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Employees have long found ways to use software tools to get the job done, even when those tools are not approved. It's called Shadow IT, but ever since generative Artificial Intelligence hit the scene in 2022, employees have adopted a new version: Shadow AI. The company approves Microsoft Co-Pilot, but employees opt to use their smartphones or personal laptops, along with their personal accounts with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, or whatever best suits their needs. For most companies, this is a problem that needs to be addressed through repeated policy announcements and vigorous crackdowns. One company, though, took a different approach. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel outline what the company did and how communicators might advocate for a version of this approach to aiding in AI adoption and speeding up productivity gains.Continue Reading → The post FIR #510: Should Companies Embrace Shadow AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When bad actors use AI tools to clone a musician's voice and upload synthetic versions of their songs, they can then file copyright claims against the original artist's content — and win, at least initially. That's because the systems platforms use to validate copyright claims are automated and configured to treat whoever files first as the rightful holder. The result: musicians like Murphy Campbell, a folk artist from North Carolina, lose both revenue and control of their own creative identity. The same mechanism works just as well against any organization that publishes audio or video content online. In this midweek episode, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson break down how the scam works, why it matters to communicators, and what you should be doing right now — before an incident forces your hand. Continue Reading → The post FIR #509: Does Corporate Content Need Copyright Protection? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When workers lose their jobs, many turn to gig work to earn income while waiting for new opportunities. Increasingly, companies that hire gig workers are shifting from delivering food or sharing rides to creating content to train AI systems. This raises various communication and ethical issues. Neville and Shel explain what's happening and discuss the implications in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #508: Inside AI’s Human Raw Material Supply Chain appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Take a stroll through LinkedIn. You'll find no shortage of posts stridently deriding the notion that anyone should ever use AI to write for them. While that case isn't hard to make for professional writers, there are countless professionals in other fields who struggle with writing, never trained to be writers, yet now have to write everything from emails to reports as part of their jobs. Should they really sweat for hours over wording, time they could be devoting to the core areas of subject expertise, when AI can produce content that is cogent, clear, and direct? In this short mid-week episode, Neville and Shel look at the trends in using AI for writing, despite the plethora of opinions from the pundits.Continue Reading → The post FIR #507: Should Nobody Really Ever Write with AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this monthly long-form episode for March, Neville and Shel tackle a trio of interconnected themes reshaping the communications profession in the age of AI. The conversation opens with Anthropic’s top lawyer declaring that AI will destroy the billable hour. That thread leads naturally into JP Morgan’s controversial use of digital monitoring to verify junior bankers’ working hours, where Shel and Neville question whether surveillance technology can substitute for genuine managerial trust and engagement. The episode also examines Gartner’s widely circulated prediction that PR budgets will double by 2027 as AI search engines favor earned media. Shel delivers a detailed report on the escalating misinformation crisis, citing a 900% surge in global deepfake incidents and new research from the C2PA on content provenance standards. The episode closes with a discussion of Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s prediction that bot traffic will exceed human traffic by 2027, and a sobering peer-reviewed study on how social bots hijack organizational messaging — research reported by Bob Pickard, who has experienced bot-driven attacks firsthand. Dan York also contributes a tech report on the state of the Fediverse and Mastodon, as well as on AI developments for WordPress.Continue Reading → The post FIR #506: Battle of the Bots! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In FIR #505, Neville and Shel dig into Hootsuite's Social Media Trends 2026 report, which argues that social media is no longer just a communication channel — it's morphing into a search engine, cultural radar, and real-time research tool. They explore what it means for communicators when younger audiences treat TikTok and Instagram as their primary discovery platforms, and when Google itself starts indexing social content. The conversation also tackles "fastvertising" — the growing pressure on brands to react to cultural moments within hours — and whether that speed actually translates to bottom-line results or just burnout. The discussion takes a provocative turn when Shel raises Ethan Mollick's warning that public forums are being systematically overrun by machine-generated content, with research suggesting one in five accounts in public conversations may be automated. They weigh the AI paradox facing communicators: generative AI has become table stakes for social media production, yet 30% of consumers say they're less likely to choose a brand whose ads they know were AI-created. Neville and Shel agree that social media can serve as both a publishing channel and a listening tool — but only if human-to-human communication can survive the rising tide of bot-generated noise.Continue Reading → The post FIR #505: Social Media’s Big Shift appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Shel and Neville examine a troubling trend gaining momentum across corporate America: AI washing — the practice of attributing layoffs to artificial intelligence when the real reasons are more complex. The discussion centers on two high-profile cases. Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced a 40 percent workforce reduction, crediting AI tools, despite three prior rounds of cuts that had nothing to do with AI and pushback from former employees who say the moves look like standard cost management. Meanwhile, Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs, not because AI replaced those workers, but to fund a massive data center expansion that Wall Street projects won't generate positive cash flow until 2030. Meanwhile, a new Anthropic labor market study adds context, finding limited evidence that AI has meaningfully displaced workers to date—though hiring of younger workers in exposed occupations may be slowing. Neville and Shel dig into what this means for communicators who may be asked to craft layoff messaging that overstates AI's role.Continue Reading → The post FIR #504: When Companies Blame Layoffs on AI — and Leave Communicators Holding the Bag appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The president of the International Olympic Committee didn't have an answer to a question posed to her at a press conference on the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Or to another question. Or to yet another. Ultimately, she suggested, on camera, that someone on her communications team should be fired. In this short midweek FIR episode, Shel and Neville look at the fallout, what both the president and the head of communications might have done differently, and the possible long-term consequences.Continue Reading → The post FIR #503: When Your Boss Throws You Under the Bus appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the February long-form episode of FIR, Shel and Neville dive deep into an AI-heavy landscape, exploring how rapidly accelerating technology is reshaping the communications profession—from autonomous agents with "attitudes" to the evolving ROI of podcasting. The show kicks off with a chilling "milestone" moment: an autonomous AI coding agent that publicly shamed a human developer after its code contribution was rejected. Also in this episode: Accenture's move to monitor how often senior employees log into internal AI systems, making "regular adoption" a factor in promotion to managing director.  The "2026 Change Communication X-ray" study reveals a record 30-point gap between management satisfaction and employee satisfaction with change comms. The PRCA has proposed a new definition of PR, positioning it as a strategic management discipline focused on trust and complexity. However, Neville notes the industry reaction has been muted, with critics arguing the definition doesn't reflect the majority of agency work. Shel expresses skepticism that any single definition will be adopted without a global consensus. Addressing a provocative claim that corporate podcast ROI is impossible to prove, Shel and Neville argue that the problem lies in measuring the wrong things. They advocate for moving beyond "vanity metrics" like downloads and instead tying podcasts to concrete business goals like lead generation, recruitment, and brand trust. As consumers increasingly turn to LLMs for product recommendations, brands are "wooing the robots" to ensure they are cited accurately in AI responses. Neville asks if we are witnessing a structural shift in reputation or just another optimization cycle. In his Tech Report, Dan York explains why Bluesky is having trouble adding an edit feature, Russia's blocking of Meta properties, criticism of Australia's teen social media ban from Snapchat's CEO, YouTube's protections for teen users, and more on teen social media bans. Continue Reading → The post FIR #502: Attack of the AI Agent! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI isn't replacing communicators -- it's amplifying the value of communication, especially storytelling and strategic writing. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore how the hottest jobs in tech are increasingly about telling stories, not writing code, with Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, Anthropic, and OpenAI all hiring communications and storytelling teams at salaries ranging from six figures up to $775,000 per year. Even AI labs themselves are posting compensation packages around $400K for storytelling and communications roles, signaling that they understand the irreplaceable human value of meaning-making in an age of automated content generation. The distinction Neville and Shel highlight between traditional messaging and true storytelling proves critical: conventional communications start with what the brand wants to say, while storytelling starts with what audiences actually care about. The strongest communicators will be those who move beyond prescriptive messaging to tell genuine human stories.Continue Reading → The post FIR #501: AI and the Rise of the $400K Storyteller appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI has shifted from being purely a productivity story to something far more uncomfortable. Not because the technology became malicious, but because it's now being used in ways that expose old behaviors through entirely new mechanics. An article in HR Director Magazine argues that AI-enabled workplace abuse -- particularly deepfakes -- should be treated as workplace harm, not dismissed as gossip, humor, or something that happens outside of work. When anyone can generate realistic images or audio of a colleague in minutes and circulate them instantly, the targeted person is left trying to disprove something that never happened, even though it feels documented. That flips the burden of proof in ways most organizations aren't prepared to handle. What makes this a communication issue -- not just an HR or IT issue -- is that the harm doesn't stop with the creator. It spreads through sharing, commentary, laughter, and silence. People watch closely how leaders respond, and what they don't say can signal tolerance just as loudly as what they do. In this episode, Neville and Shel explore what communicators can do before something happens: helping organizations explicitly name AI-enabled abuse, preparing leaders for that critical first conversation, and reinforcing standards so that, when trust is tested, people already know where the organization stands. Continue Reading → The post FIR #500: When Harassment Policies Meet Deepfakes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) responded to member requests for a statement about the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota with a letter explaining why the organization would remain silent. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel outline the key points in the letter, where they disagree, and how they might have responded.Continue Reading → The post FIR #499: When Saying Nothing Sends the Wrong Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer focuses squarely on "a crisis of insularity." The world's largest independent PR agency suggests only business is in a position to be a trust broker in this environment. While the Trust Barometer's data offers valuable insights, Neville and Shel suggest it be viewed through the lens of critical thinking. After all, who is better positioned to counsel businesses on how to be a trust broker than a PR agency? Also in this episode: Research shows employee adoption of AI is low, especially in non-tech organizations like retail and manufacturing, and among lower-level employees. CEOs insist that AI is making work more efficient. Do employees agree? Organizations believe deeply in the importance of alignment. So why aren't employees aligned any more today than they were eight years ago? Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his company to reflect its commitment to the metaverse. These days, the metaverse doesn't figure much in Zuckerberg's thinking In his Tech Report, Dan York reflects on Wikipedia's 25th anniversary. Continue Reading → The post FIR #498: Can Business Be a Trust Broker in Today’s Insulated Society? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The latest BCG AI Radar survey signals a definitive turning point: AI has graduated from a tech-driven experiment to a CEO-owned strategic mandate. As corporate investments double, a striking "confidence gap" is emerging between optimistic leaders in the corner office and the more skeptical teams tasked with implementation. With the rapid rise of Agentic AI — autonomous systems that execute complex workflows rather than just generating text — the focus is shifting from simple productivity gains to a total overhaul of culture and operating models. In this episode, Neville and Shel examine this evolution that places communicators at the center of a high-stakes transition as AI moves from a pilot phase into end-to-end organizational transformation.Continue Reading → The post FIR #497: CEOs Wrest Control of AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Neville and Shel dive into the ambitious new definition of public relations proposed by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA). Sparked by a two-and-a-half-page draft that reframes the discipline as a senior strategic management function, Shel and Neville debate whether this comprehensive document serves as a vital "PR for PR" or if its length and academic tone move it closer to a manifesto than a practical, portable definition. The conversation explores the proposal’s emphasis on organizational legitimacy, its explicit inclusion of AI’s role in the information ecosystem, and the ongoing challenge of establishing a unified professional standard that resonates across the global communications industry.Continue Reading → The post FIR #496: A Proposed New Definition of Public Relations Sparks Debate appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In which Neville and Shel take a few minutes to acknowledge FIR's 21st birthday. Continue Reading → The post FIR 21st Anniversary Celebration appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Reddit, the #2 social media site in the US, just surpassed TikTok to assume the #4 slot in the UK. It has no algorithm forcing you to see what's most likely to keep you on the site; just users upvoting what they think is most interesting, valuable, or relevant. Every topic under the sun has a subreddit. Several organizations, from Starbucks to Uber, have taken advantage of it. So why is it absent from most communicators' list of social media platforms to pay attention to? Neville and Shel look at Reddit's growing influence in this episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #495: Reddit, AI, and the New Rules of Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the long-form episode for December 2025, Neville and Shel explore the future of news from two perspectives, including The Washington Post's ill-advised launch of a personalized, AI-generated podcast that failed to meet the newsroom's standards for accuracy, and the shift from journalists to "information stewards" as news sources. Also in this episode: WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell argued that PR is dead and advertising rules all. Is AI about to empty Madison Avenue Should communicators do anything about AI slop? No, you can't tell when something was written by AI In Dan York's tech report: Mastodon's founder steps back, and new leadership takes over; the UN reaffirms a model of Internet governance that involves everyone: and Dan talks about what he'll be watching in 2026, including decentralized social media, agentic AI, and Internet technologies. Continue Reading → The post FIR #494: Is News’s Future Error-Riddled AI-Generated Podcasts, or “Information Stewards”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For somebody who posts on X or other social media platforms to become recognized by the media and other offline institutions as a significant, influential voice worth quoting, it usually takes patience and hard work to build an audience that respects and identifies with them. There is another way to achieve the same kind of reputation with far less work. According to a research report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, American political influencer Nick Fuentes opted for the second approach, a collection of tactics that made it appear like a huge number of people were amplifying his tweets within half an hour of posting them. While Fuentes wields his influence in the political realm, the tactics he employed are portable and available to people looking for the same quick solution in the business world. In this short midweek episode, we'll break down the steps involved and the warning signs communicators should be on the alert for.Continue Reading → The post FIR #493: How to (Unethically) Manufacture Significance and Influence appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this short midweek episode, Shel and Neville dissect the communication fallout from the $13.5 billion Omnicom-IPG merger and the controversial pre-holiday layoff of 4,000 employees. Among the themes they discuss: the stark contrast between the polished corporate narrative aimed at investors and the raw, real-time reality shared by staff on LinkedIn and Reddit, illustrating how organizations have lost control of the narrative. Against the backdrop of a corporate surge in hiring "storytellers," Neville and Shel discuss the irony of failing to empower the workforce — the brand's most authentic narrators — and analyze the long-term reputational damage caused by tone-deaf leadership during a crisis.Continue Reading → The post FIR #492: The Authenticity Divide in Omnicom Layoff Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Big Four consulting firm Deloitte submitted two costly reports to two governments on opposite sides of the globe, each containing fake resources generated by AI. Deloitte isn't alone. A study published on the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) not only included AI-hallucinated citations but also purported to reach the exact opposite conclusion from the real scientists' research. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel reiterate the importance of a competent human in the loop to verify every fact produced in any output that leverages generative AI.Continue Reading → The post FIR #491: Deloitte’s AI Verification Failures appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Studies purport to identify the sources of information that generative AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude draw on to provide overviews in response to search prompts. The information seems compelling, but different studies produce different results. Complicating matters is the fact that the kinds of sources AI uses one month aren't necessarily the same the next month. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at a couple of these reports and the challenges communicators face relying on them to help guide their content marketing placements.Continue Reading → The post FIR #490: What Does AI Read? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the long-form episode for November 2025, Shel and Neville riff on a post by Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute, who identifies "idea inflation" as a growing problem on multiple levels. Idea inflation occurs when leaders prompt an AI model to generate 20 ideas for thought leadership posts, then send them to the communications team to convert them into ready-to-publish content. Also in this episode: A growing number of companies are moving branding under the communications umbrella, detouring around Marketing and the CMO. It's all about safeguarding reputation. Quantum computing has been a topic of conversation in tech circles for years. Now, its arrival as a commercially viable product is imminent. Communicators need to prepare. AI's ability to generate software code from a plain-language prompt has put the power to create apps in the hands of almost anyone. There are communication implications. Share some photos of yourself with an AI model, or companies that provide this as a service, and you can get an amazing likeness of yourself. But is it okay to use it as your LinkedIn profile? Research finds that leaders not only handle change management badly, but it's also having an impact on employees who have to endure the process. Communicators can help. In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on WhatsApp launching third-party chat integration in Europe; X is finally rolling out Chat, its DM replacement, with encryption and video calling; Mozilla has announced an AI "window" for the Firefox browser; WordPress 6.9 offers new features, collaboration tools, and AI enhancements; Amazon has rebranded Project Kuper as Amazon Leo; and Open AI says it has "fixed" ChatGPT's em dash problem. (We dispute that it's a problem.) Continue Reading → The post FIR #489: An Explosion of Thought Leadership Slop appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For the second year in a row, Coca-Cola turned to artificial intelligence to produce its global holiday campaign. The new ad replaces people with snow scenes, animals, and those iconic red trucks, aiming for warmth through technology. The response? A mix of admiration for the technical feat and criticism for what some called a “soulless,” “nostalgia-free” production. Shel and Neville break down the ad’s reception and what it tells us about audience expectations, creative integrity, and the communication challenges that come with AI-driven content. Despite Coke’s efforts to industrialize creativity — working with two AI studios, 100 contributors, and more than 70,000 generated clips — the final product sparked as much skepticism as wonder. Continue Reading → The post FIR #488: Did a Soda Pop Make AI Slop? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

What happens when the AI conversation turns from a quiet side road into a crowded superhighway? Recently, Martin Waxman -- digital strategist and LinkedIn Learning instructor -- pressed pause on the churn to make room for curiosity, quality, and quiet. He’s not quitting; he’s recalibrating: publishing less often, thinking more deeply, and reminding us not to let AI do the thinking we should be doing ourselves. For communicators, that raises bigger questions: When do we slow down? How do we trade volume for value? And what does “good enough” look like when our audiences are drowning in near-identical insights? Neville and Shel dive into this topic in today’s short, midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.” Continue Reading → The post FIR #487: Beyond the Churn — Slower Publishing, Deeper Thinking, Better Outcomes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Sentiment analysis has become a default metric for communicators. If sentiment is positive, trust must be high. But if your company's words are diverging from its actions, trust could be eroding while sentiment remains constant. You won't know until it's too late. The new metric to consider is "trust velocity." Neville and Shel unpack it in this monthly long-form episode for October 2025. Also in this episode: Is rage bait a valid marketing tactic? Lloyd Bank's CEO and executive team are learning AI to reimagine the future of banking with generative AI A McKinsey report recommends that public affairs teams begin to factor geopolitical issues into their thinking When conduct, culture, and context collide: Three crisis case studies reviewed German firm launches ad campaign after its lift is used in the Louvre heist In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on AI browsers and Mastodon's approach to BlueSky-like starter packs, but in a consent-based manner.Continue Reading → The post FIR #486: Measuring Sentiment Won’t Help You Maintain Trust appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Things change fast in the digital world. On the other hand, business tactics can be slow to adapt. Crafting content with the intent of "going viral" has been part of the communication playbook for more than a decade. There was never a guaranteed approach to catching this lightning in a bottle, but that didn't stop marketers and PR practitioners from trying. That effort is increasingly futile, as the social media companies that host the content have altered their algorithms, and people are paying attention to different things these days. This has led several marketing influencers to suggest that it's time to move on from the attempt to produce content specifically in the hopes that it will go viral. Neville and Shel share some data points and debate whether going viral should remain a communication goal in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #485: Is It Time to Stop Trying to “Go Viral”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Hollywood erupted in debate and discourse when a company unveiled a completely AI actress, Tilly Norwood. The public relations industry may be having its own Tilly Norwood moment with the introduction of Olivia Brown, a 100% AI PR agent that will handle all the steps of producing, distributing, and following up on a press release. Is this PR's future, or just part of it? Neville and Shel engage in their own debate in this short midweek FIR episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #484: Is Olivia Brown the Tilly Norwood of PR? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Kenvue's stock tumbled when U.S. President Donald Trump, with Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., standing behind him, declared that its product, Tylenol, leads to autism in children when taken by mothers during pregnancy. As social channels were flooded with misinformation supporting the evidenceless claim, it's easy to imagine the stock continuing to slide, mirroring the trajectory launched by attacks on Bud Light. Remarkably, the stock recovered after one day, thanks largely to Tylenol's savvy and almost perfect response to the crisis. Tylenol isn't the first brand to find itself in President Trump's crosshairs. It is unlikely to be the last. In this short, midweek episode, Neville and Shel explore what the company got right, and what other companies can do to prepare for their turn in the glare of the presidential spotlight.Continue Reading → The post FIR #483: How Tylenol Handled a High-Profile Falsehood appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We've all heard of AI slop by now. "Workslop" is the latest play on that term, referring to low-quality, AI-generated content in the workplace that looks professional but lacks real substance. This empty, AI-produced material often creates more work for colleagues, wasting time and hindering productivity. In the longform FIR episode for September, Neville and Shel explore the sources of workslop, how big a problem it really is, and what can be done to overcome it. Also in this episode: Chris Heuer, one of the founders of the Social Media Club, is at work on a manifesto for the "H Corporation," organizations that are human-centered. A recent online discussion set the stage for Chris's work, which he has summarized in a post. Three seemingly disparate studies point to the evolution of the internal communication role. Researchers at Amazon have proposed a framework that can make it as easy as typing a prompt to identify a very specific audience for targeted communication. Communicators everywhere continue to predict the demise of the humble press release, but one public relations leader has had a very different experience. Anthropic and OpenAI have both released reports on how people are using their tools. They are not the same. In his Tech Report, Dan York looks back on TypePad, the blogging platform whose shutdown is imminent; AI-generated summaries of websites from Firefox; and Mastodon's spin on quote posts. Continue Reading → The post FIR #482: What Will It Take to Stop the Slop? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel dive into one of the hottest debates in communication today: what happens to tone and authenticity when artificial intelligence steps into the writing process? From the surprisingly heated arguments over the humble em-dash to fresh research on AI’s “stylometric fingerprints,” we explore whether polished AI-assisted prose risks losing the human voice that builds trust. Along the way, we look at how publishers like Business Insider are normalizing AI for first drafts, how communicators are redefining authenticity, and how Shel used AI to turn years of blog posts into a forthcoming book.Continue Reading → The post FIR #481: The Em Dash Panic — AI, Writing, and Misguided Assumptions appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this reflective follow-up to our FIR Interview in July with Monsignor Paul Tighe of the Vatican, Neville and guest co-host Silvia Cambié revisit some of the key themes that resonated deeply from that conversation. With a particular focus on the wisdom of the heart – a phrase coined by the Vatican to contrast with the logic of machines – Neville and Silvia explore the ethical responsibilities communicators face in the age of artificial intelligence. The discussion ranges from the dignity of work and the overlooked realities of outsourced labour, to the limitations of technical expertise when values and human well-being are at stake. Silvia expands on her Strategic article focusing on precarious workers, while Neville revisits ideas shared on his blog about the Church’s unique role in advocating for inclusive, human-centred dialogue around AI. Above all, this episode highlights how communicators are uniquely positioned to help organisations navigate the moral and societal questions AI presents – and why they must bring emotional intelligence, narrative skill, and ethical awareness to the forefront of this global conversation.Continue Reading → The post FIR #480: Reflections on AI, Ethics, and the Role of Communicators appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Posts and videos featuring Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) hacks and formulas are flooding the web. We reported recently on one such hack focusing on press releases. But when you consider the kind of content on which the AI models rely for their answers, it may be more efficient to revert to good, old-fashioned PR and marketing.Continue Reading → The post FIR #479: Hacking AI Optimization vs. Doing the Hard Work appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For a while, businesses were flexing their social responsibility muscles, weighing in on public policy matters that affected them or their stakeholders. These days, not so much, with leaders fearing reprisal for speaking out. But silence can have its own consequences. Also in this episode: The gap between AI expectations and reality; rent-a-mob services damage the fragile reputation of the public relations profession; too many people think AI is conscious, so we have to devise ways to reinforce among users that it's not; Denmark is dealing with deepfakes by assigning citizens the copyright to their own likenesses; crediting photographers for the work you copied from the web won't protect you from lawsuits for unauthorized use. In Dan York's Tech Report, Dan shares updates on Mastodon' (at last) introducing quote posts, and Bluesky's response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Mississippi's law making full access to Bluesky (and other services) contingent upon an age check.Continue Reading → The post FIR #478: When Silence Isn’t Golden appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

