FIR #447: Decisions, Decisions: The Struggle to Communicate in the Age of Ubiquitous Malignancy

The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer characterized the current communication environment as one infected by grievance. Another commentator claimed that we are living in an age of ubiquitous malignancy. Communicating with a broad audience of stakeholders is especially challenging in this landscape. While the Trust Barometer identifies business as the only one of the four sectors trusted enough to do anything about it, the options at this point are anything but clear. Also in this long-form episode for January: Different AI large language models (LLMs) portray brands differently, making it a new requirement that communicators consider how AI will position them when developing their messaging. Muck Rack’s 2025 survey on how PR professionals are using AI is out, and it contains a few surprises. The state of content marketing is at the heart of a new report from the Content Marketing Institute. It is apparently harder to quit Meta than it is to ditch X, leaving a lot of people sitting on the fence (your co-hosts included). Meanwhile, Bluesky’s growth is surging, and the company is planning to introduce an Instagram competitor as some of the most important voices that had made their home on Twitter have made the transition. In his Tech Report, Dan York explores the tale of two TikTok bans.

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, February 24.

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 .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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.

Links from this episode:

Raw transcript:

Hi everyone and welcome to for immediate release. This is episode 4 4 7 and our long form monthly episode for January, 2025. I’m Neville Hobson in the uk and I’m Shell Holtz in the us. It’s great to be back with a long form monthly episode. Artificial intelligence figures prominently in this episode.

What a surprise. I’m sure you’re all shocked, falling outta your chairs. Ai really, and it’s, it’s interesting timing based on open AI’s announcement yesterday that they have released their first AI agents. You have to have the $200 a month account to use them. Right now. I don’t, I have the 20 bit of a hurdle.

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it’s definitely a hurdle. Yeah. But he, he Sam Altman did say it’s coming for the, the regular $20 a month account in the next couple of months. I’m looking forward to that. Okay. We’ll hang on to our hats in that case. No, you’re right. She is it this, there’s this, this topic features large in many of [00:01:00] our.

Topics of discussion today and all from slightly different angles, so we have some useful stuff to share. Before we get into much more, let’s have a look at what we have done since the last month of the episode. We’ve actually done five episodes since then, which is one more I think that we’ve done.

Yeah, we’ve been busy previous. Yeah, I mean, that’s true. So just a quick rundown on all of them. We’ve got some comments on some of ‘em too, but a quick rundown. 4, 4 2 on the 26th of December we talked about the it’s still in the news, it’s not, certainly not gone away. The issue between Blake Lively, the actress, and Justin Bald on the movie they were on, whose title escapes me completely as I’m speaking these words.

But it’s all over the news. We discussed. Well topic or the answer, or not the answer, actually the question why PR is a dirty word. Related to that, it’s actually quite interesting, but that, that thing’s still going on. 4, 4 3 on the 3rd of January. So our first episode in [00:02:00] 2025, that was our 20 year anniversary epi episode.

We actually started on the 3rd of January, 2005 with the first episode. So on the, on the 3rd of January, 2025, we marked that anniversary. And we had in your word shell, a bunch of comments to that, a whole bunch of comments. I would guess maybe 30, 35. I’m not gonna read 30 or 35 , but I do have a sampling here.

To share. Terry Flynn communications professor up in Canada says, congrats you’re both pioneers in podcasting when most people never heard or knew of the term. Your FIR podcast has always been one of my go-to sources for information in the PR in comms field. We had a comment from Kevin Trobridge, and interestingly, this was a comment that was left on Blue Sky.

I began listening when I first started teaching public relations in the fall of 2005. It helped me stay connected to the industry and challenged my thinking about how the, how new technology was changing the way we [00:03:00] communicate. It still does. Tom Murphy, who has been listening for a long time left two comments.

One I think was on Facebook and one was on LinkedIn. He said an incredible milestone. Congratulations on the 20th anniversary. It always has been and continues to be recommended listening if you’re working in communications and he. Said basically the same thing in his other post, Donna Papa Acosta, whose voice you hear saying the podcast for communicators right at the beginning of every episode says, I still remember discovering the show in the early days.

You guys are the best Alan Schoenberg like so many of your others. I’m looking forward to listening to this episode. Thank you for having me as a guest more than once and for contributing so much insight and knowledge to the industry. John Cass, who was there in those early days. Yeah, the new communication forum this was a post he left to your.

Post on LinkedIn. He said you and shell are amazing. What a great inspiration to communicators and marketers everywhere. Mark Taylor. [00:04:00] Well done. I remember listening to your first shows before we left Johannesburg. Been in the UK almost as long now. Yeah. Gary Goldhammer says, I remember the beginning and was honored to have earned a few mentions.