User-generated content is at a turning point. With generative AI models cranking out tons of slop, content repositories are being polluted with low-quality, often useless material. No website is more vulnerable than Wikipedia, the open-source reference site populated entirely with articles created (and revised) by users. How Wikipedia is handling the issue — in light of its strict governance policies — is worth watching, especially for organizations that also rely on user-generated content. Links from this episode: Wikipedia Editors Adopt ‘Speedy Deletion’ Policy for AI Slop Articles How Wikipedia is fighting AI slop content From the technology community on Reddit: Volunteers fight to keep ‘AI slop’ off Wikipedia Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act verification rules Wikipedia can challenge Online Safety Act if strictest rules apply to it, says judge The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, August 25. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz (00:00) Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 477 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz. @nevillehobson (00:08) And I’m Neville Hobson. Wikipedia has long been held up as one of the internet success stories, a vast collaborative knowledge project that has largely resisted the decline and disorder we’ve seen on so many other platforms. But it’s now facing a new kind of threat, the flood of AI generated content. Editors have a name for it, not just editors by the way, we do as well. It’s called AI slop. And it’s becoming harder to manage as large language models make it easy. to churn out articles that look convincing on the surface, but are riddled with fabricated citations, clumsy phrasing, or even remnants of chat bot prompts like as a large language model. Until now, the process of removing bad articles from Wikipedia has relied on long discussions within the volunteer editor community to build consensus, sometimes lasting weeks or more. That pace is no match for the volume of junk AI can generate. So Wikipedia has now introduced a new defense, a speedy deletion policy that lets administrators immediately remove articles if they clearly bear the hallmarks of AI generation and contain bogus references. It’s a pragmatic fix, they say, not perfect, but enough to stem the tide and signal that unreviewed AI content has no place in an encyclopedia built on human verification and trust. This development is more than just an internal housekeeping matter. It highlights the broader challenge of how open platforms can adapt to the scale and speed of generative AI without losing their integrity. And it comes at a moment when Wikipedia is under pressure from another front, regulation. Just this month, it lost a legal challenge to the UK’s online Safety Act, a ruling that raises concerns about whether its volunteer editors could be exposed to identity checks or new liabilities. The court left some doors open for future challenges, but the signal is clear. the rights and responsibilities of platforms like Wikipedia are being redrawn in real time. Put together these two stories, the fight against AI slop and the battle with regulators shows us that even the most resilient online communities are entering a period of profound change. And that makes Wikipedia a fascinating case study for what lies ahead for all digital knowledge platforms. For communicators, these developments at Wikipedia matter deeply. They touch on questions of credibility. how we can trust the information we rely on and share, and on the growing role of regulation in shaping how online platforms operate. And there are other implications too, from reputation risks when organizations are misrepresented, to the lessons in governance that communicators can draw from how Wikipedia responds. So, Shail, there’s a lot here for communicators to grapple with. What do you see as the most pressing for communicators right now? Shel Holtz (02:52) Well, I think the most pressing is being able to trust the content that you see is accurate and authentic and able to be used in whatever project you’re using it for. And Wikipedia, we know based on how it’s configured, has always been a good source for accurate information because it is community edited, errors are usually caught. We have talked about in past episodes, the fact that more obscure articles can have inaccuracies that will sit for a long time because nobody reads it, especially it’s not read by people who would have the right information and correct it. But by and large, it is a self-correcting mechanism based on community, which is great. It does seem that the shoe is on the other foot here because when Wikipedia first launched, I’m sure you’ll recall that schools and businesses banned it. You can’t use this, you can’t trust it. It’s written by regular people and not professional encyclopedia authors. Therefore, you’re going to be marked down if you use Wikipedia, it’s banned. And they fought that fight for a long time and finally became a recognized authoritative site. And here they are now banning something new. that we’re still trying to grapple with. We do need to grapple with it. The AI slop issue is certainly an issue. I worry that they’re going to pick up false positives here. Some of the hallmarks of AI writing are also hallmarks of writing. I mean, if I hear one more person say, an dash is absolutely a sign that it was written by AI. I’m gonna throw my computer out the window. I’ve been using dashes my entire career. I was using dashes back when I was doing part-time typesetting to make extra money when I was in college. And dashes are routine. There is nothing about them that makes them a hallmark of AI. That is ridiculous. But we are going to see some legit articles tossed out with the slop. The other thing is some of the slop may have promise. It may be the kernel of a good article, and this is a community platform, and wouldn’t people be able to go in and say, wow, this is really badly written, I yeah, yeah, I may have done this, but there’s not an article on this topic yet, so I have expertise, I’m gonna go in and start to clean this up. It’s a conundrum, what are you gonna do at this point? We haven’t had the time to develop the kinds of solutions to this issue that might take root. And yet the volume of AI slop is huge. The number of people producing it is equally large. And you have to do something. So I think it’s trial and error at this point to see what works. And there will be some negative fallout from some of these actions. But you got to try stuff to take it to the next level and try the next thing. @nevillehobson (05:52) Yeah, I think there’s a what I see is a is a really big issue generally that this highlights and part of it is based on my own experience of editing Wikipedia articles in a couple of cases for an organization working with people like butler inc. Bill Butler has been an interview guest on this podcast a few times, which is The speed of things, the one memorable thing that stays in my mind about using Wikipedia or trying to progress change or addition is the humongous length of time it takes with the volunteer editor community. The defense typically is, well, they’re volunteers, they’re not full-time, they’re not employees, they’re not dedicated, they say you’ve got to be patient, they’re doing it for their own free will to help things. I get all that, I’m a volunteer myself in many other areas, but… That’s great. But as they themselves are saying, things are moving at light speed with AI slop generation, you can’t afford to have three to four weeks where you you the the person editing is asked the community, is this good? Are you okay with this? What else? And three weeks go by before you get a reply. And often you don’t you have to nudge and so forth that to get that ain’t going to work today. So it needs something better. They have this really interesting looking projects called Project AI Cleanup, which is got, it’s well defined in the Wikipedia, on Wikipedia what it is. They’ve also are developing a non AI powered tool called Edit Check. That’s geared towards helping new contributors fall in line with the policies. So part of the problem a lot of the time, I think is the elaborate policies and procedures you’ve got to follow. It’s not user friendly for people who don’t know all this. And they do have a history of people not welcoming newbies to it readily. So all that’s in the background. But this is quite interesting, EditCheck, towards helping new contributors fall in line with the policies and writing guidelines. They’re also working on adding a paste check to the tool, which will ask users who’ve pasted a large chunk of text into an article whether they’ve actually written it. So it’s kind of helping that kind of focus. I think I get what you say and I don’t disagree by the way on the discovery of things and you know there might be something good here and all this I get all that and I hope that continues but this is urgent this really does require attention and I think the one of the points in the why this matters to communicate this section is the big one, think reputation risk. I mean, some of the research I did, this is going back a couple of years now when I was working on a particular project, was the reality that when you, let’s say as a communicator, I think about something related to your employer, your client or some work you’re doing about an organization, the first place you will go to typically is Wikipedia or the first place that shows up in the search results in that old traditional day that we’ve now passed that now, but as it was back then. You get your, you know, above the fold screen full of results on Google. And the three things that make you feel this is this I will go to would be ideally the the organization’s website first and foremost. And it might have someone else talking about the organization’s maybe a second, the third result is going to be the Wikipedia entry. And then you have a little box on the right hand side, which summarizes everything and that’s taken from the Wikipedia entry. So if you have not updated your Wikipedia entry or it is inaccurate, that’s what’s going to show up there. So getting this right is good. But unfortunately, that won’t work in the day of AI slot because things change so fast. And just wait till agenting AI gets on the case and you got all these bots creating content as well. I think the point about dashes and so forth, that isn’t going to stop anytime soon, I don’t think. And I believe that. that presents a big challenge to Wikipedia where you have human verifiers checking things, where this artist has got 15 dashes. Hey, come on, that’s got to be AI generates. So all that kind of thing, they still have to figure out how to do that. I think your point about they got to do something for this. Absolutely. And this is probably the one thing they’re doing, but there’s more they still need to do that. is likely to be quite a challenge, speed with, because of the speed how this is evolving so fast. So I think it comes down to, suppose, you the information consumer, the user of the stuff you’re finding, you absolutely need to do your own due diligence more than ever you have done before. Don’t just believe Wikipedia because, hey, it’s Wikipedia, it’s a community generated site. I hear all the stories I’m sure you have about that’s the reason why it’s no good. because it’s community generated. I don’t buy that argument. I’ve rarely had any issues. And one thing I do use a lot myself as part of the verification is the talk pages and the history of editing pages. And you get a feel for, you know, what’s been happening here and so forth. Plus, there are services. Butler has one. There’s another one that’s the name escape me, but it was it’s owned by that that guy we interviewed in Israel who was behind that. that will, Wiki Alerts, that will notify you whenever a page you’re paying attention to has got changes, tells you what the changes are. So, and Wikipedia itself has some pretty good analytics now and alerts and so forth and so on. So, communicators can help with this as well in reviewing stuff they know about pages and content they know about to make sure that it doesn’t require, it doesn’t have any issues that they should be concerned about. But that’s the regular climate. You have AI literacy. communicate this need to know literally or need to know how to get help in recognizing AI generated text. There isn’t a single guide. There’s lots of people with opinions out there. Your own common sense will often help you. Pitfalls like fabricated citations, how do you really check those? Responsible use in professional context. This brings that to the forefront again, like it was originally and you mentioned. organizations, schools, academia banning the use of all this back in the 2000s. Now we’re in the 2020s and this is becoming more urgent it seems to Shel Holtz (12:05) Yeah, and you you talked about the difficulty in having action taken when you propose a change to an article. Where I work, I check our Wikipedia entry. The first time I did, I saw that the earnings hadn’t been updated in about six years. So I left a note saying, I can’t make the change. I’m a representative of the company, but these are earnings from six years ago. Here are our most recent. This is the doc. @nevillehobson (12:21) Yeah. Shel Holtz (12:32) I heard crickets. Absolutely nothing. So I wonder if agentic AI might actually be a solution for Wikipedia down the road. When a challenge like that comes up, an agent will go out and find the correct information and maybe send a note to the editor saying I have confirmed this information or I have found this information to be not accurate. Just put that step in there to speed this up. The other issue that I think is going to be interesting is that the quality of the output is going to only improve. And where you can tell bad writing from a bad prompt right now. Well, first of all, you’re going to have more people learn how to prompt well, which will make it harder to identify that it was done by AI, especially if somebody takes five minutes to go through it and edit it and make a few revisions. the AI is just going to crank out better stuff. @nevillehobson (13:09) Thank Shel Holtz (13:25) as new models appear because the work that they’re doing is just designed to produce better outputs. That’s going to make it harder to find these things. So again, finding a way to identify it and address it has to be top of mind. And the current process, I think is just a first step, what they’re doing now. It’s not going to scale. @nevillehobson (13:46) No, totally. I agree. So that would help. I agree. But they would have to make significant changes to their structure and the whole policies and procedures set up. So one of the things that is at the front of this and you mentioned what you’d found for your company, I’ve come across as many times as well. It’s no good sending them, you you the representative of the company, you’ve disclosed that fact. Great. Doesn’t matter. You’ve sent them information that is not neutral point of view, no matter Shel Holtz (13:54) yeah. @nevillehobson (14:14) how you see it, if it’s your own website, for instance, you could even send them well, this is what it says on the SEC website as well, that might help, but it needs to be and they explained it in excruciating detail what neutral point of view means and how you can provide reliable verifiable sources by a third by reliable and it was I forgot the other word, but the third party in other words is not it’s a totally neutral. The famous example I’ve heard so many times is probably in the very early 2000s, a British author asked Wikipedia to correct his entry because his date of birth was wrong. And they said, sorry, you’re not a neutral point of view. We can’t do that. And they refused to make the change. I mean, the absurdity of that struck a lot of people as utterly absurd. But if you actually read the policies on this, it’s not absurd at all. Shel Holtz (15:03) No, it’s just what the policy is. @nevillehobson (15:03) So what that author needs to do is find a neutral point of view to him or her, tell Wikipedia and provide the source proving it, which could be, here’s a copy of the birth certificate from Somerset House or whatever it was at the time they do. it’s clear that, and again, in the context of communicators, when the first round of guides for PR people from the CIPR back in 2012. that the need for this was apparent very, very quickly to educate PR folks particularly who did not grasp that concept of neutrality and neutral point of view. So they’d have to change a lot if ⁓ agentic AI got into the mix there. I think the more pressing realization perhaps is not agentic AI as an ally of you, not at all. It’s a tool for the bad guys to create really questionable content. You’ve never spot that. And that’s you need another AI to pay attention. So all these things are probably in the mix there somewhere. The tool they’ve got or the project they’ve got the AI cleanup project, as they’re calling it, is advice, editing advice for community members. It’s a little light on the detail, but I haven’t drilled into all the stuff on the menu that you can go to on how to do this is actually very well thought through this. ⁓ where it goes into detail that you wouldn’t think of, know, broken links, how to fix those to make them to not be broken, finding something that does work properly on fixing common mistakes of free images in the Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, there’s copyright issues surrounding that. So all that’s in there too. But what strikes me at the end of it, Shell, is that there are smart people thinking about all of this and it’s great. But I’m not sure that ⁓ humans doing this alone are going to be able to grasp the speed with which this is is upon us. And that’s where I think also AI Genre, whether it’s agentic or not, I don’t know, could be a huge aid in the kind of here’s something that needs reviewing and checking fast, boom, put your AI on it’s not not a human. Although you’ve got to have the human as the kind of ultimate arbiter or something that’s to be removed or not. So it’s a challenge for the very methodology of Wikipedia, it seems to me, and this reliance on community generated content because the bad guys, and I don’t mean this only in that there are people deliberately doing this, but the bad guys embracing bad agentic AI are moving faster than you can think of. And that’s the bigger threat to Wikipedia, it seems to me. Shel Holtz (17:39) One closing thought, and that is that Wikipedia is the poster child for user generated content, but they’re not the only ones. User generated content has been embraced by a lot of organizations. And if yours is one of them, you’re probably facing at a smaller scale, the same issue with people contributing content that they used AI to produce. And some of it may be quite bad. So you might want to keep an eye on what Wikipedia is doing in order to inform your own. @nevillehobson (17:55) Yeah. Shel Holtz (18:07) processes for addressing this problem in your own organization. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of Four Immediate Release. @nevillehobson (18:11) Total Sense.   The post FIR #477: Deslopifying Wikipedia appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Swarms of consultants descend on companies that have engaged their firms, racking up billable hours and cranking out PowerPoint presentations that summarize the data they’ve analyzed. That business model is at risk, given the amount of that work that AI can now handle. Recognizing the threat, some consulting firms are actively reengineering their businesses, with McKinsey out in front. In this short midweek episode, Shel and Neville review the actions of several firms and agencies, and discuss what might come next for consultants. Links from this episode: AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ The AI Revolution in PR: A Wake-Up Call for PR Agencies Inside the AI boom that’s transforming how consultants work at McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte EY CEO says AI won’t decrease its 400,000-person workforce — but it might help it double in size PwC is training junior accountants to be like managers, because AI is going to be doing the entry-level work How AI is Redefining Strategy Consulting: Insights from McKinsey, BCG, and Bain Will AI Empower the PR Industry or Create Endless Seas of Spam? How AI Agents Benefit PR Agencies Study reveals rising application of AI across communications by the public relations industry Adapting to Change: The Key Trends Redefining Public Relations Firms July layoffs up 140% from last year The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, August 25. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: @nevillehobson (00:02) Hi everyone and welcome to Four immediate release. This is episode 476. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz (00:08) And I’m Shell Holtz. If you’ve been following the consulting industry lately, or maybe you’re part of it, you’re aware that AI is all the buzz. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that McKinsey & Company, the gold standard in management consulting, is deep in an existential transformation. And if you weren’t watching the video, you didn’t see me make air quotes around existential transformation. It’s their words. ⁓ AI is the catalyst for that transformation and the realization that it can do a lot of what McKinsey’s highly paid human consultants do faster, cheaper, and sometimes just as well. For nearly a century, McKinsey has built into business on armies of bright young consultants, fresh from top universities, synthesizing vast amounts of complex information and advising C-suites on what they ought to do next. But now, instead of a small battalion of analysts, a project might require just two or three people, along with an assortment of AI agents, tools that write in the classic McKinsey tone, check the logic of arguments, summarize interviews, and crank out PowerPoint decks. McKinsey has rolled out, are you sitting down, 12,000 of these AI agents, and its CEO predicts a not too distant future with one AI agent for every human employee. And they’re not alone. Boston Consulting Group has Dexter for presentation building in Gene, a conversational assistant. Deloitte has Sidekick and Zora AI. PwC, KPMG, EY, they all have their own fleets of AI helpers. At McKinsey, over 70 % of employees are already using a tool called Lili, which taps into a century’s worth of the firm’s knowledge. EY is using AI with 80,000 of its tax professionals, and rather than seeing that as a job killer, its CEO says it could actually help them double the firm’s size. And that’s an important point. While AI is eliminating some roles, particularly entry-level repetitive work, it’s also changing the skill mix. For consultants, that means fewer suits with PowerPoints and more partners in the trenches. co-creating solutions with clients and helping organizations implement change. As one Oliver Wyman executive put it, the age of arrogance of the management consultant is over. Clients don’t want abstract strategy anymore, they want execution, training and transformation. Now for those of us in organizational communication, there’s a clear parallel. AI is already reshaping our own work in much the same way, handling… media monitoring, sentiment analysis, and first draft content creation. In public relations, agencies like Edelman and Golan are using AI to track reputation, analyze audience sentiment, and even test campaign ideas on synthetic focus groups. The USC Annenberg study on AI and communications found many agency leaders are building cultures of experimentation around AI, seeing it as a way to free their teams for higher value work. But, and this is a big but, The risks are real. In both consulting and PR, the differentiator going forward won’t be who can use AI. It will be who can layer human judgment, creativity, and trust on top of AI speed and scale. As one McKinsey partner put it, the basic layer of mediocre expertise goes away. The distinctive expertise becomes even more valuable. And that’s a key takeaway for communicators. First, the business model has to adapt. Just as consulting firms are moving from billable hours to outcome-based fees, agencies are rethinking traditional retainers in favor of value-based pricing, charging for results, not hours. We’ve talked about this on FIR before. Second, the human skills that AI can’t replicate, relationship building, empathy, strategic thinking, become even more critical. And third, the organizations that thrive will be the ones that treat AI as a collaborator, not a threat. @nevillehobson (04:14) Thank Shel Holtz (04:16) just as McKinsey is doing by pairing agents with experienced human experts. The AI era isn’t all about being replaced. There’s plenty of validity in the augmentation argument. The winners are gonna be the fast learners, the ones who can adapt their craft, rethink their value proposition, and work seamlessly with both humans and machines. But let’s not sugarcoat this. The threat to jobs isn’t hypothetical. According to HR Dive, US employers cited AI as the reason for over 10,000 job cuts in July alone, and layoffs surged 140 % year over year in that month. In total, more than 800,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year. Now, many of these AI-related layoffs are under-reported or hidden, buried under euphemisms like technological updates or restructuring. The outplacement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas notes that only 75 layoffs in the first half of the year were explicitly attributed to AI, but they warn the real number is almost certainly higher, much higher. This isn’t theoretical. Across sectors from consulting to communication, the integration of AI doesn’t just augment roles, it reshapes them and in some cases eliminates them entirely. In any case, the future of consulting and of communication belongs to those who can bring something to the table that no chatbot ever will. @nevillehobson (05:40) Yeah, but it’s interesting. It’s quite apparent that this will have a dramatic impact on this. see a lot of articles and opinion pieces published about the kind of tactical use to make of AI. But what you’ve explained in terms of what firms like the consulting firms you mentioned are doing, this is a quite a significant shift that’s happening. A trigger in my mind ⁓ reminded me of a post I wrote in my own blog in February about the need to change the bill about hours model. As you said, we talked about it in FIR. We actually came up in our interview with Steve Rubell earlier this year as well. And I’ve been trying to do this. This is the catalyst where you can’t ignore this. No one’s going to want to pay a consultant on an hourly retainer basis. when AI in its various shapes and forms, particularly agentic AI, it’s going to be totally apparent to anyone that that’s doing the grunt work. Your value is kind of like, this is what it means, Mr. Client, or actually more than that, much more than that, in fact, although AI will help you do that. So it will require a rethinking of the whole relationship model between consultants and clients. And I doubt truly doubt more than 5 % of consultants, which basically are the big ones you’ve mentioned, are ready for that. I don’t think they are. So it doesn’t mean to say that no one’s going to change. It’s going to be a painful process. The ones who I think will benefit from this will be the ones who are already making plans for a shift. And it could be that ⁓ number of organizations already having conversations with clients who are quite happy, quite comfortable with how things currently are and don’t really like the idea of change. That is all to do with human resistance to change more than anything I would say. You could give them the logic about here’s the cost benefits, why we should change, but it’s the emotional bit you need to bring into this, which I think is an opportunity for consultants to kind of, as you mentioned in your narrative, to position you, the consultant, as the critical addition to the mix that blends the value of the agentic AI and other aspects of artificial intelligence with your irreplaceable skill in literally bringing that to the table to illustrate to the client. what it means for what they’re trying to achieve and the role that these tools will have. This is not new at all in the sense of suddenly we’re talking about it. We’ve been talking about this in different ways for quite a while. I think though what I’ve seen most of the conversations tend to be at a really high level and very technically focused. So this needs conversations on a far more emotional level that so that people can grasp quite clearly what the benefits are. PRSA had a report just a month ago in June about how AI is driving PR innovation. It’s not about the main topic here, but it’s absolutely connected to it, because that’s exactly how you’re going to be able to use a word I dislike intensely, but it’s apt to harness the power of this that enables you to do the things that the PRSA mentions in their report, hyper-personalized media pictures they talk about, predictive crisis simulation. real-time event adaptation, visual storytelling, and cross-cultural adaptation, that one’s most interesting. So you’re seeing these are the kind of outcomes that you would get when you harness all this intelligence, combining yours with the, ⁓ well, the algorithmic intelligence of artificial intelligence. So it’s an exciting time, although I fear that many