Congrats. You both deserve medals for dedication and perseverance. and Philippe Boreman. Congratulations. What a fantastic journey. I remember the start 20 years ago. Thanks for all the great content and conversations. So just a little sampling of what people had to say. Super. Really nice comments.

Thanks everyone. That’s excellent. So then 4, 4, 4 9th of January preparing for Trump 2.0. We talked about that. And that really was looking at the implications for public relations and particular media relations with the advent of, of the new regime coming in at Trump 2.0. And I, I find that actually a really interesting topic discussion that we had.

She really, so then 4, 4, 5 on the 14th of January media relations in the turbulent media [00:05:00] landscape. And that was a kind of a continuity in, in a sense. And we had one comment to that, didn’t we? We did from Shireen Goodman, who is a business coach who said, it’s fascinating how community connections shape news, trust.

Navigating this landscape takes creativity and adaptability. Let’s embrace the change. Yeah, good point. And then 4, 4, 6, the episode prior to this episode on the 20th of January navigating Grievances the title of the Post. And this was one of the insights from the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer that had been published literally the day before.

We recorded that with the usual excellent analysis and reporting of the findings that revealed a global crisis of grievance and eroding trust in societal institutions. The grievance topic was most interesting, I found. She so it’s good that we had the chance to talk about that topic.

High level discussion didn’t drill into a lot of detail [00:06:00] but good. Nevertheless, I thought. Ed, you’ll hear more about that later in or shortly. Today’s episode. Shortly actually. Yeah. Very, very shortly. And also posted over the last month as the latest episode of Circle of Fellows, that monthly panel discussion with usually four IABC fellows.

I tend to moderate those and I moderated this one on sparking creativity. So, so it was a really fun episode with Zora artist Diane GSKi, Andrea Greenhouse, and Martha Mka. Our next episode, if you would like to market in your calendar and participate in real time, be on Monday, February 24th at noon.

And this will deal with communication ethics. Yeah. I wonder if Blake Lively and. Justin Bald will come up in that conversation. Not if we don’t want to be sued by Baldoni. Right? Yeah. Take care. And Diane Gki is coming back for that episode along with Todd Hattori, Jane Mitchell and Carolyn sel. I have one [00:07:00] other quick announcement to make about Circle of Fellows because this is actually pretty exciting.

The IEBC, the International Association of Business Communicators Conference is scheduled for June in Vancouver, and we had this idea of submitting a speaker proposal to do speaker of to do Circle of Fellows there, and it was accepted. Cool. So we will be doing an episode of Circle of Fellows.

It will be on this issue of the Edelman Trust Barometer and communicating in this era of grievance, and it’s gonna use exactly the same format. As Circle of Fellows does routinely, you’ll be able to watch the stream live and participate in with, with comments and observations and the like. It’ll still be available as a, a video replay and a podcast, but it will be recorded live in front of an audience in Vancouver.

So very excited about that. Yeah, definitely. That’s a great, great thing. So we, we did a few of those back in then, didn’t we? Broadcast? [00:08:00] We did one that sticks in my mind certainly was a Reagan conference in Amsterdam where you and I were on stage doing an episode. And there were a few others. You were, you did a few, but we have done that before, but that’s a gap of 15 years or so, I think.

Yeah, I think, I think I mentioned this in the anniversary episode, but there was one where I was speaking to, I think it was an IABC chapter. It might have been in Massachusetts where I brought a sound board and, and multiple microphones and you were. Wherever you were. It was either the UK or the Netherlands.

I don’t remember how long ago this was. I think it’s that the one Philip Boman was doing when he was at IBM. Because there was one. Yeah, I don’t think so. There was one. I I was at that event in, in Belgium. And you dialed in via Skype, if I recall correctly, from the states? No, it it, it could be then.

That might have been the one. Might have been the one, yeah. I dialed in via Skype and Yeah. Took you, we took questions from the audience. I walked around with a handheld mic. That’s cool. And we recorded the episode that way. It was a nightmare to set that up and make sure that it all worked [00:09:00] back in those days.

Now would be easy. It would be very easy today. Yes, it would. We’ve gotta find an event we could get into or do that again. Shell, I think that would be really, that would be fun. We haven’t done that in a long time. We’ve gotten into a rut . So event organizes on PR and related topics. Hello, . Just let us know.

So, we’ve got in the pipeline, a couple of really good interviews. We had you and I talk to Sylvia Cambi just the other day about guess what, AI loomed large in that conversation. Sylvia is someone I’ve known for close to two decades and she is a renowned communicator. She, she’s got a lot of experience and memories to share on.

These topics and others. So that interview we’re looking to publishes in the first week of February and then coming up to have a chat with is our old friend Steve Ruble. Steve was a pioneer 20 odd years ago, and the dawn of blogging, it wasn’t [00:10:00] even called social media back in those days before he went to Edelman.