people Will not do well out of this change that’s coming Shel Holtz (10:06) Undoubtedly not. It reminds me a lot of this notion that I shared in the early days of the net and basically the computer revolution in business, which you and I have both been around for. mean, you and I both worked in days where we had typewriters and typewriters and fax machines, absolutely. And it was… @nevillehobson (10:28) Fax machines, yeah, true, after that fax machine. Shel Holtz (10:34) Something, I don’t remember if I heard this or just observed it, but the first thing we tend to do with a new technology is stuff that we were doing with the old technology. The first thing we did with computers was type. Word processors, right? It was WordStar and WordPress. And it was just a replacement for a typewriter. And instead of a ledger, we had Excel for… @nevillehobson (10:49) Yeah. Shel Holtz (11:01) keeping our numbers. It was the same job we were doing before we had just found this technology that allowed us to do it better and faster and easier. But it was stuff that we were already doing. And even with that list that you read from the PRSA report, the things that they have figured out how to get AI to do are things that we are already doing. Where technology gets interesting is After you move beyond that, say, okay, we’ve adapted this technology so that it makes our lives easier with all of these tasks that we had to perform in a more manual way before. What else can we do with this? That’s where it gets interesting is where you start to see what these things can do that you hadn’t imagined and that you weren’t already doing that benefit your life and your organization. And when you look at this idea of reshaping the business. I don’t think most businesses of any kind, consulting or anything else, are there yet. They’re still at the, how can we do what we’re already doing better, faster, cheaper than we were doing before with, by using AI and not how can we rethink the way this business operates. And McKinsey, think, is already heading there. They’re already saying, look, rather than sending a pod of 30 consultants out to the client and taking over 10 offices on site and having this presence and cranking out PowerPoints and crunching all of this data, we’re just gonna have some people in the trenches there working with them. The AI will come up with @nevillehobson (12:24) Thank Shel Holtz (12:50) the data analysis and all of those things that it’s good at. We’re going to be with the client figuring out how to bring this into the workplace, how we’re going to synthesize this into their operations, and how we’re going to train them and prepare them and guide them through this shift, whatever it may be, whatever they brought us in to consult with them about. @nevillehobson (13:01) and Shel Holtz (13:17) So they’re rethinking what their business is all about, how they’re going to execute it. And it doesn’t look a lot like what it looked like before, but to their credit, they’re ahead of it. They’re not waiting the way so many industries did in the world of Web 1.0, Internet 1.0, where newspapers started to suffer because they didn’t see the writing on the wall and figure out a better way or a different way to… fulfill their fundamental mission, which is getting news and information into the hands of the people in the communities that they serve. So it’s good to see McKinsey doing this. It’s worrisome that we ⁓ don’t yet see other organizations, many other organizations, that they’re still in that phase of how can this replace the tactical work that we do or augment the tactical work that we do, not how does it reshape how we get our work what our business is all about and how we do it. @nevillehobson (14:19) Yeah, I think there’s also another element here that you’re talking about, know, McKinsey, Ernst & Young, and these these mega big consulting firms with typically huge enterprise level clients in different countries all over the world. And that’s great, because they will lead the way for that level of relationship building with clients of who have needs very different to the small to medium enterprise, the small consulting firm, mid-size consulting firms, for that matter, ⁓ who aren’t going to be about changing the whole business model. They’re going to be about what can they deliver to the client that makes absolute sense to where that client’s at on this journey that we’re all on. So it could well be that you’re going to see, you won’t see uniformity in this at all. What we’ll see, which is most welcome, is the McKinsey’s and the Ernst & Young’s taking the strongest lead to reinvent the businesses of consulting, if you like. And that’ll filter out, gradually. It’ll be very uneven. And some won’t do it, in which case they may not survive or they may not evolve. Who knows what’s going to happen in that sense. But that’s good, in my opinion, because the kind of Let’s look at how AI will help us reshape entirely our business model. It’s for everyone right now. If you’ve got a 10 person consulting practice, that’s not for you, I would think, or you could argue, well, actually, it might be, it should be easier because you’re smaller and more nimble. We don’t know really what this is going to look like. But what I see, though, is a two-way pressure stream where clients are going to be pressuring their agencies, their consulting partners, if you will. I’m hearing about this, let’s talk about this. We want to do X. You then got an opportunity to say, let’s talk about that because I’ve got three ideas that could work that are absolutely on this avenue. But it’s not going to happen quickly and it isn’t going to be for most businesses, I would argue, not yet. ⁓ For the big ones where there’s a lot at stake and they need to do things like, hey, we’re not going to send 100 consultants out this client at X hundred dollars per hour or whatever it might be, we’re going to work out a deal where the outcomes are really what we’re going to be judged upon. And yes, we’ll have a hundred agentic consultants and there’ll be three human beings who lead them. Or as we have discussed on F.I.R. Shell, one of the leaders may well be another AI. So but that’s not for everyone. These are this kind of big picture ideas that scares the hell out of a lot of people, I have to say. So this is uneven. It’s exciting or a nightmare depending on your point of view. I think it’s exciting personally. I could see for instance, independent consultants are the ones who are probably most at risk, where you’ve got a nice gig going with a handful of clients, you all like each other, they know you. But as an individual, you just absolutely cannot deliver what they need without partnering with someone else. be a big shake up, I would say in this, but it’s going to take a while and by a while, I don’t mean 10 years, you’re looking at two to three years before you see an impact in this I would venture. So interesting times ahead, as someone said recently. Shel Holtz (17:45) Yeah, it’s definitely the fastest growing technology we’ve ever seen, which is a conundrum because we tend to adapt at the same pace that we always have, regardless of the fact that this technology is growing by leaps and bounds. And for those… smaller consulting firms that maybe now is not the time, I would worry about that because if I get an assignment and I go into a client and I’m presenting them with a monthly invoice showing hours burned on this client’s work and I’ve got 15 people taking four months to do this assignment and I’m hearing through my network about colleagues that are working with other consulting firms that are getting it done. in three weeks with a team of two consultants and getting great outcomes and spending less, then I am going to worry about my client wanting to work with them because they’re more efficient at it. @nevillehobson (18:48) Yeah, I agree, but that’s not really what I’m talking about because not everyone is going to be impacted by this yet, not at all. And in fact, I don’t believe it’s feasible to say everyone suddenly has got to change right now. Get rid of the billable hours model. ⁓ indeed, indeed, many are not. You’re right. They ought to start thinking about it. You’re not going to see the kind of horrific outcome suddenly that this nice little consulting firm Shel Holtz (19:04) I think everybody needs to start thinking about it right now. @nevillehobson (19:18) suddenly lost all the clients because they can’t deliver the AI content that they need to do. Some will argue, yeah, we’ll use AI models and we know how to do that and we can deliver what’s right for this client where the role of AI ⁓ is important in the fit with humans. But the conversations about how it’s going to replace your employees and they’re going to be agents all over the place isn’t realistic in the way most people are talking about it, it seems to me. So I think you’re right, and I don’t disagree at all that everyone needs to be cognizant of what’s coming down the track in one way or another. And so people who are talking about it, people who are writing about it or whatever it might be, or demonstrating how this all works, pay attention to that. I’ve attended good probably four, yes, four webinars in the last month on this not exact topic, but in this area of working with the new ⁓ elements of artificial intelligence are coming into the workplace. And they’re all useful, slightly different. I learn something new from all of this that shapes my thinking, if you like. So it is a time to be aware that this is happening. And that’s where paying attention to McKinsey’s and so forth is really important. Shel Holtz (20:38) Yeah, I think if you’re a consulting firm, especially a smaller one, it’s time to start considering what differentiates you from your competition? What are your genuine strengths? What do you bring to the table that an AI chatbot can’t? What do your clients really appreciate about you? And to start thinking about how do we leverage those things that can’t be commoditized with artificial intelligence that all of the consulting firms are gonna be using in roughly the same ways. ⁓ I think that differentiator is going to be critical ⁓ in the early thought process on all of this. @nevillehobson (21:25) Yeah, you’re right. And I’m just thinking, I’m looking at what we discussed with Steve Rebell back in the early part of this year, early February. So that’s seven months ago. A lot has changed in seven months already. But what Steve says, I think is still the case. He says, you know, we know this. is not a substitute for PR professionals. It’s a force multiplier, he says. AI can analyze trends, detect patterns and all that. It still requires human intelligence. to interpret, contextualize and act on these insights. That I totally agree is still true. I would add that for how long though I wonder, where’s only the humans who can do that. But it is a significant value of PR as Steve points out. And he talks about ⁓ who’s gonna survive, who’s gonna thrive in this era that’s coming. Well, in simple terms, those who embrace AI as an augmentation tool rather than resist its impact. You know what? That conversation was common. just seven months ago. Now, though, I don’t believe it has the same, well, impact, frankly, where you talk about if you don’t do this, you won’t thrive, you resist, it’s going to happen no matter what. We’ve moved to the how rather than the what in that conversation, it seems to me, even those skeptics who don’t see this. So strategic advisory roles rather than commoditized execution work is what humans need to be thinking about, according to Steve. I don’t disagree with that. Shel Holtz (22:53) Not at all. And that will be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.   The post FIR #476: Rewiring the Consulting Business for AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been 12 years since Google shut down Google Reader, its popular RSS news reader. The rise of social media newsfeeds had rendered RSS useless for many people, and declining usage led Google to sunset it. But RSS feeds never went away. Many websites still make them available; they’re baked into most blogging utilities; and podcasting relies heavily on RSS feeds for distribution of audio and video files. As algorithms determine what you see in social networks, and newsletter subscriptions require visits to your inbox, where your newsletters are mixed in with all your other emails, RSS news readers are making a comeback. New news readers are emerging, and older ones are making improvements with a range of features, including the incorporation of AI to assist with sorting and other tasks. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore the benefits of RSS, examine some of the features of the latest crop of readers, and discuss how an RSS resurgence can benefit communicators. Links from this episode: Curate your own newspaper with RSS Reddit RSS discussion Why RSS Feeds Are Still Relevant in 2025 The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, August 25. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz (00:01) Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 475 of Four Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz. @nevillehobson (00:09) and I’m Neville Hobson. At the dawn of blogging 25 years ago, RSS was a quiet revolution. It let anyone subscribe to a blog or a podcast and receive updates instantly. No gatekeepers, no ads, no algorithms deciding what you should see. Just a simple feed, delivering content directly to your reader of choice. Fast forward to today and the digital landscape could hardly be more different. Our online experiences are now shaped by social media algorithms. filtered through engagement metrics and interrupted by endless distractions. Many people have never even heard of RSS and those who do often assume it’s long gone. But here’s the twist, it never went away. And according to writer and technologist Molly White, best known for her clear-eyed critiques of Web3 and crypto hype, RSS may be due for a comeback. We’ll take a look at this right after this message. In a recent long form post titled Curate Your Own Newspaper with RSS, Molly makes the case for reclaiming this overlooked piece of internet plumbing. It’s part how-to guide, part manifesto. She walks through setting up a modern feed reader, finding hidden RSS feeds, and building a curated stream of blogs, news and newsletters that reflect your actual interests, not what some platform thinks will keep you scrolling. She even shares how she structures her own reading habits. offering a kind of digital self-care routine for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the flood of content today. Reading it, I was struck by how radical RSS now feels, not because it’s new, but because it puts the user back in charge. It reminded me of the early blogosphere when independent voices flourished and content was shared freely through syndication. That original spirit of openness and autonomy is still there, waiting to be rediscovered. People are talking about an RSS comeback. driven by digital fatigue and a yearning for direct ad-free content. The Reddit RSS subreddit remains active, with users debating RSS’s survival and sharing workarounds where publishers drop support. Worries persist, though, especially about publishers de-prioritizing RSS or hiding feeds. And tech ecosystems like podcasting and the Fediverse continue to depend on feed standards. In a world increasingly centralized, RSS is decentralized. In a world designed to grab attention, it respects your time. And in the world of world gardens, keeps the door open. And here’s a great comment on Hacker News. We’ve been fed algorithmic garbage for so long, people are rediscovering how good a hand-picked feed of trusted sources can feel. So here’s a question for us to explore. What role could RSS play in communication today? Could it help rebuild trust in a media environment dominated by algorithms? Could communicators use it to deliver information more transparently or to reconnect with audiences looking for more intentional, less manipulative content? And for internal communication, other ways to syndicate updates, insights, or thought leadership that sidestep the noisy channels employees often tune out. That’s one for you, Cheryl. Shel Holtz (03:26) I would love to see a resurgence of RSS. I was listening to a podcast interview over the weekend. It was all about the shift of journalism to Substack in particular, but they were also talking about, think it’s ⁓ Beekeeper is another one that, Beehive, right? And what they were talking about was the ability to get right into the user’s inbox without @nevillehobson (03:44) Beehives, beehives. Yeah. Shel Holtz (03:55) the intermediary of the algorithm getting in the way. And RSS does largely the same thing. And I think a lot of these people who are looking at subscription through newsletters might also consider ⁓ RSS feeds. There have been ongoing developments in RSS. One of the more exciting is how it’s being paired with artificial intelligence to make your feeds even smarter and more useful. know, RSS typically just shows you the newest articles from your favorite sources and the order they were published. But now researchers and developers are combining RSS and large language models to help you discover the most relevant content in your feed without losing that control and privacy that makes RSS appealing in the first place. So instead of having to scroll endlessly through everything, your reader might highlight just a few items most relevant to your interests. even if you’re new and haven’t given it much to go on. Another interesting development is what’s called content enrichment. Some of the new RSS readers are going beyond the bare minimum that RSS feeds typically deliver, which is a headline, link, and maybe a short blurb. Now, AI can step in and fill in the gaps. It can pull in the complete article text. It can pull in images. It can categorize topics. It can even write summaries for you. So your RSS reader can give you something that looks and feels a lot more like a personalized news briefing. So these advances, I think, are really turning it into a more modern, intelligent way to stay informed on your terms without the algorithms. So if people can discover these new RSS news readers that really go… beyond what we were accustomed to with the readers. mean, even thinking of ⁓ the Google News reader, the late lamented ⁓ Google News reader, which a lot of people said was going to kill RSS. Of course, that’s silly. RSS drives podcasting. So it’s not going anywhere. It really is plumbing. And I also found one site called RSS.app. Have you seen this? Yeah, I think it’s great. There are people who are worried that the feeds are going away, that sites that offer them are going to stop offering them for one reason or another. But RSS app lets you create a feed for any site that’s publicly available. So if you want to add it to your news reader and it doesn’t have a news feed, RSS.app will fix that for you and give you an RSS feed from that site. So Edge and Chrome let you follow. RSS feeds, ⁓ readers are evolving. I’m hopeful that this can just come back from the dead in a new, more modern iteration that solves a lot of problems for people. @nevillehobson (06:58) Yeah, I the RSS.app site, I tried it out about a year or so back and it was okay but I didn’t like the fact that to do anything meaningful you had to take the paid option and I didn’t feel I wanted to do that at all. So it’s not really didn’t ring any bells for me at all. But you know the interesting thing, Shell, think, listening to what you’re saying, going back, you know, back in the day, 25 years ago, we were all talking about RSS. it was kind of like ⁓ it’s a jargony word. It’s very tech oriented and trying to explain to people. I remember conversations a lot ⁓ to look at the, you know, there’s no single definition of what the letters stand for. Really simple syndication was the one that stuck out. I would suggest if anyone listening doesn’t know what it go to Wikipedia and look it up on RSS. The page is not well written, it’ll tell you what it is. Today, ⁓ most people who ⁓ I would argue most is the right word, haven’t heard of RSS, what they do, they could care less what it is. But you mentioned something which I think is quite significant, which is indeed what Molly White mentioned, the internet plumbing. This is part of the plumbing. Newsletters. podcasts, videos, you name it, that people subscribe to. They get it in their feed, in their ⁓ player on their mobile phone or whatever it is. RSS plays a big role in getting that content to them. So the interesting thing to me, certainly, is that we don’t talk about RSS. Yeah, it’s there. It’s the plumbing, like electricity. So I found it interesting what you said about AI, because therein, to me, lies the key to this. which is that ⁓ we aren’t going to talk or sell the idea to anyone about AI is going to sort out your RSS fee. No, no, no, no. AI is going to be part of the solution getting you the content you want when you want it or however you happen to what you want to do with it, distribute it or whatever it is. And don’t worry about what it’s called. And that’s where we didn’t go the right way with all this back in the original days because people got so wrapped up in the tech. that the glazed eye syndrome was huge in organization. We tried to explain to them, hey, we should do RSS. mean, no one’s going to say that now. But that could well be the route for this. ⁓ Although I’m just thinking, what is the unique thing about this? You mentioned, I mean, the tech concept of RSS in how it enables things like enclosures, which is the MP3 file for a podcast, instance. How would that work, I wonder? Is there anything that would need to be changed in how it does what it does if AI is playing a role? I can’t see how that would be changed because it’s not changing the technology per se. It’s actually automating the process for you. Is that the route? Molly doesn’t mention that in a big way in her article, but this I think is worth exploring. What role could RSS play in communication today? And maybe that’s not the right question, actually. Maybe that’s not it. ⁓ Does it offer something today? And this is a question. I don’t have the answer to this. That anything else that’s in use today to deliver content to people can’t do as well as RSS can. I don’t know the answer to that, but I doubt that would be the case. So I stopped using a dedicated RSS reader a long time ago because ⁓ I’ve actually switched largely. to subscribing to content I like by newsletter more than any other means. So I used to use a really good reader called InnoReader, which has a free version and a paid one. I used a paid one for some years, but it then got for me, certainly, a little too much, too much, too many bells and whistles. All I wanted was something quite simple. I’ve got that now, for instance, with ⁓ Raindrop, which is the replacement to Pocket. the read it later tool really, really useful. I find raindrop make sure I got the name right. It is raindrop, isn’t it? Yeah, raindrop.io. Excellent. They’ve got a free version and a paid version. And I’m on the free because I don’t need the page because the features on free are really, really good. You can use it adding as much or as little as you want. You can tag it, you can add descriptions, you can categorize it. I don’t do any of that because I have literally a handful of tags I use for everything I save there. And it’s really, really good. It got me thinking, how does that deliver the content? I bet you RSS is in there somewhere. So there are tools around if you want to think about subscribing in that kind of manual way and it’s using RSS. I’m not sure that’s how we should as communicators be pitching this idea to anyone. So ⁓ yeah, so the idea of AI. Shel Holtz (12:06) no. ⁓ @nevillehobson (12:10) So AI agents, for instance, you’ll have an agent whose job is to sort this out, to organize this in the best way possible to get that piece of content or whatever it might be to this audience in your organization, whether it’s employees, whether it’s customers, doesn’t matter. And if it uses RSS to do it, great. But if it doesn’t, who cares? As long as you get your content. I mean, is that being too radical, do you think? Shel Holtz (12:34) Well, yeah, I think there’s a real conundrum here for anybody who wants to try to capture this market. The readers that are emerging with these new features and ⁓ designed to appeal to a new audience, they have names like RSS Guard and quite RSS. And then there’s RSS.app and @nevillehobson (12:39) Yeah. Shel Holtz (12:58) they’ve got RSS in the name and that’s going to be a turnoff to a lot of people. But for people who are looking for an RSS news reader, that’s what they’re looking for. So how do you attract a whole new audience to something that doesn’t care? I mean, the audience doesn’t care about RSS or this technology. You’re off. There’s a value proposition. So there needs to be a way for somebody who has one of these great tools to market it so that people. start talking about it as this alternative to scrolling through social media where I’m being controlled by the algorithm and being manipulated to doom scroll and stay on their platform as opposed to seeing content that I really want to see because I subscribe to it. So I think that’s the challenge. ⁓ It’s not like there’s no feeds out there. There are plenty of sites to still maintain feeds. Even in the U.S. government, I was reading that NASA @nevillehobson (13:46) Yeah, I agree. Shel Holtz (13:56) and the US Department of Agriculture still offer RSS feeds. I know that there are plenty of them out there for trade publications because I use an RSS feed to pull in construction headlines on our internal communications. It’s all RSS. I think I’m using construction dives, RSS feed. So they’re out there and you have the ability to make them where they don’t exist. I think it’s a matter of somebody really enticing the public to start using this as a way to get the content that they’re interested in and not mention what the technology is or how it works. Because if people had, and I use this analogy way too often, But if everybody had to know what the name of everything that makes their cargo was and how it works, nobody get in their cars. We don’t need that understanding of the technology in order to drive from point A to point B. @nevillehobson (14:58) is true. I agree. I’m not sure myself that this is even the right argument to be discussing about should we, know, is RSS going to have a comeback? In the sense of how Molly White writes her long form article, that’s very much geared to ⁓ the folks who want to know about the technology per se. Normal people don’t want to do that. not being disparaging here. That’s a reality. So maybe the route to explore thinking of this now from the communicator’s point of view, whether it’s internal or external matter, is not about how do we bring RSS back and what role could RSS play. That’s not the key argument. That’s part of the secondary argument once you’ve defined the role that you want whatever the technology you’re to use to help you achieve the goal you’ve set. That to me is very much in the area of an artificial intelligence agent to do that. I haven’t really started experimenting with agents, mainly because most of the tools that offer them are only literally now become, you can start using them here in the UK. So, ChatGPT’s agents just become available in the last couple of weeks. I’ve got it in my thing. I’ve just not had time to do anything with it yet, other than read up about it. But I’m wondering, I might do an experiment. mainly to help me decide is this worth spending any time on which is to tell it to create something where RSS plays a role and see what it does. Don’t know how I’m going to do that yet but I’ll get to it. Shel Holtz (16:39) You could even vibe code your own R-Accessorator that does exactly what you want it to. No reason why not these days. By the way, I did use an agent, the ChatGPT agent that has been available here for a little while. I told it to go to my company’s website and look at the markets where we work, study our areas of subject matter expertise, get a good sense of who we are. @nevillehobson (16:43) Right, I might get into that. No. It has, yeah. Shel Holtz (17:05) Then go find all of the podcasts in the construction industry, architecture, engineering, and also in the markets that we serve, like healthcare and aviation, for example, to find those podcasts where we would have the opportunity to pitch our subject matter experts and then find out if on their website they have any information about pitching interview guests. and then create a spreadsheet that categorizes these podcasts based on industry or market and include in the spreadsheet the name of the podcast, its URL, which focus it has, and what information they were able to extract on pitching guests. And I just sat back and watched while it did all of this. It stopped and asked me a question once. I don’t remember what question, but once it asked me a question and then it went off on its merry way until there was a spreadsheet with about 25 podcasts listed on it. That would have taken an intern two days. @nevillehobson (18:08) Yeah, that’s interesting. mean, that’s exactly the kind of thing I think that, again, to our point about what role could RSS play in communication for the communicates, what would you use this for? That’s not the right question. So ⁓ unless it’s important to you or your audience that they know it’s RSS doing something in there, but I don’t think that won’t be common. ⁓ How could this play a role for those who need to know that? And I think that’s the right question to be asking. Shel Holtz (18:39) Yeah, I think the thing for communicators to do at this point is lobby to maintain RSS feeds on their websites or lobby to establish them if they’re not there and keep an eye on this. And if you see developments in RSS that warrant more of your attention, whether that’s making your feeds ⁓ more visible on your website and promoting their availability or pitching a particular reader to people because it benefits your content in a good way. ⁓ Just keep an eye on it because there seems to be something happening here. Neville, when you shared on our Slack channel that this was the topic for the day, I went and did some search on new developments in RSS. And there’s a ton. There is a ton of material out there on this. So something is afoot. @nevillehobson (19:35) So then in that case, the answer to that question, the first answer to that question is what you’ve just said. Be aware of what’s going on, find out how this is evolving, and that’s understanding how the landscape is developing. And from there, you can determine what your next steps might be. But that seems to me to be good starting point. Shel Holtz (19:55) And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release The post FIR #475: Algorithms Got You Down? Get Retro with RSS! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In multiple ways, Artificial Intelligence is redefining the role of the public relations professional. Some of that change is the result of new tools that automate processes that once consumed copious amounts of time. One such tool reviews services that solicit expert commentary at journalists’ requests, then crafts responses. The marketing of this tool, dubbed Synapse by its Lithuanian founders, has sparked a considerable amount of controversy over ethical considerations. Neville and Shel discuss the pros and cons in this long-form FIR episode for July 2025. Communicators are now also supposed to be able to detect phishing attacks disguised as media inquiries, to abandon age-old metrics in favor of meaningful outcomes, and overcome old tropes, like one wheeled out by former communicator Melinda French Gates, who claimed without evidence that tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg have aligned themselves with the Donald Trump Administration only at the behest of their communication teams. Also in this episode: AI is driving a change in the way we craft press releases, drawing the Social Media Press Release to mind. PR is at the heart of AI optimization, since third-party sources are a vital factor in determining what finds its way into AI answers. Social media has transformed from a means of connecting with others to a platform for streaming entertainment. What are the implications for brands? More and more brands are launching Substack newsletters as a way to control the message and engage directly with customers. In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on media companies erecting paywalls to prevent AI models from harvesting their content. The consequences could be enormous. Links from this episode: PR agency sells AI tool which sends out automated expert comment to journalists HOLY MOLY: a PR firm just introduced an AI tool which sends out automated expert comments to journalist requests. Wellstone Public Relations PR pros face new wave of phishing attacks from fake journalists No, Modern PR Does NOT demand another metric Melinda French Gates says some tech titans siding with Trump are doing ‘what some comms person’ tells them instead of living by their values Sarah Evans on the New Way to Write Press Releases in the Generative AI Age What is a social media press release and why should you use it (a bit of nostalgia) Why PR is becoming more essential for AI search visibility How You Can Track Brand Authority For AI Search In the Age of AI Search, PR Holds the Keys to Visibility AI search is upending the PR industry—how brands and agencies need to adapt How AI Is Reshaping SEO: Insights from Search Engine Land and Fractl Why PR Is Your Brand’s Best Defense in the AI Search Era How to Optimize Your Press Releases for AI Search What’s Really Changing with Social Media? Start with These 10 Trends Social Media is Dead. Here’s What’s Next: Mark Zuckerberg Unleases His Vision for the Future of Human Connection Online Welcome to the brand newsletter era Why More Brands Should Bet on Substack 5+ Best Practices for Award-Winning Brand Newsletters Extra! Extra! Brand Newsletters Educate and Entertain Links from Dan York’s Tech Report How Google’s A.I. Search May Kill News Dead AI is killing the web. Can anything save it? What happens to the news business when people stop clicking? The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived Tea App Hacked: 13,000 photos leaked after 4chan call to action Archive Today The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, August 25. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz (00:02) Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 474 of For Immediate Release. This is our long-form monthly episode. For July 2025, I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California. @nevillehobson (00:15) and I’m Neville Hobson at Somerset in England. Shel Holtz (00:19) And as always, we have six really fascinating reports for you addressing the intersection of communication and technology. Dan York is here with a terrific report on the growing number of paywalls and what the impact of that will be on news on the internet. And before we get to all of that, as always, we do have some housekeeping to take care of. Starting with a review of the episodes since our last monthly. Neville, you want to give us that rundown? @nevillehobson (00:50) Yeah. Yeah. So starting with the last monthly, 469 on the 23rd of June, the story that featured in the show notes was, is internal communication failing? And that topic was on a growing body of research suggesting that employees are more disconnected than ever. It was a good discussion. Other topics? of the of the six we covered included social media has overtaken television as Americans primary source of news. And Pope Leo the 14th has called for an ethical AI framework in a message to tech execs gathered at the Vatican. That’s a significant topic, which will become clearer in the next few days, I would say I’ll talk more about that in a second. But we’ve got a comment there too, don’t we, Sean? Shel Holtz (01:38) We do, and that comment is from Sylvia Camby in Italy. Sylvia is our guest co-host on a FIR interview that you’re going to talk about in a little bit. But in response to ⁓ episode 469, Sylvia writes, great episode, a very thought provoking discussion. Neville, I read that Pope Francis has remarked that even if we now have AI and can predict human behavior, we should not be tricked into thinking that we can understand humans. This is a crucial point for the communications profession. Comms people operate at the intersection of tech and user behaviors. There’s a danger here. We might start convincing ourselves that just because we can predict reactions with AI, it’s all right to use predictive analytics to manipulate the employees we are communicating to. And I am totally with you as to the need to frame AI, not as a product, but as a public conversation, particularly about the human dignity of the users. It is indeed exciting to have a pope. so well versed in tech and math. @nevillehobson (02:39) Great comment, Sylvia, that was, I have to say. Now, it’s a big topic without question. The first episode after that monthly, 470, was published on the 30th of June, and that was about creative comments, proposing an AI copyright solution. We examined that proposal and the role communicators can play in shaping its final form. There’s a comment too on that one, shall I think? Shel Holtz (03:02) Yes, listener named Andy Green said, it’s a good idea with many challenges managing the complexity of creative interpretation. @nevillehobson (03:13) Well, that’s great. I know Andy, actually, that’s actually not a bad comment. Yeah, it’s interesting. This, you know, in describing it as briefly as as I have in this intro, it’s actually quite significant what they’re proposing. Creative Commons, as many of you know, listening are behind the Creative Commons copyright solution that enables you to make it clear what rights you are granting people who use your content with your permission. Shel Holtz (03:16) ⁓ okay, good. @nevillehobson (03:38) If they follow the terms and conditions of that license, they’re good to go in a sense. And they did that 20 plus years ago. So here they are now in the, let’s call it the AI era. I that phrase used a lot now, coming up with this idea. So they’re seeking input from communicators and others. So it’s a good step they’ve taken. In 471 on the 7th of June. Can you be influential and anonymous at the same time? We asked. There’s a new brand of influencer. We explained faceless creators who wield their influence while never appearing on camera. Look at the pros and cons as we did. And there’s a comment on that one too, Shel. Shel Holtz (04:22) Actually, a few. Starting with Jeff Harrington, an old friend from IABC and a terrific writer and writing coach, says less focus on me means more focus on the message, especially critical for those over 50 who, sad to say, confront ageism in the workplace more and more. For example, I recently commented on a post here. The poster replied, well, that would be a typical boomer response. @nevillehobson (04:23) great. Shel Holtz (04:46) Others confirmed to me my comment was as generational neutral as it could be. So what would have prompted him to reply in such a way? Why, the profile photo that accompanied my comment, of course. And then Mike Klein said, I’m very curious to know what the pros of this are. And Mike Holden, replying to Mike, said a few from my perspective, income and influence without having to put your name and face out there. It also allows for faster production in some cases too, if you don’t have to put your face on camera and worry about lighting, camera quality, audio, et cetera. And that’s pretty much what we said in the episode too, in terms of why people are doing this. They have a full-time job in a lot of cases, and this is a side hustle and they really don’t want their name in their face out there. So they come up with… another approach to being an influencer, often through an animated figure, which has gotten a lot easier to do these days, thanks to AI. @nevillehobson (05:47) Yeah, so that’s a term worth paying attention to, faceless creatives. You’re going to see more of that in the future. Shel Holtz (05:54) And VTubers was the other label. These are the people doing this, particularly on YouTube. @nevillehobson (05:57) Yeah, VTubers, yep. Yeah. All part of the change. So 472 on the 16th of July, that was about the evolution of trust. We talked about new research that reveals that B2B decision makers have increasingly recognized the importance of trust. And I must say, Cheryl, we did make the comment ourselves, are they still? talking about this thing as if it’s a new thing. It does surprise me so many times when I see that. But we analyzed the data and explored some of the opportunities for communicators to enhance organizational trust. We have a comment, right? Shel Holtz (06:33) We do from Sarah Heard, who is just a brilliant content marketer here in the greater Bay Area, who says, huge thanks for this incredibly insightful podcast on the critical role of trust in business as a true driver of success and revenue. I couldn’t agree more that marketers and communicators are uniquely positioned to cultivate this trust. We’re not just shaping perceptions, we’re building relationships. There are concrete steps we can take to create a foundation of trust. from transparent communication and authentic storytelling to consistent branding and content that delivers on its promise that can genuinely create customer confidence and loyalty. @nevillehobson (07:13) good one. That’s a good one. And finally, the episode immediately prior to this episode 473 that we published on the 22nd of July, we asked who should own the digital employee experience or Dex, D-E-X. We explore the case for internal communicators taking the lead, not IT. I haven’t seen any comments on that yet, Shell, but it’s a great, it’s a great topic, I have to admit. Shel Holtz (07:33) Not from that one yet. ⁓ A fascinating one and had a long discussion about it with a colleague at work. This goes back to this notion, I think, of message mission control, which I first heard from Pitney Bowes probably 22, 23 years ago. And it’s all about this notion that there are elements of the technology experience that really aren’t in IT’s wheelhouse. @nevillehobson (07:52) . Shel Holtz (08:07) I remember this was when I had just started consulting. I was talking to the head of IT at a tech company and he said, if anybody distributes an email to the pound all, so it goes to every employee, it has to be approved by him, the chief information officer. And my response, and I blurted this out to a client, right? Without even thinking how offensive it would sound first. I said, really, does your printer approve everything that goes out to all employees as a printed memo? So, yeah, it’s a fascinating topic and one I actually agree with. I’m not 100 % convinced that it should belong in internal comms. I think maybe an ad hoc committee, an ad hoc task force that includes IT and comms and maybe a couple of others. maybe users, but absolutely, internal comms should have a seat at that table. @nevillehobson (09:01) Okay, so that was that. I mentioned earlier that we have a new interview coming. just to mention that this drops on Tuesday, the 29th of July. And this interview is truly an extraordinary conversation we had with a senior, the equivalent of an executive, I suppose you could say, at the Vatican, Paul Tai, or Monseigneur Paul Tai, I should say, the broad headline, I suppose, that gathers it all together as AI and human dignity. But it was quite a conversation we had. So you, I, you and me, plus, as you mentioned, Sylvia Cambier as our guest co-host, Sylvia was instrumental in securing this interview for FIR. And over a period of 40, 40 or so minutes, we talked with Monseigneur Tai that was centered around a document that the Vatican published earlier this year. It was called Antiqua et Nova, and it is a reflection, if you will, on AI, in contrast to comparing it to human intelligence. And it focuses very strongly on ethical responsibilities tied to technological development and the Church’s mission to guide AI towards the common good. That’s summarizing it very, very simply. But lots of topics within the broad subject matter. What makes human intelligence distinct in the age of machines and algorithms was one of the points we touched on the ethical responsibilities of those designing and deploying AI. Where does that sit? The impact of AI and dignity justice on the workplace. We had quite a few questions about the workplace, by the way, that are very pertinent as this, you know, this technology, if you like, gets deployed throughout more organizations. And also, I guess, a point of helping understand why the church is involved in this, unique role in the global conversation on technology and humanity. So it’s not all about the tech, what about the people? So that was a really, really good conversation. So that will be published on Tuesday in around about 830am. UK time, so that’s GMT plus one. And it’s definitely worth a listen, so make sure you do not miss that. Shel Holtz (11:15) It was a terrific conversation. Also had a great conversation on the last episode of Circle of Fellows. This is the monthly panel discussion with fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators and the July episode addressed leading the communications function, whether we’re talking about a chief communications officer or just a manager of communications. maybe three levels down, which we certainly have in larger organizations, people leading teams, but also reporting up through the communications function. So that featured Russell Grossman from the UK, Sue Heumann from Canada, Mike Klein from Iceland and Robin McCaslin from here in the U.S. Great conversation. It’s up on the FIR Podcast Network right now. The next episode of Circle of Fellows is going to take place at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 21st. The topic is on sustaining sustainability. How do we keep it front and center in our organizations? The panelists for that one will be Zora Artis from Australia, Brent Carey from Canada, Bonnie Kaver from the U.S., and Martha Muzyczka from Canada. So that’ll be a fascinating conversation. There are definitely headwinds on the whole sustainability front and the whole corporate social responsibility front. So looking forward to that one. And now that we have addressed all of our housekeeping issues, it’s time to jump into our reports right @nevillehobson (12:50) Let’s start with a provocative development from the world of media relations, one that’s raised eyebrows in both PR and journalism circles. A Lithuania-based PR agency called Wellstone has launched a tool called Synapse, which uses AI to respond to journalist queries on services like Harrow, Quoted, or ResponseSource. Synapse shouldn’t be confused with UK-based PR pitching platform Synapse Media, a separate business. Synapse Media has said it has instructed its lawyers to take action against Wellstone. So you get a sense of where that’s all going to go. But here’s how Synapse works. It reads a journalist’s request for comment, scours online sources, including books, reports and podcasts, and then uses generative AI to create two plausible, personal sounding responses. These include quotes and even made up anecdotes, all written to sound like they came from a real human expert. The PR professional, simply chooses the version they prefer and copies it into an email. Wellstone claims this approach can quadruple output. They say one person can now do the work of five. The tool has been marketed with a one-time purchase price of $2,500. And while it’s still early days with no known customers, the ethical alarm bells are already ringing. Critics have called it unprofessional and deceptive. Alastair McCapra, CEO of the CIPR, when so far as to say Synapse represents the very definition of unprofessional conduct. And in a comment on the press gazette supporting about this, Harrow owner Brent Farmelo said, every query on Harrow goes through AI detection and we permanently ban users who rely solely on AI to generate responses. The concern is that Synapse undermines trust, both in PR and journalism, by introducing fictionalized AI generated content into a process that relies on authenticity and credibility. What’s more, it risks creating a layer of misinformation. If AI generated quotes are published as if they came from real people without fact checking or disclosure, the implications for journalism, public discourse, and the integrity of media coverage are quite serious. So the big question is this, as generative AI becomes more capable and more accessible, Should PR professionals lean into automation for efficiency or are we crossing a line where convenience erodes trust? Shel Holtz (15:16) Oh, we interviewed Aaron Quitkin, the founder of Profit PR, both in caps. So it’s public relations, Profit. And it was using AI before OpenAI released the Chachi PT. It was at 2.5 to the public back in November of 2022. And it automates the process. @nevillehobson (15:17) Ha ha ha! We did, a couple of years ago. Shel Holtz (15:44) And I didn’t hear anybody sounding any alarm bells over that. For those who don’t recall or weren’t aware, the way Profit works is that if you have a press release or a pitch, it will find all of the journalists who write about that topic and then tailor a pitch to each journalist based on the approaches they’ve taken to the topic. It’ll actually read what they have written and tailor a pitch. then same as with Synapse, it will allow you to copy and paste that pitch and send it to that journalist. This is automating a process. It improves your productivity and your output and nobody complained about it. I can see some of the concerns around Synapse, but on the other hand, we talked about Harrow, which Peter Shankman started and then sold. He’s got another one that he has started because he didn’t like what happened to Harrow. But in any case, they’re banning people who purely use AI. Well, if you’re a PR person copying and pasting the output from Synapse and simply sending it, then being banned is on you. You should never do that with any output from AI, whether it’s a… an email you’re having at Help You Write or an article you’re having at Help You Write, whatever you want to go through and at the very least heavily edit that to make sure it sounds like you, to make sure it says what you want it to, to add anything that’s missing, to delete anything that you don’t want going out. You would do this with an intern, right? You wouldn’t just send what an intern gave you. So I think that’s, I think bad PR practitioners. @nevillehobson (17:21) . Shel Holtz (17:27) are the ones who are going to simply copy and paste that. But is it fictionalized? Somebody said you’re fictionalized, but where is AI getting its information from? It’s getting it from what was in its training set. And there’s not a lot of fiction in there. It’s mostly knowledge that has been culled from the worldwide web. And again, if you’re editing it to make sure that it does represent what you want to pitch, it should be fine. The one part of your report that made me sit up though is what they’re charging. Was that $2,500 a month? @nevillehobson (18:05) just a one-time purchase price. Shel Holtz (18:07) a one-time fee. still, you know, OpenAI has released its first publicly accessible agent. And listening to the process here, I honestly don’t think that there is any way that this is a sustainable business because I think I can create that. I can reproduce that for free with OpenAI’s agent capabilities. @nevillehobson (18:28) So perhaps this is hence the, you know, hurry, hurry, this is a short term one time deal, get it now before he goes away type of approach. Interesting what you said. I thought about profit in passing, but didn’t really give it any. No, this is not the same thing I said to myself, but you’ve introduced it. So. What I heard what you were saying was that this is the same thing as profit. I don’t think it is. Shel Holtz (18:53) no, no, it’s not the same thing as profit, but it’s automating a PR process and. @nevillehobson (18:58) Right. But that this doesn’t look the same to me at all or similar. So just bear with me while I kind of think this through a little bit. You’re right. Profit came up this I think it was 2023. It have been 2022 we interviewed Aaron. That automates the process. So you tell it what you want and it gives you the text and the content and you can copy and paste into an email and just send it out. without anything else, which is what this can do as well. This can also do, where you can edit it stuff if you want to, but it’s actually being pitched as you do not need to do that at all. And it’s being pitched as this little quadruple output, output. One person can now do the work of five. Ergo, you don’t need those other four people, right? Get rid of them, that’s save money. So I sense, I see the alarm centered around that. I’m not sure I agree with the criticisms about basically saying this is unethical and we should not allow this to happen, et cetera, because, wait a minute, is profit like that? And I believe they are an ethical business. We interviewed the founder and have a high regard for him. I keep an eye on what developments are happening with profit. So I know a number of people who use that service. This is not the same thing it seems to me. Yet, your dismissal of it, if you like, is a valid point to make, I think, in this time, because Things are moving so darn fast with AI that what you described with something like a chat GPT AI agent or whatever else is next around the corner is going to challenge this like nobody’s business. So who is the market for this? I wonder the company’s based in Lithuania. According to the press gazette, they’ve been on an email blitz around the agency world in London seeking sales, effectively the sales pitch emails. The writer at PR Press Gazette got hold of one of those and the report, which is linked in the show notes, dissects that quite severely. So I can understand Alastair McCapper at the CIPR that saying this represents a very definition of unprofessional conduct. I wonder what Alastair would say about profit. I’m not challenging Alastair for anything at all, just wondering out loud in light of what you and I are just discussing. Critics say this is unprofessional and deceptive. If the similarity with tools like profit are such that you give it the prompt, as we now call it, you prompt the tool and it gives you a response. You copy that and stick it in the email and send it out. So is that unprofessional and deceptive? To me, this is the heart of the wider debate about this, that embraces using generative AI. write content and should you disclose it and stuff like that. I struggle in understanding those criticisms, frankly, because what’s the difference between a prompt to chat GPT and getting a response, then let’s call it a prompt to your contractor or your intern or your colleague. Hey, Jim, can you draft a first draft press release on this subject in this five bullet points? What’s the difference? you’re using someone as a tool to assist you. And in the sense of this, you’re using this tool as a means to assist you in achieving your goal. That said, equally can see why it attracts such powerful emotive responses, because this is after all, all part of the wider picture about the robots are taking over, am I gonna lose my job and all those kinds of things. So I get that entirely. And you can’t pacify that sort of worry by saying, this is a tool, that’s all. And it’s nothing to do with deceptive practice, because that’s not the perception that people might have. So I don’t know where this will go. Are we crossing a line where convenience erodes trust? And to many, the answer to that is yes. To others, maybe not. So I don’t know where this leaves its shell, to be honest. Shel Holtz (22:58) Well, you know, I think we’re seeing a lot of reactionary behavior when it comes to new AI tools. But in 10 years, God knows how much this will have advanced and we will be using these just as a matter of routine. I really don’t see step by step with Synapse where there’s a problem. I mean, People can use tools deceptively and it doesn’t please me to know that they’re marketing it based on your ability to use it deceptively, but you don’t have to, right? You can abide by the code of ethics from PRSA or IBC or CIPR or what have you and use this ethically, but what is it doing really? I mean, I get Peter Shankman’s new version of Harrow. I subscribe to that. So this would just read it for me. I do this with a service called Drip with all the AI focused newsletters that I subscribe to. I don’t have the time to read them all. So I have Drip get the subscription and I get a daily summary of everything that’s in them. That’s essentially what this is doing is going through these services and identifying journalists looking for quotes or interviews. from something related to your client base or your organization. I’m looking for something where I can get our construction subject matter experts and thought leaders into the press. you know, occasionally something shows up. It just reads it for me. And then it goes out and it finds information that we can use to pitch that. Now I’m going to align that if I find it, if I were using something like Synapse. I’m going to align that with our area of subject matter expertise and the work that we have done and the people that I would reach out to to be the interviewer, the source of the quote. All it’s doing is streamlining. And is it maybe going to lead to the need for fewer low level PR people to do all of this work? Maybe that’s where we’re headed with this. I think we have to deal with that and and associated with that, by the way. we have to deal with how are we going to bring people into this profession if the entry level work is being shoved off to AI. But I absolutely see it. I I’ve used the OpenAI agent to identify podcasts that I should be pitching, recognizing the importance of that in AI optimization. I want to get our subject matter experts onto podcasts. So I said, go to our website. understand our markets, understand our areas of specialization, then go find podcasts related to construction, to the AEC industry, and to the markets that we serve, and visit their websites for those podcasts, find out if they have a policy or a process for pitching guests, and then put it all in a spreadsheet for me. And I just sat back and watched while it did it. @nevillehobson (25:55) Yeah. Shel Holtz (25:56) You know, that’s something that I would have given to a lower level employee at some point in my career. Now I type a prompt. So deal with it. This is coming. @nevillehobson (26:04) Yeah, it is. I think, though, there’s a couple of clues in the press gazette’s report, which I which I use primarily to come up with my own thoughts on this, particularly the part where I said in response to what I what I found out if I generated quotes are published as if they came from real people without fact checking or disclosure, then there are serious implications. Well, yes, but that applies to everything you see out there if people do that. They take something generated or worse, someone else wrote it and let’s pass it off as their own. What’s the difference between that and an AI doing it? So that’s down to people’s behavior. The concern that Synapse undermines trust, as Press Gazette’s report talks about, by introducing fictionalized AI-generated content into a process that relies on authenticity and credibility. I stopped myself when I read what they were saying and what the Lithuanian PR agency was saying too, that in fictionalized AI generated content, I don’t think that’s what people would be doing fictionalized, meaning it’s not fact, it’s fiction. I’m not sure what that looks like. Shel Holtz (27:13) Again, where is the AI getting its information from? It’s from the training set. @nevillehobson (27:17) Right. it could be. Yeah, exactly. there’s a lot of questions about this. Yeah, I do understand that the alarm bells that is ringing nevertheless. So how would how would they address that? I don’t know. think you PR professionals need to be very clear on what resources they’re using to do this. Follow those codes of conduct that you referenced. But this surely does come down to belief in you’re doing the right thing, are you not? Or are you doing what people are alarmed about? Just copying and pasting and passing it off as genuine. That is in that case, you’re not a professional at all. So this is this is part of the shifts that are happening show that alarm the hell out of a lot of people. Yet this is the landscape, we have to figure it out. Shel Holtz (28:06) Well, let’s consider who’s actually going to use this unethically. And it’s the PR people that we have talked about on this show since it launched 21 years ago. It’s those who don’t align themselves with best practices in public relations. It’s people who hang out a shingle and say, do PR without having necessarily gotten a degree in it, without having joined a professional association without having signed on to a code of ethics. And they do whatever they think they have to in order to produce results for a client, regardless of how unethical it is. And they’re the ones who are going to use this the way Synapse is pitching it. So this is a broader problem. The rest of us can use these tools, you know, sign on to the Venice Pledge, the… the pledge that was developed by the Global Alliance around ethical use of AI by public relations practitioners and communicators. Pay attention to your own code of ethics and use these tools ethically. But I don’t see a problem with what Synapse is doing. I see a problem with the way they’re pitching it, but I don’t see a problem with the technology. I don’t see a problem with using this in an ethical way. @nevillehobson (29:20) Well, listeners, we’d love to hear your thoughts on that, so do share them with us, please. Shel Holtz (29:25) But we’ve been talking about this one issue facing PR agencies and the issue as it’s boiled down is it’s unprofessional for PR people to do it and it erodes trust that journalists may have in the PR practitioners that they’re connected with. Well, let’s talk about some other risks and missteps that PR professionals are navigating right now, even as their craft becomes more critical and I’m going to talk about that a little bit more later in the show. But let’s start with phishing attacks from fake journalists. Yeah, you heard that right. Recent reporting from Axios confirms rising incidents where criminals impersonate reporters. They send what seem like legitimate interview requests or pitches to PR pros and clients alike. These scams jumped around 17 % since last September fueled by AI’s ability to assemble credible sounding emails. using personal and outlet-specific details. These journalist phishing emails are not mass spam. They’re highly targeted, AI-generated messages that lure PR professionals or executives into revealing sensitive information or clicking links. In one case, attackers impersonated major outlets to pitch exclusive coverage, weaponizing publicly