And he was quite a mentor to a lot of people, me included actually. So we had the opportunity to to book him and have him appear on the show in an FI interview. So that interview is coming up in mid-February and we’re, we’re likely to publish that one at the end of February. If not, it’ll be very early in March, but around, that’s the kind of timeframe we’re looking at.

So we’re looking forward to that. So two in the pipeline and a couple of others pending discussion and cementing. So we’re looking pretty good for really good conversations over the coming months. Great content coming outta the FIR podcast network and we will be back with our reports right after this message.

No worries. I had to, I had to make a time code note here anyway, so that’s [00:11:00] fine.

So as I mentioned, the navigating grievance was a, a primary topic in enablement’s trust barometer. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. And a related topic to it. So we discussed the trust barometer that had just been released. We took a high level journey through the findings of that report, which revealed a global crisis of grievance and eroding trust in societal institutions.

That’s government, business, media, and NGOs. Key topics include the impact of trust inequality, the rise of hostile activism, and the expectations placed on CEOs to address societal issues. And by the way, some of these terms might be new to you but they’re gonna become very familiar over the coming year, years, I reckon, particularly hostile activism.

It’s a very ugly phrase, but it’s an illustration of what’s happening today that would not be thought about even perhaps as recent as five years ago. Definitely 10 years ago, trust inequality. [00:12:00] So, that is a great look at something that’s emerging with it too in, in the context of why I’m introducing it this way is a report from Fleischman Hillard that was published last month on five trends for corporate affairs in 2025.

Each trend addresses a specific theme managing the wave of politics. How geopolitics becomes the day job. Ubiquitous malignancy from misinformation everywhere. New sources of data, new applications, and bigger things are coming as AI moves ahead. So both the Edelman and the Fleischman Hillard reports converge on a critical issue.

That’s the escalating distrust and misinformation, which are eroding societal cohesion, and institutional credibility. Edelman’s findings reveal this global age of grievance driven by economic insecurity, systemic inequality, and political polarization. This leads to a zero sum mindset. They say, where any gain for one group is seen as a loss for another [00:13:00] notably 61%.

Of respondents globally reported moderate or high grievances, feeling that institutions favor the wealthy, while ordinary people struggle. As institutions fail to address these grievances, disillusionment intensifies, manifesting in polarized media narratives and hostile activism. Among other things, young people are particularly disillusioned with over half endorsing hostile activism as a legitimate means of driving change.

Compounding these issues is the trend of ubiquitous malignancy. That’s a magnificent phrase. I think shell or misinformation in everything everywhere, all of the time. To coin a phrase as, as Dave Berry would say, ubiquitous malignancy would be a great name for a rock band . It would, wouldn’t it?

Absolutely. Described by all podcast, perhaps . So that’s described by Fleischman Hillard as a defining challenge for corporate affairs in 2025, where misinformation, DeepFakes and bot driven [00:14:00] content are pervasive. Malignancy in communication now exists in every conversation they say, requiring organizations to assess and manage the balance between authentic and inauthentic narratives.

Organizations face the dual challenge of addressing stakeholder grievances while navigating a fractured communication landscape. Authentic engagement and decisive intervention in the spread of false narratives are crucial to rebuilding trust and mitigating societal divisions. According to Edelman’s report, business emerges as the most capable institution to lead these efforts, but cannot act alone.

Collaborative solutions involving NGOs, governments, and media are essential trust building initiatives. Transparency and communication and ethical leadership can transform grievance into optimism and enable progress in an era where information credibility is paramount in their report, Fleischman Hillard urges communicators to move beyond conventional methods, leveraging behavioral science to understand audience [00:15:00] sentiment and apply channel specific techniques to maintain trust and credibility in a fractured landscape.

So addressing these interconnected challenges requires communicators to remain vigilant, adaptable, and committed to fostering trust across every platform and interaction. Whether it’s reversing the crisis of grievance or addressing ubiquitous malignancy, this applies to everything everywhere, all of the time.

How do you see it show? I see it as a minefield, frankly, right now all of the things that you have posited are, are, are absolutely true. I don’t know what the solutions are. You have people who are mired within their bubbles and the algorithms from the social networks that they engage in are, are feeding them.

Outrage because that’s what keeps them on the platform, which is what makes the platforms money Yeah. Is when they stay and, and see more ads and, and the like. [00:16:00] So I, there’s, there certainly have to be steps, measures that business leaders can take informed by their public relations and communications professionals.

But at this point, I’m not sure what they are. I think authenticity is vital. You’ll hear authenticity is a theme in several of the reports coming up today. And I think that candor is, is important. I think those, those collaborative efforts, those partnerships that you referenced are going to be important when you can see unity among different groups talking authentically and addressing these issues.