available data, like publication history and colleague names, to appear legitimate. Now, the result of this is that PR teams are having to act as security filters as much as media liaisons. As experts advise, when a suspicious DM or email arrives claiming to be a journalist, the best defense is polite paranoia. Don’t click, don’t respond directly, forward it to your media relations team for vetting and verify the pitch through trusted context. Beyond phishing, PR professionals are also debating measurement frameworks. and facing pushback on yet another measurement metric. Katie Payne, the industry’s measurement queen and a longtime friend, I got to know Katie really well through my involvement with the Society for New Communication organization. You and I were both fellows. right, Society for New Communication Research. Katie was heavily involved. @nevillehobson (31:31) research. Shel Holtz (31:36) Her message is that PR does not need another fancy metric. It needs better insight into what audiences actually care about, trust, and act on. Too many organizations still cling to vanity metrics like impression counts, circulation numbers, advertising value equivalencies. Katie argues that these are distractions. PR has to measure impact, not just volume, like shifts in trust perception, share of voice, or qualified engagement tied to business outcomes. This critique resonates with ongoing efforts to move past outdated PR metrics. A group of major agencies recently announced they’re ditching impression metrics entirely in favor of readership-based analytics, thanks to platforms like Memo, which track actual article consumption and engagement across 10,000 publications. But this transformation requires education. Clients and executives are used to big numbers, even if those numbers don’t reflect meaningful impact. Making the case for smarter outcome-driven communication means resetting expectations and elevating conversations beyond clicks or column inches. Anybody actually still measuring column inches? Finally, let’s touch on reputation fallout from misaligned values. Melinda French Gates, the ex-wife of Bill Gates and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ⁓ recently called out tech leaders who publicly support public political figures. And what she did was she claimed that they’re following advice from their communication teams. Now, when someone with that kind of stature starts reinforcing old tropes about PR, it just amplifies the perception. And it was particularly shocking considering that she worked in communications before she met and married Bill Gates. So the third headwind PR pros now face involves values misalignment and reputational risk in high stakes public discourse. Melinda Gates, she’s a billionaire philanthropist now, recently criticized tech CEOs who have publicly aligned with former president Trump. This would be Mark Zuckerberg, for example. Her point is that some leaders appear to be pivoting away from their values not out of conviction, but because a communication advisor told him it was the right thing to do. Here’s what she said in a podcast interview, word for word, we have all time should be living these values out and not pivoting to what some comms person tells us. Now this statement lands as a rebuke and caution for PR professionals. Authenticity matters more than it ever has. If executives act in a way that contradict their stated beliefs because it’s convenient or media safe, That gap is increasingly noticed. Crisis communications today can become long-tail reputation erosion, but it’s also a reinforcement of an old negative PR trope. And when someone of Melinda Gates’s stature says it, it amplifies it tremendously and it doesn’t do us any good. So just to recap, we got to look out for phishing attacks that are aimed at PR people. We have to look at the measurement. that we’re using because increasingly the old metrics don’t work. And we have to watch for these claims of what PR is doing that is harming society, which is I just can’t believe that a PR person is out there counseling their CEOs to align themselves with any political figure in particular. So taken together, these trends suggest that PR’s future is just about placements. It’s about credibility, ethics, and strategic integrity. @nevillehobson (35:16) Yeah, a great collection of themes, I suppose, under the broad heading, you’ve got their shell and links to all those articles you could from the show notes. I guess the one that really struck me ⁓ was the phishing as reported in Axios. We’re seeing warnings almost daily from certainly here in the UK from the the cyber security folks in the government, the government agencies who address this, particularly in light of awareness is high now. Following the cyber attack on Marks & Spencer, the big retailer that took them off that took the literature, the website down for ordering for three months, it’s cost of serious money. And it’s had a massive impact on their credibility to the extent that latest league table show they’ve fallen from the top spot as the most respected retailer in the UK. For years, they’ve held that position. They’ve now dropped. So Waitrose or John Lewis, another big retailer, their supermarket Waitrose. So they usually be jockeying a position like this between the two and they’ve now taken the helm. And their troubles, by the way, are still not concluded. But this is interesting. Fishing in temperature on the rise, Shel Holtz (36:14) Who’s number one now? @nevillehobson (36:31) pointed that out more than 17 % since last September. 83 % of fishing males used AI and it’s hard to spot some of them. I’ve been hit with something recently that I did spot because it was just ridiculous, which was so, in fact, this actually slots more into the impersonation topic of someone claiming to represent a company. just a quick bit of research made me even more suspicious. So I did nothing with it, but I’ve now learned that that was a phishing attempt. So you got to be on the ball with this. And I think tying it all up is this with the others you mentioned, and particularly the I did this because a commerce person told me to you think we in the profession need to get a grip on these issues. Is it do you think Do we need just more training of people with that kind of thing? Certainly with phishing, this requires, I think, more than the profession is currently doing to alert people from two perspectives. One, the communicator as the counselor and advisor to the organization what to do about these things. But also as the more proactive role in helping probably more senior people, but probably everyone in the organization to know what to have, what to do if you think you’ve been the victim here. And I’m not talking about these kind of slick, animated videos that a lot of companies tout and push out when when you they want you to do this, you know, online training and get awareness and learning about how to recognize these things. They I often wonder what true value do they have in helping people understand this issue of what to do. So there’s that opportunity for communicators. But I do wonder though, with this, the other things you’ve talked about, that do we have the right skills in the profession, in the profession, to help communicators truly know what to do in these situations, or not? I wonder. Shel Holtz (38:35) I think it’s something that we have to learn if we don’t already know it. Cybersecurity, especially from an internal communications perspective, is becoming a routine and really important topic for communication. It is something that is extraneous to the work that most of our employees do. So getting their attention with it is hard. Where I work, we do require people to do annual online training. And I think the good that it does is at least it creates some awareness for a while, but it’s a requirement. We can monitor who has taken it and not and reach out to the people who haven’t to say, you you need to take this. And then if they still don’t, we can reach out to their managers and say, you have people who haven’t completed the training. We do this around safety and workplace violence and workplace harassment too. But it’s not enough. You need to keep a drum beat up. First of all, as new techniques emerge that we are aware of, we communicate those very short little articles and we get them out through multiple channels. We have our executives talk about it at the all hands meeting. We bring it up occasionally at the monthly operations meetings. And with all of this, even digital signage, really quick hit awareness. campaigns. Even with all of this, there are employees who are not going to hear it. One thing that we’re doing to try to make people pay more attention is to say, everything that we’re talking to you about that can affect us here at our company can affect you at home too. So the same techniques are being used to get credentials from your personal accounts. so pay attention to this because it could save your personal life, not just our company. So yeah, you’re right. We have to become conversant in cybersecurity and stay up to date on the latest trends, the latest data, the latest techniques, and find ways to break through the noise and to capture the attention of our audiences to make sure that they know about this. I have not seen IABC PRSA, PR Week, or anybody else talk about this. fishing yet. This was an Axios report where I found it. So we need to get the word out. @nevillehobson (40:53) work to do. so continuing our theme of PR AI connectivity or disconnectivity, it depends on the topic and how see it. I’m going to shift to something that’s more subtle, but potentially transformative. How we write press releases in the age of AI. ⁓ So you have to kind of Shel Holtz (41:10) Are we still writing press releases? Yes, of course we are. @nevillehobson (41:16) bear with me on this while I introduce this topic with a throwback to something a few years back that some of some of you might remember, many of you probably would never have heard of it, but just bear with it. So let’s start with communicator and strategist Sarah Evans, who shared on her LinkedIn feed an emerging approach that positions the press release, not just as a tool for reaching journalists. but as content designed for AI systems. Her argument is straightforward. Press releases today serve two audiences, she says, traditional media and generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. That means a press release isn’t just a story, it’s training data. It needs to inform and persuade not only human journalists, but also algorithms that summarize, reinterpret, and surface that content in response to user queries. And for that to work effectively, releases need to follow a structure that’s both human readable and machine digestible. Evans suggests that the modern press release should still follow journalistic standards. For instance, AP style, clear sourcing and strong headlines, but also include structured formatting, clear language and trust signals that help AI tools understand and elevate the content. On the points of style, by the way, if you’re in the UK, you’ll likely be using the Oxford Guide to Style, formerly known as Hart’s Rules rather than the AP Style Guide. Doesn’t matter actually, as long as you’re using one of those, that’s good. That might mean including prompt-like phrasing, definitive outcomes, and text that aligns with how AI systems pass authority and relevance. This approach recalls an earlier experiment. I mentioned this is coming at the beginning here. The social media press release, the template introduced by Todd Deferin back in 2006, it reimagined the press release for the Web 2.0 era. Multimedia, bullet points and links instead of dense paragraphs. That idea didn’t gain as much traction as many hoped it would, perhaps because the infrastructure wasn’t there yet. But in 2025, the infrastructure most definitely is, says Evans. AI tools are reshaping. how people find, consume and trust information. Search engines are incorporating AI generators, summaries, news aggregators and research platforms use LLMs, large language models. If your press release isn’t visible to AI or isn’t written in a way that helps its surface, it might as well not exist, she says. So the conversation now is this, should we be writing for the journalists and the algorithm? And how do we do that while still maintaining journalistic integrity clarity and credibility. There are challenges. Here are three. Lack of standards. There’s no defined schema for AI ready press releases yet. No equivalent of schema.org for PR. AI system opacity. We don’t fully know how LLMs weigh or interpret content from wire releases. And skepticism. As with social media press releases, some PR pros may dismiss this as overkill or gimmicky without clearer benefits or just don’t care about it at all. So is it time communicators embraced this dual purpose writing style, or is it just another passing trend? Shell, what do you think? Shel Holtz (44:38) it is definitely time that we embrace this writing style. I think that it is incumbent upon the industry to come up with a schema and to share it. If there are people who don’t want to adopt this, that’s fine. And we’ll see how much their content shows up in AI outputs. It’s not just the press release, though. It is who carries the press release. We’re going to talk about this in much greater detail in the next report, but just to telegraph that a little bit, what AI training sets look at and find credible is third-party reports, not what you publish on your own website. Most companies do have a repository of their press releases, we do, and it goes out on the wire from you, but what the AI looks at for the sake of credibility is what publications have picked up that press release and written about it. And of course there are publications that will just publish your press release the way it is. They’re just looking to fill space and have stuff on their outlet. But the good ones are going to use it as a basis for original reporting. So it needs to be a good enough press release to entice that type of reporting. ⁓ For those who just publish the press release the way it is, it’ll be really important for that press release to take a different approach to the point of your report. ⁓ One of the things that I understand AI looks for, the LLMs when they’re extracting the press releases and the content that the press releases were used to create from the media outlets, What they’re looking for is less of the what we do and what we sell and what our products are and what our services are and more of the how, more process. So I think that’s a shift that we have to make in the angle that we’re taking when we’re crafting press releases. And I think that AI and this whole direction that we’re going, has reinvigorated the press release. mean, people have over the last few years been talking about it as a relic and why are you doing this? You need to be using influencers and you need to be doing content marketing and press releases are so 50 years ago. AI has reinvigorated the value of the press release for just this reason. @nevillehobson (47:06) Yeah, I think that probably leads straight into the next topic, if you want to go straight to that shell, because what you say makes complete sense. And I’m glad you agree that we do need to pay attention to this as communicators and how we structure the information that we prepare for who we prepare it for primarily. Yes, the media. But that words, those two words actually have a different meaning today than they did even 20 years ago. Now we have this complimentary thing called the algorithm that we need to create content for. And Sarah Evans actually included in her LinkedIn post, a rather neat LinkedIn style slide deck, you can’t download it or grab it, you can only scroll through it. That showed the schema structures that she proposes that could be where we go next with this to make it usable by AI systems. And I think that’s That’s the bit that is key to this, is key to understanding the possibilities of this. So, and I like what you said earlier too, that the profession’s responsibility is to develop the schema for this. And that could be a great opportunity for professional associations to take a lead on something like that or one in particular. So that you have something that’s universal. And once you’ve got that, which I guess supports my feeling that social media press release one of the reasons and may not be the most significant reason why it didn’t take off is there was no infrastructure to support it or making it easy for people to adopt it. I remember seeing back then version 2.0 of the template it didn’t get beyond 2.0 but when I saw 1.5 I then saw variations of that all over the place as people were adapting it to the knees then sharing what they did so utter confusion everywhere as to which was the valid one to use. That I don’t think is likely to happen with this. The landscape’s completely different apart from anything else, but maybe the timing’s right. Shel Holtz (49:00) No, this is… You don’t need infrastructure for this. All you need is a different approach to what you’re writing. You don’t need to create sections and have links to things that are uploaded. I remember Jason Keith, think his name is, had a press release distribution service that was focused on the social media press release. I don’t think it’s still around, but this is just the way you write it. It’s not a different… @nevillehobson (49:07) Right. Shel Holtz (49:28) infrastructure type approach to a press still self-contained narrative text. It just needs to accommodate AI optimization. So we will jump into my report on that. But first, we have a report from Dan York. @nevillehobson (49:43) Thanks, Dan. Great report on your topic about bypassing paywalls. That was really interesting. There’s another one to add to the ones you mentioned. I use this one. I use it for some time. It’s called Archive Today. Website address is archive.ph. And that lets me access a wide range of publications in the mainstream media. Financial Times, Wall Street Journal. many, many others, New York Times, although I got a subscription to that, but I could do this if I wanted to. The only thing the only one it doesn’t work with that I discovered is PR week, I have no idea why this cannot get into that one. they are pretty good at it, at stopping people bypassing the paywall. But it’s a very interesting one. And it works all the time. It works flawlessly. Most of the other time. Also to mention you when you talked about the Online Safety Act in the UK and verifying age to protect children from pornographic content. The UK communication regulator published a pretty neat explainer on how age checking works in the UK. It’s worth a look at. I’ve noticed a lot of comment in the last few days about people saying how easy it is to bypass this verification check. And so if that’s the case, they got to step up and fix that. Blue Sky, introduced this this past week in the UK as part of this law. So the other day when I logged in in the morning, I was got a pop-up say I had to verify my age. My first thought was, well, you know a lot about me and I’m verified with you, so you know my age, but I get it. They have to go through this process. The third party provider that does it. You’ve got to photograph your driver’s license or a passport or some other government ID. upload that file. And then the next step in the verification is either a really call it a picture of you that you share or check on a credit card. I chose the latter because that was the easiest one to do. And so I’m verified in that sense. I just wonder though, how, how truly robust that is in light of the criticisms. But it’s good that you had the topic in your report. Shel Holtz (51:56) Yeah, I have the same questions about age verification. The state of Texas here in the U.S. passed a law that it would be required for access to pornography sites, and it was challenged on First Amendment free speech rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’s law. So it will be going into effect at some point in the relatively near future. So I don’t know what the mechanism is that they plan to use, but it wouldn’t affect blue sky. It’s just for Pornhub and other porn sites. But it’ll be interesting to see how easy it is to get around those checks. So, I mean, you know. @nevillehobson (52:35) Yeah, that’s actually an interesting point to make because in the UK, the UK online safety isn’t just about porn sites. It’s related to any content that’s age restricted according to the new law that’s been passed. So there is that difference in that case. Shel Holtz (52:49) Yeah, and I agree with Dan 100 % about paywalls in general. Now, I absolutely agree that media outlets need to make money. They can’t afford to hire reporters to go out and do this work, this vital work without revenue. Yet most of these sites, I use just… Occasionally, something will show up in a feed and I want to read that article maybe because I want to write about it. Maybe I want to include it as a topic on FIR. And I can’t get to it because of a paywall. I like the sites that give you five or 10 free articles a month before the paywall kicks in, because that would be enough for me for the Financial Times, where I get maybe two or three articles a month that cross my feeds that I want to go. take a look at so that I might incorporate that information into a report or even alert my leadership at the company I work for to this information. So I think this rush to paywall everything is, I understand it, but I don’t think it’s well considered the approach that’s been taken so far. @nevillehobson (53:57) I agree. Shel Holtz (53:58) Yeah. Well, let’s continue the theme from your last report, Neville, because public relations has become the linchpin of brand visibility in the age of generative AI search. Let’s start with a simple observation, ⁓ one that reiterates what you talked about just a couple of minutes ago. Generative AI systems, ChachiPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Don’t just link to your content anymore. They generate answers that borrow authority from trusted sources. And who’s always built trust at scale online? That would be us, PR and communications professionals. Research from Search Engine Land underscores that AI-powered search engines increasingly rely on brand mentions, reputation, and authority signals retrieved from across the web. That means that when AI answers replace blue links, it’s not keyword density or meta tags doing the heavy lifting. It’s earned media mentions and narrative consistency. Ginny Jitrich wrote about this, and she puts it bluntly, PR has always been about building trust and carrying that trust into every story or quote your brand participates in. Today, when AI synthesizes answers, it looks for those signals. And as she writes, We’re telling the same clear story everywhere, so AI can’t miss it. That’s why disciplines like GEO, that’s Generative Engine Optimization, and AEO, that’s Answer Engine Optimization, are emerging. GEO aims to ensure your content actually gets cited to become part of the AI’s answer. AEO focuses on structuring content in a conversational, Q &A-friendly way so that AI can… easily use it. And this is probably what’s going to find its way into a schema if a professional association gets around to sharing that. But no matter how well designed your website is, AI models still prioritize third party editorial sources. And of course, as I mentioned before, a lot of people who get a press release are going to use it as a foundation for their own original reporting. Muckrax 2025 report. highlights that over 95 % of AI-cited links are from earned media, not owned or paid content. And these citations actually reshape the entire answer AI gives. If your PR team isn’t securing coverage across high-quality publications, journalistic outlets, podcasts, analyst quotes, your brand won’t surface in those AI-generated answers, no matter how much of it you’ve published on your own sites. For example, when people ask generative AI something like, best web design firm in Chicago, what really makes Orbit Media or others show up is repeated brand coherent mentions in reputable publications written by journalists consistent in message, quoted accurately. That’s what we do. And it’s the accelerator for AI visibility. So I’m increasingly seeing PR agencies evolving from just earned coverage into source engineering, designing narratives and placements that feed the machine. As a recent piece puts it, strategic PR teams are no longer just telling stories, they’re engineering the data that AI models pull from. In practical terms, here’s what working PR teams are doing differently in 2025. First, they’re prioritizing earned media in authoritative outlets, not just for backlinks, but because AI is trained more heavily on sources like AP, Reuters, respected trade publications, industry podcasts. That placement leads directly into AI visibility. Second, they’re applying semantic consistency across channels. The brand name, executive titles, and narrative themes are repeated. Third, they’re auditing the machine’s brand view, monitoring not just media coverage, but what AI knows about your brand and its outputs and adjusting messaging accordingly. Fourth, they’re structuring content for both people and algorithms. Clear metadata, Q &A formats, concise summaries that serve both readers and AI ingest pipelines, And fifth, they’re geographically targeting their public relations for local news placements that can lift visibility and AI answers for place-based queries. For local businesses, this is a powerful, though under-leveraged lever. Meanwhile, TechRadar and others report that younger audiences rely on AI chat or conversational interfaces instead of Google, undercutting traditional SEO and forcing a rethink of discoverability strategies. Brands now need structured, accurate, and syndicated data, often via knowledge graphs, to feed AI systems and prevent misinformation or omission. Startups like Profound, Athena, and Scrunch AI, got to love some of these names, have emerged to monitor and influence brand visibility inside large language model outputs, an entirely new tech niche built around this shift. And yes, PR agencies still matter, even with AI tools that can draft press releases, because AI can’t build journalist relationships, craft narratives for trusted outlets, or manage timing and nuance the way humans do. Again, you gotta have the human in the loop. It’s just that AI lets you focus on these things. As one article put it, while AI can help with execution, it lacks the insight and relational intelligence that PR professionals provide. In short, public relations is no longer just a support for marketing. It’s the foundation of visibility in AI search. @nevillehobson (59:33) Interesting. There’s a lot to absorb in what you’ve been outlining, Shell. I was actually was reading Jeannie Dietrich’s piece. Very interesting what she lengthy assessment of breakdown of the topic. But a couple of things she mentioned really stood out. And these are dead simple things. We know this under the heading. This is PR’s moment. I love that a lot. We don’t need to pivot, she says. We need to step up. And she’s absolutely right. So she mentions that how AI is rewriting how attention, reputation, discoverability work, but the fundamentals haven’t changed at all. Trust matters, relevance matters, authority matters. These are the currencies of the AI era, she says, and they are the currencies of PR. She also mentions, and I was glad to see this, the PESO model in the context of all of this. I’ve seen quite a bit of criticism in recent months about PESO and how it hasn’t… adapted to the changes we’re seeing in all this. I don’t agree with that, but I’ve not looked into it in depth, the comments that I’ve seen. But Jeannie notes that the Pace and Model campaigns are designed for human audiences and for LLMs to find, interpret and share accurately. So you don’t have to imagine for long, it’s already happening, she says, if you were wondering what is actually going on. AI is the interface through which people get information. PR becomes the operating system that powers accurate brand aligned answers. Great visualization of that. can see that actually. Those who understand how to feed the system through trust, relevance, and strategic visibility will lead. So I think that’s a good take on the changes that we’re seeing happening in front of our eyes almost daily, that what actually matters. And it’s not about pivoting either. We just need to step up. Shel Holtz (1:01:20) Yeah, absolutely. And this is the type of thing where we need to get educated. And again, you know, who’s responsible for that? At some level, we have to be accountable to ourselves, but that requires awareness. And I think generating awareness, again, among those many PR people who just show up for work in the morning and go home at night and they do their jobs and they’re not reading trade publications and they’re not participating in webinars. They’re not reading what their professional associations are sharing. Somehow we have to get this information to people or, you know, frankly, what’s probably more realistic is that the people who do pay attention will succeed and those who don’t will fail and just fall off the tree. @nevillehobson (1:02:06) That applies to so many things, doesn’t it? So really good analysis there. Let’s take a look now at what’s really changing in social media with a shift in purpose, according to two reports I read this week. Social media has entered what may be its most profound period of change since the rise of Facebook and Twitter, they say. What’s happening isn’t just about new platforms or features. is about a shift in what social media is fundamentally for. Take Metta’s recent positioning. Mark Zuckerberg now describes Facebook and Instagram not as social networks, but as platforms for discovery, expression and entertainment. Kind of trips off the tongue, it? DEE, discovery and expression and entertainment. The implication is clear. Yeah, DEE, yeah. The implication is clear, reported French. Shel Holtz (1:02:50) D. @nevillehobson (1:02:55) Tech media outlet Rude Baguette, I just love the name of this publication show, I really do. They publish really good content though, I have to say in English and in French. According to Rude Baguette, these are no longer places to connect with friends or share personal updates. In fact, meta says only 17 % of content on Facebook and just 7 % on Instagram comes from people who users actually know. The rest is AI curated, creator driven. and algorithmically optimised to keep people scrolling. This represents a huge cultural pivot they say. Social platforms are now more like streaming services than networks. People use them not to connect, but to consume. And from a communication perspective, that changes everything. This shift is reflected in emerging trends identified by the drum and others. Brands are posting less, but focusing more on quality, short form video, strong storytelling and emotional tone. There’s growing emphasis on social search. Users now search TikTok, Reddit or chat GPT before turning to Google, if they even do. Private communities are gaining ground. Places like Discord, Telegram and closed groups like LinkedIn offer engagement where the feed no longer delivers. And authenticity, or at least a performative version of it, is winning. Think of Duolingo’s chaotic TikTok presence when they killed off their owl logo. didn’t phase anyone and their ⁓ presence on TikTok is in the millions following that, that didn’t decline at all. Think about the irreverent tone of Ryanair’s social media team. We’ve talked about Ryanair on this podcast before, Shell, and they insult customers, they do all this stuff and people love it. So their presence across social networks is increasing literally day by day. So that is a shift where you normally would expect you to be totally aware of treating with the customer. The customer is always right. And those kind of differential relationships, not anymore. And people seem to like this. And there are two brands who are gaining from that. So this is not simply evolution. It’s reinvention. The feed is no longer a channel for personal expression or connection. It’s a content platform. For communicators, that means rethinking everything from platform strategy and influence selection. to brand voice and metrics of success. So the question is this, if social media is no longer about being social, what is the role of communication professionals in shaping visibility, trust and conversation in the new landscape? Or put it another way, if social media is now more like Netflix than a network, what does that mean for how brands and communicators show up? Shel Holtz (1:05:41) It’s a great question because communicators, public relations in particular, is historically late to the game with new technologies. So how good are we at identifying and managing these shifts and adapting to them? First of all, I just want to say that I think the worst prediction that a lot of us made was that social media was going to be a wonderful thing. The public commons giving everybody a voice. Boy, were we wrong. Were we naive about that? We did not anticipate the algorithm and getting people to doom scroll for every spare minute they have and even some minutes that aren’t spare. You see people at their desks at work doing that. So. @nevillehobson (1:06:13) Yeah. ⁓ Shel Holtz (1:06:26) It was just a wrong prediction and I’m sorry I made it. But it’s true. It has become a streaming service. It is as Mitch Joel would say along with and not instead of because I still use social media for personal connection and the people that I am connecting with are doing it too. But as you noted, that’s just 17 % of what’s happening out there. And yeah, when I do go to my feeds, interjected amidst those people that I do see whose comments to me or a post about something I’m genuinely interested in in their lives because of that personal connection, intermingled with all of that is what you said somebody characterized as the equivalent of streaming media. And how many videos do I end up watching because of that? It is something where we need to make that adjustment and it requires being on top of the trends. And this trend isn’t going to last forever, forever either. I mean, nothing does. So especially with the shifts we’re seeing in media. So it is incumbent upon us to stay on top of these changes, even though, you know, I mean, this has been this has been occurring over time. This isn’t something that was a sudden veering of the approach that the social media outlets have taken. This has been a very gradual shift that we now find ourselves at. I don’t want to say the end of it because it is probably an ongoing change, but we find ourselves where we are. And if we want to produce the kind of outcomes that our clients and our employers expect of us, we have to accommodate them. Otherwise, we’re just talking to ourselves out there. @nevillehobson (1:08:08) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it got me thinking, I have to admit, that final question, because I’ve been thinking about that. what does it mean for how brands and communicators show up if social media is now more like Netflix? And add to that the shifts, examples I mentioned about Duolingo and the chaotic TikTok presence or the tone of Ryanair’s social media team on their activity on social networks. not everyone else does like that, but they’re benefiting from it in their niche with their type of audience. mean, there multiple questions arise from that. it ethically right thing to do? What about others in the organization? How do the employees feel about it and things like that? So I think it would be difficult to say, to answer the questions, what does this mean for our brands and communicators show up, show up, get to understand how it works and what you’re going to do about it, what it means to you and your brand. I mean, I can’t think of a simpler way of saying that. And certainly not going to sit here and try and say, here’s a detailed assessment of what you should be doing. You need to understand the shifts that are happening. You need to realize that this is transitional and this is not permanent in the detail. But the fact of this is likely to be long term. The old days that you described with fondness of the past where everyone did engage and we welcomed it. We evangelized it 20 years ago. We wanted everyone to be online and sharing their lives. And like you said, Cheryl, I sometimes slap my forehead and think, what have we done? So it’s actually influenced me hugely in where I’m no longer online. And where I am online, what am I doing there that’s very, very different to what I was doing 10 years ago, even five for that matter. So things are shifting. I’m an observer more than an active protagonist on this stage, simply because my interests and needs have changed from what they were five years ago. But I look at developments like this, I find this one quite fascinating as another step in the evolutionary movement we’re at. I think The only thing I could say is precisely that. Understand how this is. Figure out how you’re going to behave in this and get to it. Shel Holtz (1:10:37) There is a blurring line between public relations and content marketing now, because content marketing’s approach to things is what we need to be looking at on a lot of these social networks. Now, it used to be about building relationships, which is strictly a PR activity. But now it’s because it’s streaming. Essentially, we need to be creating great content. that fits the ethos of each of those networks where we’re participating. So it’s incumbent upon communicators to understand the content marketing component of their job. Part of that is perhaps moving away from social media or adding non-social media channels to the mix. So… Picture the CMO, the chief marketing officer of a major fashion brand flipping through Instagram and thinking, is this really how I’m supposed to build a loyal relationship with Gen Z? So instead, she launches a newsletter on Substack and suddenly she has a sent to inbox channel where real conversation is possible. Brands are increasingly turning to Substack, not just email newsletters, but Substack in particular. Not because it’s just another email tool, because it offers control, community, and credibility. According to Marketing Brew, in mid-2025, brands such as Madewell, Tory Burch, American Eagle, Rare Beauty, and The Real Deal launched newsletters on Substack. These aren’t boring corporate updates. They’re cultural briefs, contributor channels, founder stories, and stylist features that appeal to audiences in ways that social media can’t replicate these days. For example, American Eagles Off the Cuff is designed like a group chat with Gen Z, culturally tuned in, conversation driven, and not overly transactional. Within six weeks, it hit over 2,000 subscribers, even though most of the content was not product focused. Now, you may wonder why Substack? Morning Consult found that Substack users tend to be heavy news readers, younger, they’re Gen Z and millennials by and large. They’re highly engaged and more likely to trust brand communication delivered via newsletter than via social media threads. Substack delivers a clean, distraction-free experience and a built-in discovery feed encouraging deeper engagement. So let’s look at Rare Beauty. This is Selena Gomez’s brand, and it created Rare Beauty Secrets on Substack, offering behind-the-scenes stories from product development to mental health summits. It’s less about selling lipstick more about sharing values. The newsletter is clearly resonating with high open rates and a Discovery Feed subscriber rate growth around 17%. Brands like Hinge are also experimenting with immersive narrative series like No Ordinary Love, a five-part literary series that tells moving stories tied to their dating app mission. The key is compelling content, again, content marketing that feels human and original rather than promotional. So what are PR and communication pros learning from this wave? Well, the Content Marketing Institute lays out best practices that fit neatly with public relations instincts, establish a consistent cadence, use authentic storytelling, design for readability, integrate content contributors, and above all, make the content about value, not selling, first. Additional analysis underscores a few crucial points. You can’t treat Substack like a traditional newsletter tool. It’s a community platform intended for editorial quality, not emails disguised as ads. Partnerships matter. American Eagle brought on Casey Lewis, author of After School, as a guest editor that cross-pollinated subscribers and raised credibility for their off-the-cuff newsletter. And founders have to be voices in these newsletters. Brands with strong founder voices. Schoolhouse, Gia and others. They’re using Substack to create intimate access and narrative continuity. It works particularly well when a founder or a key personality leads the newsletter, though always anchored under the brand’s umbrella. There’s even an editorial economics side to this. While brands generally keep their Substack’s newsletters free for now as part of building trust, platforms like Substack are pushing tools to help creators monetize, and brands might explore premium options down the road. For independent writers, ad revenue is already a growing part of platform economics, but most brands are focused on nurturing audience relationships first. Substack itself continues to evolve. As of early 2025, it surpassed 5 million paid subscriptions, and it’s doubled down on audio, video, and community features like chat threads, making it more than a newsletter tool, but a branded content environment. From a PR lens, You got to consider that newsletters reinforce brand voices and values. They let you lean into storytelling purpose and humanity. They give you control. There’s no algorithm deciding how far they’re going to boost it up. No reach penalties. And your subscriber list is yours. It’s discovery driven. Readers come via Substax ecosystem, not just your current audience. It complements earned media. You can fund earned coverage insights into newsletter narratives. deepen stories and convert that attention into subscriber trust, and it builds owned engagement. Comments, replies, feedback loops that signal two-way connection. It’s not just broadcast. Now, of course, there are alternatives to Substack. is one, and there are reasons to consider them, but Substack does have first mover advantage in a suite of tool that seems to be resonating with important stakeholder audiences. For PR professionals, brand newsletters on Substack represent a return to relationship based communication that these changes in social media that we were just talking about have led to. So if you haven’t reconsidered your newsletter or whether Substack fits your audiences, you should. It’s not just for essays or creators anymore. It’s increasingly home base for brands that want to be heard, not just seen. @nevillehobson (1:16:53) Yeah, that’s a good analysis. It is interesting. I’m on Ghost that offers a newsletter. I phrase it that way because the primary thing isn’t the newsletter for me, it’s the blog basically. But it’s given me insight into the content that people read from the newsletter. So I’ve picked up subscribers, which I have five times as many more as I had on WordPress. I never did anything. WordPress to motor but that was a different platform. didn’t didn’t kind of accentuate that. I, I find from what I’ve researched myself even that the the you mentioned. Substack has first mover advantage. Yes, they did. But I’ve noticed that there’s a differentiator has emerged between places like Substack beehive is another one, and ghost of the type of person and what they talk about. is attuned to one or other of the platform. Substack went through a phase early this year or late last year, I think, when they were accused of being anti-Semitic and they were hosting neo-Nazis and all this kind of stuff. People left them in droves. Many went to ghost. They probably recovered from that. But maybe that’s got a stigma that still surrounds them a bit, perhaps. find the thing that I find interesting too, Shell, about this in the bigger picture sense, is this to me is like an evolution of blogging, of personal blogging that we had back in the day when CEOs didn’t do this really. And when one did, that was a big headline, when Richard Edelman stepped up. So the CEO of the Edelman PR firm and many others, this fulfilled something similar. Shel Holtz (1:18:28) Bill Marriott, remember, Bill Marriott, remember, had a great blog. @nevillehobson (1:18:32) Bill Merritt, absolutely. And of course, way before that, Bill, Bob Lutz, wasn’t it? Bill Lutz, Bob Lutz, General Motors, who was the kind of star writer in the very early days of blogging. The small block engineer used to write about a lot. I remember that. So, but I think the interest in this is the community building, you mentioned. This is not just something you send out, it’s designed to foster community. And just speaking in my case, as a very tiny example as an individual blogger, I’ve noticed that with the newsletter that has fostered more engagement with readers. for me, what’s interesting is that’s happening more in direct personal feedback from a reader rather than the reader leaving a comment on the site via the newsletter, which is what you’d expect them to do. I just haven’t figured out why that is yet, but I’m not too concerned because I offer a free newsletter is not a not a monetizable one. I’m not interested in doing that. And I’m gives me insights into the content. The point more than anything, though, is that this is a platform that is attracting more and more people like sub stackers, who traditionally would have potentially not shared stuff or if they did, it was via a blog or on LinkedIn or some other closed group. Suddenly they are now controlling this on their own domain and building community on their own domain, which I think is an important element in all of this. Even some, I noticed some of the ones that are the handful I pay for. I look at some of the techniques they’re using to monetize, where they’ll offer something that is for paid subscribers only, and they’ll give you like 20 % of it, and you need to sign up to see the rest. Personally, I don’t like gimmicks like that at all. But nevertheless, I get this is a different landscape than it was back then. So it’s good to see this. I have to say the growth of newsletters that are to do with building community, not just like you mentioned, just sending out an email as a marketing text. These are personal, engaging stories told by people who have a story to tell and do it in a way that people like and they’re willing to sign up for and in some cases pay for it. So I say. more of this please on any of those platforms because this is what engagement really is about in my book. Shel Holtz (1:20:52) Yeah, of course, these are delivered to your email inbox. And I remember, what, about maybe 10 or 12 years ago, there were a lot of people predicting the death of email. had better channels with, I mean, internally, things like Slack and Teams are far better than email for a variety of reasons I won’t go into. @nevillehobson (1:21:04) Yes. Shel Holtz (1:21:13) We talk about email being a 60 year old technology now that has seen its best days. there were a lot of them. Remember there were companies that were going no email except for dealing with outside like clients and vendors and the like who relied on it. But no internal email was allowed anymore. And there were companies doing no email Fridays. They were gearing themselves to prepare for an email list. @nevillehobson (1:21:26) Yeah. Ha Shel Holtz (1:21:41) future. And that has gone right out the window. ⁓ Email is as important and alive as it ever was. @nevillehobson (1:21:51) That’s true. So we’ve talked about a lot of interesting stuff in this episode, Shell, and I hope listeners will share their thoughts on anything we talked about. Shel Holtz (1:22:00) And there are many channels available to you to do that. The one that we are getting most of our comments from these days is LinkedIn, where we share the dropping of new episodes, give you a little information about what it’s about and a link to it. And people are leaving their comments there. So please feel free to do that. We also share on other social media channels and we check those for your comments. @nevillehobson (1:22:04) Emo! Shel Holtz (1:22:29) We have our show notes on the FIR website at FIRpodcastnetwork.com. You can leave a comment there directly. We also have the FIR community on Facebook, which right now isn’t much of a community, but it is a place where we’re sharing new episodes. And some people occasionally will leave a comment there. We also hope that you will rate and review the show. You can also, by the way, send us an email to FIRcomments. at gmail.com and we would love to play an audio comment if anybody would ever send us one again. We used to get a lot of those. @nevillehobson (1:23:05) did. Chris Hanson do come back please. Yeah she did. Shel Holtz (1:23:08) Yeah, she retired, so I don’t know how much she’s interested in what we talk about anymore. Mostly Star Trek these days with Chris. Our next long form episode for August will drop on Monday, August 25th. So keep an eye out for that. But we will have short midweek episodes between now and then. @nevillehobson (1:23:15) Ha ha ha. Shel Holtz (1:23:29) And don’t forget the interview with Monsignor Paltai, which will drop this Tuesday the 29th. And that will be a 30 for this episode of Four Immediate Release.   The post FIR #474: AI is Redefining Public Relations appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been more than 60 years since Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message. The decades that have passed since then have done nothing to diminish the truth of McLuhan’s prescient statement. For today’s employees, the medium for most information is the digital interfaces the company provides. There’s an interface for the intranet, for email, for internal social networking and collaboration, for emergency alerts, for calendaring, and for all manner of resources employees need to get their work done. What message do these interfaces send to employees? If they’re unified, consumer-grade, and make it easy to do the job, the message is one of caring. If they’re confusing, difficult to navigate, and result in frustration, employees can perceive that message as one of dismissal or even contempt. It certainly signals that the company doesn’t care. Who should own the digital employee experience (DEX)? A number of recent commentaries have argued that internal communication should be at the helm, which may be counterintuitive in many organizations where anything digital is IT’s responsibility. We explore the case for internal communication’s DEX role in this short midweek episode. Links from this episode From Baby Bottles to Employee Portals: Catching Up on the Internal Comms Shift Toward DEX ‘Employees feel capable and connected’: the vital role played by good technology in job satisfaction Digital employee experience: why internal communications should care Driving Employee Experience: The critical role of internal communications 5 Core Components of a Stellar Digital Employee Experience (DEX) How to Build a Winning Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Strategy 7 Steps to Improve Your Digital Employee Experience (DEX) A Blueprint That Binds: The First Principle of Digital Employee Experience The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 28. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: @nevillehobson (00:00) Hi everyone and welcome to Four Immediate Release. This is episode 473. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz (00:07) And I’m Shell Holtz. In the mid-90s, when intranets were still a novelty, I remember being asked by clients, shouldn’t IT own the intranet? I mean, it’s the technology. It’s sitting on servers, right? And my answer then is the same I’d give today if someone asked whether IT should own the digital employee experience. No, it shouldn’t. And here’s why. Digital experience, DEX, isn’t a text function. It’s a people function. And that makes it a communication function. And I’ll explain in more detail right after this. So what do we mean by DEX exactly? The folks at Step 2 define it as the sum total of digital interactions within an employee’s work environment. That includes the tools they use, the systems they navigate, and the way those tools make them feel. Frustrated, empowered, ignored, engaged. The emotional response to the digital workplace matters. A report from the Guardians Digital Workspace Reimagined series points to research showing that when technology works seamlessly, employees feel more capable, more connected, and more engaged. But when it doesn’t, when systems are confusing, slow, or fragmented, it undermines productivity, it increases burnout, and erodes trust. In other words, all that stuff internal communicators are supposed to be helping to prevent. For years, we’ve treated tech as the exclusive domain of IT and experience as the domain of HR. DEX occupies a space that’s weirdly in between, but the tools themselves don’t create the experience. It’s the communication that does. As NextThink notes in its blueprint for DEX strategy, digital friction is often the result of inconsistent onboarding, poor internal messaging, or an absence of user feedback. you know, things that communicators deal with all the time. Let’s consider just a few of the moments internal communicators already touch. Tool rollouts, you teams migration drama, that was all on us, right? Crisis response platforms, knowledge hubs, portals, intranets, resource centers, company-wide surveys, training and onboarding flows, and every digital touch point where an employee needs to find, understand, and act on information. Those aren’t IT problems, they’re communication problems. And the solution isn’t just better user interface, it’s better communications design. The digital experience is the employee experience these days. Haystack’s research on DEX found that poor search, slow load times, confusing navigation, and content irrelevance are among the top frustrations employees have with their digital tools. But it’s not the existence of those problems that should concern us. It’s the absence of a communication strategy to fix them. A lot of organizations still treat digital like a delivery mechanism. It isn’t. It’s the environment itself. In a LinkedIn essay, a fellow named Richard Aze, and I hope I’m pronouncing that right. It’s spelled A-Z-Z-A-E, wrote this. said, and by the way, the name of his essay was from baby bottles to employee portals. He said the communicators need to think like experienced designers. That means looking at every step of a user’s journey, from logging in to locating critical tools and asking, does this build confidence, trust, and clarity? If it doesn’t, it’s not just a bad experience, it’s bad communication. So what do we do about it? Let me run through five quick things that communicators can do to step up and take ownership, or at least partnership, in DEX. And the first is to get a seat at the DEX strategy table. That means partnering with, collaborating with IT, HR, facilities, and ops to advocate for employee needs. You don’t need to know how to code. You need to know how people feel. Second, conduct experience audits, not just content audits. Where are people getting stuck? What’s hard to find? What confuses them? Look at journeys, not just assets. Push for user-centric intranet and app design. That means fewer org chart-driven pages and more task-driven layouts. Nobody should need to have to figure out where to go to find the information they need. It should be intuitive. Advocate for feedback loops. ScreenCloud and Populo both stress this. DEX isn’t static. User analytics, sentiment analysis, and real-time feedback are necessary to continually refine the digital experience. @nevillehobson (04:33) You Shel Holtz (04:49) And finally, make DEX a KPI. If your team isn’t being measured on the usability and impact of digital tools, you’re flying blind. Start tying your work to adoption, retention, and satisfaction metrics. I remember an HPR article from maybe 15 years ago. was something like the 10 IT decisions IT shouldn’t be allowed to make. In this case, think collaboration with IT is the key. But turning this over entirely to IT-Nevel, it strikes me as being no different than turning the design of a magazine over to your printer, which nobody would do. @nevillehobson (05:31) No, I agree. But I mean, what you’ve outlined, I remember those days too, back in the 90s, as it would have been actually, even starting in with the 80s. I can remember a conversation when I worked at Mercer in the late 80s with the IT department, who objected strenuously to the introduction of Mac computers into the office for desktop publishing. So control freakery continued. To be fair to IT, though, I would say that they are an invaluable partner. in the implementation of this successfully in an organization. And the Guardian has a good article that you had in the links, that’ll be in the show notes actually, talking about how employees feel capable and connected due to good technology and job satisfaction. And so having the right tech. And by the way, your explainer of what is DEX is great. But if you’re in… the computing industry in some form. If you’re in mobile tech, if you’re in IT, DEX, typically the first thing you see if you search on the term is Samsung DEX, which is, ⁓ no, I’m just looking at it. It’s actually digital experience, sorry, desktop experience. And it’s getting a lot of traction, a lot of visibility at the moment because of the release of all the new Shel Holtz (06:37) Digital exchange, isn’t it? No? @nevillehobson (06:50) mobile devices, notably the Z series fold and flip, that give you this DEX integration with your desktop. And it’s a big deal. It gives you all sorts of features on a mobile device that you didn’t have before now. So that’s a big thing. It also has a specific meaning in the crypto industry. DEX stands for decentralized exchange. So I guess the cautionary note here is not to assume that everyone will know that it means a digital employee experience without an explainer, a clarity there to avoid anyone being confused. Say, I thought this was Samsung Dex. Hey, I’ve got crypto. It means this. So just for clarity of meaning. But that’s by the way, it’s a very interesting topic. And I think you set out a good assessment of it and the benefits of it. And I would agree with you. I think though. I suppose my thought is focused on two things. One is it’s the employee experience. That’s the key part. This enables that to happen. The tech enables it to happen. But it’s not about the tech. To me, said similarly, and we’ve talked about this before, is you know, turn on lights, which are the electricity that lets you do all this stuff. The electricity is not the important thing to you. Might be to the attrition, but not to you. So this sort of falls in that area, I think. But I would also say that, like many things in employee communication and other elements of organization communication, none of this is done in isolation. It requires the kind of connectivity between different parts of an organization to make it successful. But this is people we’re talking about. So you’re going to get people jockeying for control and all this kind of stuff. That’s inevitable, I suppose. And if you’re really, really lucky, you will have an IT department to truly understands and recognizes their role is to enable you to do these things for the employees. So I remember, unfortunately, as I suspect you might too, too many that don’t do that. It’s a battle. But this is great. I mean, I think the some of the things in the Guardian pieces was what is in my mind, talk about the obvious things much of what you set out. You know, it enhances engagement, performance and retention. I those things are the kind of common sense things that you think about. Although the flip to that would be that that requires investment in DEX tools and staff training. And so that’s got to be factored into this thing, too, which I suspect is at the heart of some of the issues where, you know, employee communicators set out a plan that sets up we want to do all this. They didn’t talk to the IT department who would have told them. To do that, you need these six things and there’s a hundred thousand dollar budget required for that. So you need to talk to each other. Each party needs to be open with each other about plans and not focused only on, don’t want those guys interfering. This is my domain and I’m going to make sure I control that, which is what happens. So I think the pros and cons of this, or the pros in particular, are pretty self evident. You’ve outlined most of them, think, Shell. So it’s an interesting thing that this gap between the tech side and the employee communications, I still seems to exist in organizations today. And I find that really disappointing. Shel Holtz (09:56) Yeah, think I hear about the acrimony between IT and communications from colleagues in other companies. I’m not suggesting that IT is an adversary here. In fact, they are your partner. They are absolutely essential. As printers were back in the day when that was our only means of getting content out. @nevillehobson (10:09) Good. Yeah. Shel Holtz (10:19) to employees and to a lot of other audiences and graphic designers too. I think it is really just a question of sitting down and hammering out who’s responsible for what in that partnership. again, I see a lot of communications departments that simply abdicate the interface for all of this to IT and IT in many cases abdicates that to the vendor. It’s just the interface that we’re getting. And the fact that it makes it difficult for employees to find and use information is absolutely problematic. And I think that’s a communication challenge. That’s a communication issue. As I say, we controlled the design of the print publications. We, in most cases, controlled the design of websites. as we created those for our organizations. The service certainly didn’t do the design for you. Some of them may have had contractors that they worked with who would do it for a fee, but they understood that a designer was necessary for that. And I think it’s just defaulting to IT to create the interface for the various digital tools that employees use to access and use information. And I really think that a partnership with communication would improve that. And most of what I’m seeing in the research and this surge of content about DEX and the communicator’s role in it seems to support that. So I guess what I’m suggesting isn’t that you go to war with your IT department. It’s that you… @nevillehobson (11:55) No, no. Shel Holtz (11:56) take responsibility for this and start working very carefully and closely with them. @nevillehobson (12:03) Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And that’s exactly what I would say as well. It causes easier to do that now. So for instance, you probably you need to look at this way, in my view, that you need to think you’ve got to make a case to the IT department for what you’re doing. That’s not about you ask for their approval. That’s not that’s not what it means. It’s being very transparent. This is what we have in mind. And you’re not going to be saying this is what we’re going to do. This is we have in mind. And you lay out what your plan is. And you have tools that will help you know to present that and what to ask your IT colleagues. ChatGPT will be a great tool to use for this to construct your case that you make to discuss with them and you have a discussion with them. And if you’re lucky, you’ve got a colleague on the IT side who has similar mindset thinking of how to go about this and you’ll coincide and things should be quite smooth, right? Shel Holtz (12:51) Yeah. and it’s the same with rolling out new IT tools. I’ve worked with organizations where communicators didn’t even know a new tool was coming. And IT just rolled it out. They flipped a switch and said, here it is, everybody. This is the new tool. Here’s a link to the user manual. And that was about it. As opposed to a marketing campaign to drive adoption and support and help people understand why the change has been made, you know, that’s marketing, that’s communication. @nevillehobson (13:02) Yeah, yeah. Shel Holtz (13:17) That’s why partnership is so @nevillehobson (13:20) Exactly. So you both sides need to have clarity there. That would avoid that kind of thing. One other point to mention that the Guardian piece talks about, and I agree with this, I remember this being a kind of a matter to be sure you address on every single bit of involvement I’ve ever had with introducing technology to organizations over last 20 years or so, which is the simple reality today, employees expect work tech to match the quality of their personal tools. And that too often isn’t the case. mean, I remember not recently, within the last year, let’s being in a company talking about a project we were working together on, they just happened to observe looking around their office and everyone had these clunky old, I you could tell the thick laptops with huge like two inch bezels all around them. I mean, that’s late 90s even, you know, it’s really ancient technology. And people always complained there about these slow networks and getting IT support was a nightmare. So they had a big problem with that, which is where you get people doing things that, you know, they’ll wait till they get home to work on documents because they got a better computer at home. And now, of course, that isn’t the case. There’s no there’s no but but nevertheless, that’s still a big expectation of people that they expect the tech to match the quality of their personal tools because most people have good quality personal tools. Shel Holtz (14:34) Absolutely. And in fact, where I work, we just recently migrated from the internet platform that was in place when I started there back in 2017, which had a clunky interface and their mobile solution was just awful. It was almost an afterthought. And how important mobile is in the internal communication space these days. And we have migrated a new tool that has a consumer grade. mobile app. now we’re in the process of driving adoption of it because people aren’t in the habit of checking mobile for their internal communication needs other than maybe email. But the people who start using it have reported really liking it. And it’s because it’s as good as what they’re accustomed to using for external purposes. So it really does matter. That’s part of that digital employee experience. @nevillehobson (15:23) It does. It matters a great deal. Yeah, DX. Shel Holtz (15:28) Yep, that particular DEX and that will be a 30 for this particular episode of for immediate release.     The post FIR #473: The Digital Employee Experience is the Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

New research reveals that B2B decision-makers have increasingly recognized the importance of trust. The study also showed that companies that measure trust as a board-level KPI are over three times more likely to report more substantial profits than those that don’t, yet only 22% of companies state that trust is a board-level KPI. In this brief midweek episode, Neville and Shel analyze the data and explore opportunities for communicators to enhance organizational trust. Links from this episode: IPA | New IPA/FT global study reveals trust is a powerful business driver 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 28. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz (00:01) Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 472 of Four Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz. @nevillehobson (00:08) And I’m Neville Hobson. A new study from the Financial Times and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the IPA, explores trust, not as a vague ideal, but as a measurable strategic asset. And their findings are quite compelling. Trust, the report shows, is now one of the most powerful drivers of profit, customer acquisition, brand strength, second only to product or service quality. But alongside this, the research highlights a growing trust gap. the space between what customers, clients and partners expect from brands and what those businesses are actually delivering. That gap has real commercial consequences, reduced loyalty, slower growth, weaker brand equity and ultimately lost revenue. So what can businesses do about it? The report outlines five key pillars of trust, competence, reliability, integrity, intent and communication, all of which can be measured and managed. It encourages businesses to treat trust as a board level priority, not an afterthought. What’s interesting is that these pillars combine both rational and emotional dimensions. Trust, after all, is as much about how people feel as it is about what they know. And in B2B settings, where buying decisions are complex, involve multiple stakeholders, and carry career level risk, trust becomes a critical shortcut to action. There are clear parallels here with Edelman’s 2025 trust barometer. which painted a similarly stark picture of declining institutional trust, anxiety about misinformation and widespread concern over AI. In fact, Edelman reported that 85 % of respondents to their survey worry about losing their jobs to AI. The FT and IPA report picks up that thread and takes it further, showing that while many companies are adopting AI, very few business decision makers actually trust the content it generates. Just 9 % of those surveyed said they trusted generative AI. And 92 % said that if a company misuses AI, would have a profound negative impact on their trust. What emerges is a strong case of putting trust back at the center of how we plan, communicate, and lead. For communicators, that means treating trust not as a reputational buffer, but as a long-term asset, something to measure, manage, and embed across every part of the brand experience. When I first looked at this report’s findings, I thought that surely there cannot still be such a trust gap as we’ve been talking about trust gaps for years. Clearly there’s still work to do and questions to answer. Here are two. What role should communicators and marketers play in closing the trust gap? And how can we align intent and action in a way that actually strengthens trust rather than erodes it? Shell, thoughts? Shel Holtz (02:57) tons of them. First, I’m just stunned that we’re still talking about this. We’ve been talking about this on the show for as long as we’ve been doing the show, but it predates that. I I remember when the IEBC Research Foundation produced one of those academic level studies on trust. And that was supposed to be a catalyst for everybody to be able to resolve all of this in their organizations. And here we are. @nevillehobson (03:06) Yeah. Shel Holtz (03:22) Yeah, there are certainly a lot of reasons that trust remains an issue. think people don’t trust each other if they are on opposite sides of a polarized political equation, for example. I think, as you mentioned, not being able to trust the authenticity of content that you see or even people that you see is problematic. So, yeah, I think… For communicators, there is a lot that we can do. And in fact, we may be the drivers of this in some organizations where it’s not already being taken seriously. And I have to tell you where I work, it’s already a board level issue. And there are task forces and committees that have been convened. by people at the highest levels of this organization to identify the things that drive trust, both internally and externally. There are actually separate committees looking at each of those. There have been surveys and studies, and it is based on the recognition that trust is a driver of business. There are jobs that we win that we are convinced that we are winning, not only because we submitted a great proposal. but because we have worked with a client before and we built trust on the previous engagements. And that’s why we tend to hammer this idea of every opportunity you have to build trust with a client on a project, you do that because that’s going to help us maintain that client and get that repeat business. But if you’re in an organization that’s not taking that approach, that is not dealing with trust at that board level, I think it’s up to the communicator to point out why it should be a board level issue or an executive committee level initiative to connect the dots between that trust gap, which can also be looked at as an integrity gap. If you look at the definitions, I what is the definition of trust? I remember in that IEBC Research Foundation study, I think they said that the simplest definition of trust is the belief that somebody will do what they say they will do. Comes down to that. What is integrity? It’s that say do gap, right? I say one thing and do something different. If there’s no integrity, there’s no trust. So I think elevating this issue to that senior leadership level so that they start to see it as a strategic imperative and as an asset. an intangible asset. We’ve had intangible assets before, reputation and goodwill have both been counted as intangible corporate assets that are factored into a value of an organization, say during an acquisition. So yeah, the start is making sure that the leadership of the organization takes it seriously and then it’s driving it into the organization, sharing examples, making sure that People understand when you won business the role that trust played in winning that business and in equipping employees with the information, the knowledge, the tools, and the resources that they need to understand how to build trust both internally and externally. This should be top of mind for every communicator and every organization. @nevillehobson (06:46) sense. You mentioned your company has trust aboard level attention to KPI, let’s say. That’s interesting because take a look at some of the findings of this survey. That’s a big one. It says that companies that make trust aboard level KPI are three times more likely to report strong profits, 75 % more likely to gain competitive advantage. But only 22 % of the companies surveyed for this particular port track trust at a board level, only 22%. There’s some other really interesting elements just to mention in the context of what you were saying there, Sheld. The trust gap is widening is one that struck me as kind of interesting. Particularly industries they cite, finance, insurance, tech, cybersecurity and property show the largest gaps between expected and delivered trust. business news media ranked highest for trust outperforming all other sectors, including retail and utilities. Trust is a critical commercial advantage. We discussed that right at the outset here. It ranks as the second most important factor after product or service quality, driving business performance, sales, profit and acquisition. It’s now used as a marketing effectiveness metric in the IPA’s effectiveness data bank, having climbed from sixth to second place. over 20 years. There’s others. Human connection still matters. This I found most interesting. 69 % disagree that trusting technology is the same as trusting a human. That’s an interesting one. Only 9 % of the respondents said they trust content generated by generative AI. 92 % said misuse of AI would profoundly impact trust. Those were highlight numbers that I mentioned in the introduction earlier. I could kind of riff on this for quite a long time, Shell. some really interesting stuff here. Media context affects brand trust. I found that finding quite interesting. Gatekeeper media, as they describe it, example, the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, significantly boost perceived trustworthiness of advertisers. That makes complete sense to me. Trustworthy. 60 % said they are now more likely to trust a brand when advertised in trusted media. only 14 % trust UGC platforms with their personal data versus 75 % for FT. That is most interesting to me because they more likely trust a brand when advertised in trusted media. So that would say, I would say if you’re looking there at social network platforms that are jockeying for attention, dollars and growth compared to traditional media, puts those in the distrusted media bucket straight away by that definition. X being the prime candidate. I mean, you look at this, you can see some clear signs of where you need to pay attention to. And this overall picture of trust, I think the interesting thing is, and this to me is linked to the board level KPI interest of what trust means to them. We are in a climate, a huge climate of exceptionally big distrust and indeed mistrust. exemplified by which you see across every aspect of science of human society, of those in positions of power and influence to set the examples are not doing that. And we can think of a handful of business people who we could say, you know, no wonder trust is down the toilet with people like you in charge of things. Your behavior is affecting that. So trust is multi-dimensional, it goes on to say. Again, there’s lots more here, but I think in terms of what communicators need to do, the report talks a lot about what businesses can do. And indeed, that’s quite appropriate in the level of detail they go into. Our interest is really on the audience for this podcast, the communicators, and what they need to do. So It’s something that this report concludes by saying, treat trust as a core competence, we’ve kind of checked that one, some companies doing your company being an example, prioritizing. Right, right. Shel Holtz (10:52) It’s a core value. one of our five core values in addition to being a plank of the strategic plan. So I mean, don’t know how much more seriously you can take it. @nevillehobson (10:59) Right. Well, you got it. And so you’re you’re a standout example. No question. Prioritize ethical, reliable communication. And that I don’t know why people struggle with that, Shel. I sense many, many people, many communicators struggle with that because it’s not kind of enshrined in what the company says they’re about. But that doesn’t matter. You know what you need to do in that context. I think that’s how I would see it. Choose trusted media strategically. Embrace AI responsibly with clarity, measure trust and the game measurement. We talked to Richard Bagnell a couple of weeks ago in an interview about the Barcelona Principles 4.0 and this whole area of measurement and evaluation of communication. And there you have something there. Measure trust and act on what it tells you. that, yeah, I mean, what more can you say to that? So there’s I think much clarity here in the level of detail the supports go into to dig out the nuggets of things that are quite easy to say, OK, fine, here’s my list of takeaways I want from this, and this is how I’m going to execute on this. And that, to me, is a good way to start if you’re not doing it already. Shel Holtz (12:10) Well, measuring trust is important, but so is reporting the results of those to your employees because they’re not going to be able to move the needle if they don’t see where the needle is. being proactive about trust, I think, is vital. We need to talk with employees in particular about the consequences of failing to build trust. it kind of comes down to this idea of building a culture of trust. @nevillehobson (12:12) Right. Shel Holtz (12:36) And I know yet you’re also building a culture of respect and a culture of recognition and all the cultures of that we have in the organization, but they weave together to create this common culture. But if we have a culture of trust in the organization, I think it becomes a lot easier to do things like the steps that you’re gonna wanna take in order for people to feel confident that the generative AI outputs that you are creating for say your advertising or your marketing or other communications are authentic and trustworthy. I’m not gonna suggest the tactics for that. It would be different for different organizations and based on the kinds of outputs that you’re producing. But having that culture of trust would say, okay, we need to come up with a way that will serve our audience as they are evaluating the trustworthiness of this content. And yeah, it could be just the long-term building of trust that you’ve undertaken. It could be resources that you point people to where they can see how this is done. And of course, the better you get it using generative AI, the harder it’s going to be for people to say, hey, that’s generative AI. I don’t trust that. I have this conversation all the time. If you can tell it was written by AI, was poorly prompted and inadequately edited after that. @nevillehobson (13:55) Yeah. There’s a lot to take away from the Shell, think. A to pay attention to. There’s lots of communicators who can grab at here that are easy to understand and digest. And I would argue not that difficult to see how you could execute on something from this report as part of your own approach to creating a climate trust in your organization. Shel Holtz (14:20) Yeah, and there are books on this. I think there’s one called Business at the Speed of Trust that I read during a management training program that was excellent. And even though it predates a lot of the technologies, the principles are very sound and transfer very nicely to the modern business environment. And that will be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #472: The Evolution of Trust appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

There’s a new brand of influencer. Faceless creators wield their influence while never appearing on camera, while VTubers — virtual YouTubers — employ AI-generated avatars instead of showing their faces. This is no flash-in-the-pan trend. One network of faceless creators grew from 5,000 to 21,000 creators in just three months, with some raking in as much as $40,000 per month from brands eager to add their content to the mix. There are numerous reasons this shift is happening, from social networks like TikTok elevating its algorithm over follower counts (enabling someone with few followers to see a post go viral) to the ability for brands to pay for performance instead of impressions. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at the pros and cons of faceless creators. Links from this episode: WTF is behind the explosion of faceless creators?  Faceless creators and VTubers are reshaping influencer marketing There’s a Rise of Six-Figure Faceless Creators The Rise of Faceless Creators: How AI Avatars Are Redefining Digital Storytelling Faceless influencers are becoming famous online 10 Best Faceless YouTube Niches to Start in 2025 5X: The five seismic shifts that will reshape communications and marketing over the next five years Influencing Without the Influencers Liquid Death Commercial Made with AI The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 28. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: @nevillehobson (00:00) Hi everyone and welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode 471. I’m Neville Hobson in the UK. Shel Holtz (00:07) And I’m Shel Holtz in the U.S. And there is something going on that’s quietly shifting how brands reach audiences. Faceless creators, social media influencers building massive reach without ever showing their faces. This isn’t just another social media trend. This is a fundamental change in content creation and monetization. And we’ll dig into it right after this. So let’s start with what we’re actually talking about. Faceless creators publish videos and clips without appearing on camera. Affiliate network grew from 5,000 to 21,000 faceless creators in just three months. Top performers are pulling in 30,000 to $40,000 a month from brand deals. Man, I’m in the wrong line of work. But here’s where it gets interesting. Many of these faceless creators are students or part-timers running multiple accounts, posting hundreds of pieces daily, some of them posting as many as a thousand posts per day. They’ve cracked the code, if you will, on algorithmic discovery, understanding that in the attention economy, volume and optimization often trump polish and personality. Three forces created this explosion. First, have platforms like TikTok that have deprioritized follower counts. Algorithmic feeds boost engaging content regardless of creator size. A faceless account with zero followers can reach millions of people. Second, AI democratized production. You can call it AI slop, but text to video bots, AI thumbnails, multilingual dubbing, mass content production is now scalable by one person who’s got the right tools. Third, performance-based compensation. Creators are getting paid on views and conversions, not flat fees. Brands can experiment at scale without upfront investment. VTubers, virtual YouTubers, use AI avatars and motion capture to create remarkably human personalities. Blue, and it’s spelled B-L-O-O, has millions of subscribers and seven-figure revenue. It editing, thumbnails, and multi-language dubbing. Brands aren’t just attracted to the novelty. They want autonomy, cost efficiency, and creative control. No scheduling conflicts, no scandals, no contract renegotiations, just consistent on-brand content at machine speed. This isn’t just about marketing. It’s also organizational communication. Scalability and ROI are becoming non-negotiable, but authenticity trade-offs are real. The lack of a human presence raises questions about trust in and alignment. Best practice is emerging though, and that’s to blend human content with virtual elements, have virtual influencers interact with real people, or introduce faithless content through recognizable human voices. The most successful organizations embrace new formats without abandoning the human elements that build trust. Mass production can border on manipulation. AI generated content poses authenticity challenges we’re only beginning to understand. When virtual influencers promote products, are consumers aware they’re engaging with AI? What transparency is required? These aren’t abstract questions. They’re practical challenges communicators have to address now before regulators step in with solutions that could stifle innovation. So what does this mean for organizational communicators? First, First, experiment, but do it strategically. Explore faceless formats and AI-assisted production, but anchor everything in your organization’s values. Second, maintain trust. Use hybrid models, faceless clips introduced by named team members. Embed real testimonials and human voices. Third, measure performance. Shift towards CPC, leads, click-throughs. Test faceless versus traditional content to understand what works in your niche. And finally, lead on transparency. Disclose AI-generated content, avoid misleading impressions. In a landscape where trust is fragile, transparency isn’t just good ethics, it’s good business. Now, the bottom line here is that the rise of faceless creators signals content as productive, scalable, and detached from identifiable faces. This isn’t replacing human storytelling, it’s complementing it. The organizations that will thrive will blend deficiency with authenticity, scale with soul. Whether your voice is faceless, virtual, or distinctly human, it needs strategic alignment and authentic connection. The question isn’t whether to embrace these formats, it’s how quickly you can use to learn them effectively while maintaining the trust that great communication requires. And by the way, Neville, just yesterday I read an article that didn’t specifically call out faceless creators, but it made a point that this type of content that the faceless creators are producing is something that you actually don’t need a creator to do. You can do it in-house and a lot of companies are starting to bring some of that work back in-house. So an interesting trend. @nevillehobson (05:26) Yeah, there’s lots, lots about this that I find fascinating. By the way, you mentioned Blue, a virtual persona, and you spelt it out B-L-O-O. That’s actually the name of a toilet cleaner here in the UK, spelt like that. So I just sort of mentioned that as a just saying kind of thing. Yeah, so I was reading through the eMarketer report on this. It’s quite interesting, their take. One thing they said struck me as an obvious that Shel Holtz (05:39) Ha! @nevillehobson (05:56) some may grasp, I certainly did. AI slop, more of it now because of this. But they do qualify that. They say concerns are definitely valid, more AI slop, but the creative shift is equally very clear indeed. Production is being automated and value now lies in ideas and execution. Yeah, you could see that. I find it interesting the trend away from influencer identity, i.e. promoting the individual who is the creator through to promoting what has been created. So if it’s about a brand or it’s a theme or something topical, that’s what you see and hear, not a talking head or some person who’s the prominent focus. It’s the actual message. That’s the thing. So that’s one of the reports I read say that is emulating TikTok. to a certain extent. And I think fine, if this is a trend, then this does add a new dimension to the content that you will encounter in various places online. You mentioned the Vtube. I think it’s great. Vtube, the virtual tube. it’s super. Faces, creators and Vtubers. E-Marketer says they’re redefining the creative space. I can see it. My only worry is is precisely going back to concerns about AI slop is that this therefore makes it easier to to literally deluge everything with slop. But you have to also accept, as I do, that one man’s slop is another man’s venison steak or whatever you might want to describe it as. So it’s like all things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I just think, though, that this is likely to open the floodgates to to AI generated content of dubious quality. It’s a bit like whenever I turn the TV on during the daytime, which sometimes happens at lunchtime, I want to see the TV news and rather than see it all online all the time. That’s when it seems to me in the UK that it’s poor quality slop all over TV at that time in terms of advertising. The ads you see, are usually about cremation services, pet insurance, or other things that niche audiences might want. Insurance for seniors, how to pay for your funeral ahead of time, all that kind of stuff. That scripting is dire. Clearly, I’m not the target audience, although I’m probably in the right age bracket for that. But you’re now seeing this likely to be the case online too. I think, though, you mentioned something quite interesting, that it opens equally another avenue. to user generated content within organizations. So VO, you mentioned VO3. But again, I raise the question to myself more than anything that does that mean we’re gonna see more dubious quality content coming at us in waves that you can’t ignore it everywhere? I noticed things a lot on LinkedIn, Facebook in particular, and luckily they have a way to say, us about this ad. And I said, don’t want to see that anymore. It’s just dreadful. And it goes away. I think I can’t see that lasting that long, to be honest. your exposure is diminishing in quality. And this will accelerate that because it’s already diminishing in quality, arguably, certainly on LinkedIn. So will this also kickstart, perhaps, explorations and experimenting by real influencers online into niche communities? away from the slop. Who knows? But nevertheless, I agree with eMarketer in particular, because they mentioned quite clearly, this is absolutely a trend. It’s gaining momentum. It’s been around a while. Now seems to be the time for this to pick up steam. One of the other links you shared from Axios, an interview with Jim O’Leary, the CEO in North America of Weber Shandwick, the big ad agency. that he says, he talks about five things, the attention economy, creator economy, stakeholder economy, experience economy, intelligence economy. I mean, these are all great things, but they’re all being not led, but pushed along fast by influences and influence. So this then is taking that in a different direction. So Basically, what I see from all of this and from the links, the reports that you shared, and your own assessment of it all, is that this is upon us. You could say if you don’t pay attention to it, you’re going to be overtaken by those who do and that probably is a valid point to make. I would argue too, though, that you only need to pay attention to it if this is something is value to you, your brand, your messaging, everything. That said, though, if you say no, it’s not, then you do risk being overtaken because I don’t think you can say no it’s not. You have to explore how it is and realize that this is upon us. So it is an interesting time. I just hope we are not overwhelmed with the slop though. Shel Holtz (10:48) Yeah, Jim O’Leary says that creators are no longer just a media channel, their culture itself, their content consistently outperforms brand owned content because audiences trust them more. The new reality is that brands must co-create with those who shape culture, measuring actual influence over vanity metrics. And it’s important because creators increasingly drive earned strategies, capturing attention that attracts traditional media coverage and fuels broader cultural conversation. I think he’s absolutely right. ⁓ about that. In terms of the AI slop, I think we’re going to be experiencing a deluge of that whether there are faceless creators or not. On the one hand, you hear about the one creator who’s cranking out a thousand pieces a day. On the other hand, if you’re get paid for this, you’re gonna have to get impressions. And that means it has to be something that people are gonna wanna look at. And I don’t wanna minimize @nevillehobson (11:28) Exactly. Shel Holtz (11:45) the problem that is posed by AI slop. But there’s also a lot of really good content being produced with this. I just saw yesterday a speculative TV commercial. It’s not really being aired, but it’s for a real product. It’s for Liquid Death, which is a canned water product. I don’t know if they have it in the UK, but it’s popular here. @nevillehobson (12:07) We’ll see that. Shel Holtz (12:08) know, skull and crossbones type of logo. But it’s a guy being pulled over on a highway by a sheriff type who walks up and says, do you know why I pulled you over? And the sketchy type in the car says, is it because of my busted taillight? And the cop says, no. He goes, is it because of the human trafficking? And he’s showing the family that he’s got tied up in the back. And the cop goes, And they just keep going through. @nevillehobson (12:12) Listen. Shel Holtz (12:35) these different scenarios of really horrible crimes that he’s committed and the cop says, no, it’s because it’s your birthday, And gives him a cake. And they tell you that the entire commercial, which looks incredibly professional, was made with Google’s VO3, the entire thing. So it is very likely that we’re going to see high quality content coming out of this space. It’s not all slop just because it’s coming from AI. @nevillehobson (13:01) No, it’s not. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s not all slop. Of course it’s not. That’s absolutely right. I agree with you that it’s likely to be that way. So this is upon us. There will be good things amongst all the slop, but we’ll see more slop. There’s no question about that. I just wonder, though, you mentioned the guy who’s cranking out a thousand pieces of content every day. I’m reminded of our conversation with Craig Silverman recently about people who do that in the mobile phone farms out in Southeast Asia with workarounds to get around the limits imposed by platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to limit you to a certain number of posts. This breaks all those limits. So I doubt respectable agencies like Web of Shamwick are going to be doing that kind of thing. But nevertheless, that’s going to be part of the landscape too, because therefore you’re going to have people breaking all the current rules. If your brand is associated with a rule break, don’t think you want to go there. So it may force some changes there, I suspect. So it would be a good thing, I’m sure. Shel Holtz (14:03) Yeah, if they’re in fact breaking rules as opposed to dishing this out to multiple brands who are pushing it out through different accounts if you’re just the creator. @nevillehobson (14:08) They seem to be. So the argument then is it may be legal, but is it moral? mean, that’s how the argument’s going to go, or ethical, know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it’s an interesting development. Shel Holtz (14:19) Well, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I’d need to know more about what that that creator is doing. But yeah, I find it fascinating and certainly something worth paying attention to as this landscape just continues to shift. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of for immediate release. The post FIR #471: Can You Be Influential and Anonymous at the Same Time? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Copyright challenges and intellectual property issues are consistently recognized as a serious, top-tier concern when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI). It may not be the top concern — that's usually related to fake news and the trustworthiness of content, followed by privacy concerns — but many creators are upset and worried about the integrity of their work when it's used as fodder for new training models. The courts will inevitably weigh in — in fact, one already has, with a federal court ruling in Anthropic's favor, asserting that its use of authors' books without compensation constitutes fair use due to the transformative nature of what Claude, Anthropic's LLM, does with them. More lawsuits and more rulings are indeed coming, and legislation and regulation are also likely. However, Creative Commons has always preferred a voluntary compliance approach, grounded in a logical framework. In 2004, Creative Commons (under the guidance of Lawrence Lessig, a prominent American academic, attorney, and political activist known for his work on intellectual property law, campaign finance reform, and the social and legal implications of technology) developed such a framework that allowed people publishing on the web to designage how others could use their content. (This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution/share-alike license.) Now, Creative Commons is proposing a similar approach to AI, with a framework that would empower creators to signal their preferences for how their content is used and reused. The nascent framework is currently open for public comment. In this brief, midweek episode, Neville and Shel examine the proposal and the role communicators can play in shaping its final form. Links from this episode:Continue Reading → The post FIR #470: Creative Commons Proposes an AI Copyright Solution appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

A growing body of research suggests employees are more disconnected than ever. What are internal communication teams getting wrong? Also in this long-form monthly episode for June 2025: Buzzstream interviewed over 150 digital PR pros to assess the state of digital PR. It looks a lot like it did five years ago. Social media has overtaken television as Americans' primary source of news. Chief Communication Officers are in a precarious position, expected to anticipate and address political and societal upheaval, often sharing information executives don't want to hear. Pope Leo XIV has called for an ethical AI framework in a message to tech execs gathering at the Vatican. In his Tech Report, Dan York looks at Mastodon's updated terms prohibiting AI model training, announcements from TwitchCon, and the impact of Texas's mandatory age verification law on Internet privacy and security.Continue Reading → The post FIR #469: Is Internal Communication Failing? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

While a company’s reputation doesn’t appear as a line item on a profit and loss statement or a balance sheet, it is nevertheless a critical intangible asset that significantly influences financial performance and long-term success. A strong positive reputation fosters trust among consumers and B2B customers, leading to increased customer loyalty, premium pricing power, and greater resilience in times of crisis. It also makes the company more attractive to top talent, reducing recruitment costs and improving employee retention. A favorable reputation can also enhance relationships with investors and partners, providing better access to capital and more advantageous business opportunities. The public relations profession is in the reputation business. Yet there are new threats to reputations that aren’t yet on most practitioners’ radars — and if they are, they haven’t found their way into plans and strategies. For example, companies that succumbed to political pressure to back away from their DEI commitments have suffered reputational damage, while those that stood by them have seen their reputation scores increase. That may have something to do with general support for DEI, but research found that customers crave consistency from the companies they do business with, and the sudden U-turn away from DEI commitments leadership previously touted was viewed as a failure of integrity. Add to that the surge of disinformation and job loss AI is already bringing to the business world, and it’s clear we’re facing a new world of reputation management. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at some recent research and reports to zero in on the newest reputation challenges and how communicators should face them. Links from this episode: Culture wars and scandals drag down corporate reputations Companies that kept DEI commitments saw higher reputation scores in 2025 New York State Updates WARN Notices to Identify Layoffs Tied to AI Is AI Damaging Your Professional Image? Musk and AI among biggest threats to brand reputation, global survey shows The disinformation storm is now hitting companies harder M&S is taking reputational damage from cyberattack: research The Reputational Risk Index The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, June 23. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: @nevillehobson (00:02) Hello everyone and welcome to for immediate release. This is episode 468. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz (00:08) And I’m Shel Holtz. We talk a lot on this show about brand and reputation, how to build it, how to protect it, how to recover when things go sideways. Reputation matters. A lot of brands make knee-jerk decisions based on short-term objectives, only to suffer reputationally as a result. Reputation isn’t fluff, it isn’t vanity. A good reputation builds resilience. It buys you the benefit of a doubt, ⁓ a bank of goodwill for when things go wrong. It attracts talent, it boosts your stock price, it shapes policy outcomes and partnership opportunities. And increasingly, it reflects how well your organization aligns with societal values, not just what you say, but what you do. Lately, the rules for reputational risk have been changing. Traditional threats are still around, scandals, product failures, bad leadership decisions. But now we’re seeing new ones emerge, many of them tied to technology and politics in ways that communicators may not be fully pro- prepared for, but can’t afford to ignore. Let’s start with the latest Axios-Harris poll on corporate reputation, because the shakeups there are dramatic. Tesla, which once topped the list of most admired companies, has fallen all the way to 60th. Boeing, with its safety mishaps and culture issues, and now the crash of an Air India 787 Dreamliner, well, Boeing sits near the bottom of the list. And what’s especially interesting here is how much of this decline has to do with cultural alignment or misalignment with public sentiment. Axios points to companies being dragged into culture wars, and it’s not hard to see why. The Trump administration’s ongoing pushback against DEI efforts is having a reputational ripple effect. Companies that backtracked on their DEI commitments or tried to stay neutral are paying a price. Patagonia, Microsoft, and Costco, on the other hand, have increased their reputation scores precisely because they stayed the course on equity and inclusion. They didn’t cave and the public noticed. This tells us something we probably already knew. Authenticity matters. People don’t expect companies to fix every problem, but they do expect them to be consistent and to have a spine when it counts. In 2025, wishy washy doesn’t cut it, especially with younger generations. Now, let’s add technology to the mix because it’s getting harder and harder to talk about reputation without AI finding its way into the conversation. Case in point, New York State just updated its Warn Act notices. These are the documents companies have to file when they plan a mass layoff. Now, if you’re laying people off because of AI, you have to say so. It becomes public information. So not only do you risk headlines like, Company X replaces workers with AI, You’re also potentially triggering employee backlash, customer concern, and stakeholder scrutiny. All of that’s in the reputation column. Think about that for a minute. Laying off people because of a merger or a downturn is one thing, but layoffs tied directly to AI? That’s a reputational landmine. And I’d argue it’s a signal to communicators to get involved early. Make sure there’s a story ready to be told, one that frames the decision in terms of responsibility future readiness and long-term growth, not just cost cutting. Lay the groundwork with your stakeholders on your company’s strategic approach to AI so nobody’s surprised when hiring takes a dip or layoffs are announced. And AI’s impact isn’t just organizational, it’s personal. A piece out of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business explores how your AI tools at work could actually hurt your professional image. If your coworkers or managers see you using AI to generate ideas or speed up tasks, they might assume you’re less competent or less committed, even if the output is amazing. We’ve been telling people to embrace AI, to use it to be more efficient. But if the perception is that you’re cheating or cutting corners, then your individual reputation could take a hit, even if your actual work improves. Now this creates a tension. Organizations want employees to be innovative and tech savvy, but our workplace culture hasn’t caught up. Consequently, we need to help employees not just use these tools, but frame how they use them. Communicators can play a key role here in educating both employees and leaders, especially managers, about responsible AI use looks like and why it’s not a threat to human value. The threats to reputation are evolving. culture wars, political pressure, layoff transparency, AI ethics, it is not the same game that it was a decade ago. And if communicators don’t help organizations see it, prepare for it, and respond to it, we’re going to be stuck playing defense. So be proactive, let’s help our organizations walk the talk, and let’s remind leaders that in 2025, reputation isn’t just a brand asset, it’s a survival strategy. @nevillehobson (05:16) summary there, Shell. I mean, there’s so many statistics to pay attention to, to get a sense of what’s going on. I asked the question to myself, is reputational damage on the rise? And I’m kind of guided by some things have been happening recently here in the UK, which I’ll mention later. The short answer, yes. And you’ve explained it, reputational risk is increasingly volatile and high stakes. So ⁓ we’ve got a Canadian survey, and I don’t have the name of the survey company right to hand. That was done in February. Nearly one in three companies reported reputational harm in the past year. They’re citing inflation, geopolitical uncertainty and strikes as triggers. The Exos-Harris poll you mentioned, that’s kind of interesting. found some other statistics to add to what you said. That poll shows 46 % of companies experienced lowered reputation scores and that’s up from 37 % the year before. consumers under pressure and rising costs and price quality concerns are the main reason for that. What’s driving it overall? That’s a huge answer for that could take us hours to get through everything. It’s so wide ranging economic stress, digital age, disinformation, you touched on that cultural, political polarization, ethical failing, cybersecurity. I’ve got something to say about that in a bit. But the interesting thing too is that ⁓ the ⁓ The Reputational Risk Index Q1 2025 report that just came out has a really interesting list of the top reputational risks. And what struck me was how three new ones are at the top of this list and the rest of the top 10, the seven, they’ve been around for years. But these risks are fast moving and they’ve replaced what was there before. Those top three won’t surprise you. Number one is AI misuse, harmful or deceptive use of AI, including deepfakes, misinformation, biased decision making or unethical applications that cause harm or manipulate public perception. Number two, this kind of made me, my goodness, association with Elon Musk, instances where an individual company or entity is associated with, targeted by or publicly criticized by Elon Musk. So it kind of rubs off on you that kind of social like he insults you on X for instance, or does something that brings your name into association with him. That’s not good at all. So that’s number two, that’s the interesting thing. Number three, this. Shel Holtz (07:54) And that one is interesting because it’s kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, right? Whether you’re on his good side or his bad side is just the connection to him. @nevillehobson (07:58) You got it. You got it. No. Yeah, exactly. So he’s now departed the White House apparently and has gone back to look after his business interests. Does that mean this will change? Unlikely, I would say. But the third one doesn’t surprise me. ⁓ DEI backtracking. The rollback of regulations, policies or initiatives designed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, which aim to ensure fair treatment of full participation for all individuals. If you backtrack on that after you said this is what you’ve implemented. that will hit your reputation. And that’s your damned if you do or damned if you don’t, I think in light of what the US government is trying to do. So those three are the top reputation risks. The others, anti-competitiveness, defamation, breach of contract, copyright infringement, whistleblowing, price fixing, opioids crisis have been around for a while. But that illustrates, I think that kind of complements ⁓ what we’ve said so far in this. And it’s really quite interesting. I think this I mean, there’s so much that we could talk about on this show. It’s it’s kind of hard to, you know, keep a keeper, keep it focused on on what we need to say. But I think you mentioned communicators. And that’s my focus to what is the role of communicators of this. And, you know, there’s four things that struck me what can companies do and the communicators working for those companies defend against disinformation, ⁓ rapid monitoring of online discourse. lead with ethics and transparency in your business. ⁓ No longer optional, some of these things, including DEI, and that’s going to be difficult for some organizations, I suspect. Value-based pricing and quality, as inflation bites companies seen as fair in pricing and product, remain trusted. Crisis preparedness, from digital AI enabled threats to executive misconduct, layered crisis and reputation defense plans are vital. And I’ve seen people talking about that in the last week, actually, that kind of layered approach to it all. I mean, there’s lots more we could talk about there, but there’s so much happening that can be damaging. And the one that I do want to mention, which I’ll do in a minute, is ⁓ an event that happened here in the UK that I wrote about. I’ve talked about it quite a bit online, as many others have. It’s a global story, even though it’s a British company, Marks & Spencer, the big retailer. that was hit by a cyber attack in April and it’s still ongoing. ⁓ We’ll talk about that in a bit if you’d like, but they are looking at a cost estimated by experts about 300 million pounds as the cost for not paying the ransom to the hackers. But the consequences have been severe. Interesting though is what was the reputational damage? And there is no single answer to that. So I’ll talk about it a bit, but… All that stuff about the top three and anything surprising there to you about the fact that these are the new ones that are the big deals for people now? Shel Holtz (10:58) Well, I have to admit that I was surprised to see association with Elon Musk so high on the list. That is such a tremendous reputational risk that it’s number two. How many people, how many companies in the grand scheme of things are at risk of association with Elon Musk? So I found that interesting. But other than that, no. And, you know, the whole @nevillehobson (11:04) You Shel Holtz (11:25) discussion around disinformation, think is one that we, that’s a drum beat we need to keep up because I don’t think most organizations have even started looking at the methods they will use to identify it ⁓ when it strikes them. So this is one, think it’s going to become a bigger problem really fast. And I think a lot of companies are going to get hurt before we start to see, for example, consulting organizations with disinformation practices. Have you heard of one yet? A PR agency or a marketing agency with a disinformation practice or a disinformation center of excellence? I haven’t. So. @nevillehobson (12:06) No, I haven’t. haven’t. But that’s an interesting one, because I think it’s quite complicated for organizations to realize, partly because I think some of the things that you hear about, and there’s a really good story I’m to mention in a minute that was in the Financial Times the other day, that talked about, as the headline called, the disinformation storm is now hitting companies harder. And much of it is appears to be kind of opportunistic by bad actors to quote that euphemism of people who do things and say things and take actions that can damage you with surprising velocity that come out at you that completely unexpected and in disinformation largely untrue yet the stories out there. Good example, we see FT quotes, a company called Aalef Foods, Danish company. the UK’s biggest dairy cooperative. have tankers going around all the farms collecting the milk to make butter and so forth and so on. They learned this the hard way after recently announcing a trial of a feed additive aiming to reduce methane emissions in dairy cows. Some customers pushed to boycott milk products. A social media storm ensued featuring unfounded and bizarre claims that the additive was part of a plot to depopulate the world by creating fertility issues. ⁓ That’s in line with, you know, 5G is a conspiracy of Bill Gates to and, you know, all that stuff went on and it sticks with something like he still see reference to this. This is all the foods, though, is illustrative of that type of fast moving event. And social media plays a huge role in this is is is not can be is very damaging. And they suffered damage as a result of this. There’s other examples I mentioned, too. And it includes a survey by Edelman, they say. of 400 top communications and marketing execs found that 1810 worry about the impact of disinformation on the businesses. So 80 % fewer than half feel prepared to tackle those risks. What we just talked about. Shel Holtz (14:10) Mm-hmm. And I suspect that some of those who feel prepared actually aren’t. @nevillehobson (14:16) Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk, let’s talk a bit about impacts then on all of these things. And I can use the Marks and Spencer example, because it is very illustrative. Yeah, it’s very illust… No, it’s very illustrative. Shel Holtz (14:17) So, yeah. I was actually hoping you would because here’s something that wasn’t, other than not having a robust ⁓ defense in place to prevent the hack in the first place, this is something that was done to them. @nevillehobson (14:38) Well, yeah, this is at the heart of it because it was a cyber attack that began towards the end of April and severely disrupted their operations to the extent that everything you could do before as a customer with online purchasing, the so-called click and collect, looking up your orders, seeing something in stock, reserving it or that was gone. You couldn’t do any of that. Worse, I suppose, for those folks who don’t do online, they go to the stores, you couldn’t use contactless payment at all. The machines are all offline because of the risks and there were horror stories emerging of ⁓ people, know, pen and paper to write down orders and take stock from one warehouse to another in their own cars so they could keep stock levels going stuff like that. No deliveries. They were halted. Some stores went cash only wouldn’t take anything you could manually do your cars, but they wouldn’t. The loyalty apps, 18 million members was not working. Recruitment systems and internal logistics were severely impacted by this. Staff, as I mentioned, staff reported manual workarounds like checking freezer temperatures due to IT shutdowns. I the systems were all shut down. So the hacking group behind it, apparently called Scattered Spider, is known for using social engineering and targeting major corporations with ransomware. I’ve not seen anything new on this since it was first mentioned about three weeks ago, but the speculation is that they got access to Marks and Spencer systems through a supplier, through an employee they tricked into getting them to log in and that then gave them access to all this. Here you’re not allowed to pay ransoms for things like this is illegal, so they didn’t, but they were quite robust in not doing yes, we’ll weather this storm. That is a pretty bold move and attracted serious criticism. I wrote a post not long ago that was very critical of Marks and Spencer and their communication with customers. Now knowing what I do know from the latest developments, I don’t really feel that I would change that. I might tone it down a bit because they did communicate, which I didn’t disagree with. I just said it wasn’t very effective. They were following a plan they didn’t communicate to anyone. So how would you know even what was happening? Here’s a reputational impact they have suffered already. It’s actually interesting, in one sense is nowhere near as bad as many people were speculating. There’s a damn good reason for that. But let me just run down the list of some of these things here. So the reputational impact, according to research from the Maru consumer research firms, big, big in the UK here, and obviously, Marks & Spencer is a big client, brand advocacy dropped. So those who would recommend Marks & Spencer fell from 87 % to 73 % during this period. Trust erosion. Those who would definitely give Marks & Spencer the benefit of the doubt in future issues dropped from 39 % to 32%. Shopping decisions were affected. Between 25 % and 32 % of consumers said they’d shop elsewhere due to the disruption. But broader trust remained more stable. Overall trust, so people saying they’d either definitely or probably trust Marks & Spencer, dipped only slightly from 84 % to 82%. That’s quite telling. what that means is that that trust, people are still willing to kind of lend them that trust in spite of all of this. So experts analyzing all this, including Maru itself, talking about the incident shows that even long established trusted brands are vulnerable to cyber attacks. That’s the number one takeaway, they say. Shel Holtz (18:27) Well, yes. @nevillehobson (18:28) They also say Marks & Spencer has significant reputational credit in the bank, but must act decisively and communicate clearly to recover the trust they have lost. And I see lots of people giving them unsolicited advice on that on social networks, which I think is not helpful at all. They’re not stupid. mean, they know this. Don’t need people doing that kind of thing. Give them something new. But I think the implications that Maru concludes in their reporting is that this particular attack underscores cyber risk as a growing reputational threat, especially when it disrupts core services and affects logic schemes, as this one did in a way that you honestly couldn’t imagine. They were offline for six whole weeks. You couldn’t do anything at all. And my wife, Laura, for instance, buy stuff from Marks & Spencer online. She went somewhere else to get a blouse she was interested in. Not the same. So does that mean she’s now tempted by this other firm? I hope not, because it was even more expensive than Marks & Spencer. So go back to Marks Spencer. But you know, the point is that even loyal customers may waver when trust is tested by operational failure. And that was a thing that the communication, I remember getting the customer emails and the messages pop-ups in the app, we’re all about we’re on it. We’re on it. We’re sorting it. Don’t worry back soon. I mean, that was a kind of soft messaging that, in my opinion, waste of time that doesn’t help you at all. Although, is that really true, given the metrics that Maru has come up with in terms of the overall brand trust? Maybe they’re banking on that, they’ll weather this through until the £300 million hit is showing on their account books, and they put in place ways to deal with customers. One suggestion I saw a lot, which I thought would make sense is they need to offer something to customers as a kind of a recompense, if you will, as a gift of some kind, and don’t try and, you know, layer it all with marketing talk or any kind of thing, just a selfless gift as a way of saying, thank you for your support and your trust or whatever it might be. I don’t know what that would look like via the loyalty program wouldn’t be a bad idea. Some of the stuff they do with that loyalty program is called sparks are pretty lame, must admit, you know, free donuts in the food stall, if you spend two pounds, that kind of thing, do something bit more meaningful. So that might help. Shel Holtz (20:53) Yeah, socks, underwear, you know. @nevillehobson (20:55) the stuff that Marks and Spencer are renowned for, I tell you. yeah, so transparent crisis communication, swift action can mitigate long term damages, they’re concluding, ⁓ employer, I suppose. I mean, these make total sense to me. They seem that way to you. Shel Holtz (20:58) That’s exactly right. Well, they make sense. mean, this was a crisis communication. And if ever there’s an opportunity to take a reputational hit, it’s during a crisis. And they did not behave like a company in crisis. They showed little empathy for the customer telling you we’re on it ⁓ doesn’t make me feel better about whatever it is that I’m dealing with as a result of this, whatever it is I plan to do that I can’t do whatever. inconvenience or difficulty it creates for me. ⁓ I don’t want to be one of those people giving Marks and Spencer advice, but I would have ⁓ flooded the zone with empathy for one thing. And I would have turned the spotlight on frontline employees who were dealing with this every day. So you could see, more than just we’re working on it, to seeing somebody actually working on it, somebody dealing with taking cash and saying, We’re trying to serve as many customers as we can as all this gets sorted out. But I would have really tried to shape the reputation through content marketing as this was going on, rather than just popping up messages saying, we’re still working on it. @nevillehobson (22:28) Yeah, I mean, that is interesting what you say about employees and my experience, which could be throughout the whole chain, but it was certainly in one store that I visit near where I live. I went in there to buy something because I couldn’t do it online. So I went in there and I talked to one of the employees at the cash point where you pay and said, how are things going with all this and what I was left with. She was very reassuring and all that. It seemed to me highly scripted. It’s like they’d had a presentation, she’d memorize the top three things to say with a smile. Now, I don’t want to imply that it’s fakery, not at all. Was that enough, though? I don’t know. It didn’t really sit well with me, I must admit. But then again, I may not be the best kind of typical customer for that point of view. They were doing something in that regard, but none of it seemed like it was a plan almost. It seemed to me anyway, just looking at what I saw in communication, what I saw being reported. the press what I saw about the CEO interviewed saying he and his team are working night and day constantly 724 to fix all this that to me did not sound right Shel Holtz (23:37) Yeah, next thing you’re going to expect is the CEO to say he just wants to go home. ⁓ Like like Hayward during the BP golf spill. ⁓ Yeah, I guess the bottom line for all of this, though, is I’m as we’re talking and I’m seeing all the threads pulled together is whether it’s a crisis as Marks and Spencer experienced that was a cyber crime or @nevillehobson (23:42) Yeah. Right, exactly. Shel Holtz (24:05) a behavior like all of those companies that clawed back their DEI plans because Washington made it clear that it was going to make life hard for them if they didn’t. The companies that are suffering are the ones that are not standing by their values. And I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to, along with developing new plans and new workflows and new thinking. around how to deal with this, because certainly with AI and the ability to create fakery that is hard to detect, we’re gonna need to have those new plans. But I think if organizations are consistently true to their values and show that they have a spine when those values are challenged, they stand to do pretty well reputationally. Those that don’t, don’t. And that’ll be a 30. @nevillehobson (24:59) Exactly. Shel Holtz (25:00) for this episode of Four Immediate Release.   The post FIR #468: New Threats to Reputation appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.