Part of it I think is going to be. Not so much trying to talk people out of their grievance as helping them see that either the grievance is unjustified or is is being addressed one way or [00:17:00] another. I’m not quite sure how you do that, especially when the grievance and is, is especially unjustified.

But you know, we got into this pickle in the first place because of algorithms. I mean, it, it wasn’t like this. I mean, people there, there was a left and a right before algorithms took control of, of social media feeds. But what you saw in those feeds was just the most recent posts from your friends and other people you were connected to.

Now it’s gin up outrage because the algorithm has figured out that outrage is what keeps you glued to the network. So as long as that continues, I don’t know how we’re gonna fix this. And the answer might be part of what we’re going to be discussing later in the episode, which is convincing people to leave the algorithm driven networks and, and go to ones that are more organic, where you can have nice conversations about things you’re interested in with, with people you like [00:18:00] conversing with, and, and not be fed this constant stream of.

Outrage. Yeah. It, it, it, it is a huge a huge picture. And I think the way you started your, your comment earlier was, you know, not sure where this is gonna go. I agree. And I’m thinking one thing that comes across from Edelman’s report in particular was some key actions and Fleischman has similar to calls to action for communicators, for, for instance.

These though require you to realize or to, to believe that this is a winnable. Contest, you can win this. And that’s not, therefore the other guy loses which is the Trump approach to things. I think it, it’s win. You win and there’s gotta be a win everywhere. That’s trying to, to, to, I think, establish it in, in a way that most people are willing to consider that approach.

But the real reality I think is this is so big, it’s global, it’s [00:19:00] everywhere. How do you address it? And therein, I think, becomes part of the challenge is you’ve gotta pick something and do something about it. And that, in my view is a leadership issue, but it probably needs the communicators to to stimulate that in a way that a leader can

Grab hold of and do something with. You mentioned authenticity and, and being authentic. Absolutely key. The transparency of it. But there, to me it’s like you could do something in an organization that really does require first a centralized approach from a government typically to really lead the charge.

And we’re not actually seeing that. I don’t think. So does it mean that you then wait for, for the condition to be right, for that to happen? No, you’ve gotta do some of your own organization, in which case you might see repetitive actions taking place and you, you probably wanna share some of it, but not all of what you’re doing.

But at the bottom line I think is if you are the communicator in a large enterprise, typically then you have to . Take a lead in doing something. [00:20:00] So you know, things like, I mean, you mentioned or repeat to the point I made about collaboration across those different sectors, those four institutions of society.

Sure, absolutely. Partner with the government, NGOs and the media to tackle these things. That’s easier said than done because it would’ve been done by now if it were easy. So equip your own teams for the complexity to literally believe, get everyone to believe this is the new normal. This landscape, this the hostile activism, which, which ranges from, you know sharing misinformation online strongly, but also insulting people, attacking them online.

And as Edelman’s report makes very clear indeed, even physical violence in the, in real life that this is alarming, but this is the landscape not everywhere but in some places. So, you know, what, what we’re discussing may be kind of way beyond someone’s interest or understanding if they’re in in a rural community in Central Africa, for example, compared to being in New York City or in London or in [00:21:00] Paris or somewhere like that.

But the reality is that this is the reality. And you know, I, I kind of tongue in cheek using the, the strap line from the movie everything everywhere, all of the time. But that’s exactly how it is. And that’s a point Fleischman Hillard makes quite strongly. So it’s something that. I think that positions communicators as key players in whatever action you take in the organization is something that really, if you are a communicator, you need to grab that, that opportunity and do something.

Yeah. The problem is that I think that there are underlying issues here that I’m not sure business is in any position to influence greatly mm-hmm . Look at the issue of violence in politics. I have read several reports that there are, there is a growing number of people who believe that violence is justified in political causes in the us.

So I, what does business do about that? And [00:22:00] it is my personal belief, and this is based on, seriously, a tremendous amount of, of study. I’ve, I’ve read many, many books and, and listened to a lot of lectures and tried to absorb both sides on this issue. But I think the underlying cause of, of the vast majority of this grievance and, and the ubiquitous malignancy is in the caste system and institutionalized racism.

The remedy for that has been DEI initiatives and we have an administration now that is doing all it can to erase those. You see attacks on leaders. Some have already been fired in the US government claiming that they’re DEI hires. All that means is that they’re not white men. It doesn’t mean that they’re not qualified.

It’s just code for, we want white men in these positions. What does business do beyond. Maintain their DEI [00:23:00] efforts, and many are not, many are, are rolling over because they have government contracts or they just wanna stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs as his retribution tour gets underway.

So I I, I wanna think that there are ways that business can deal with this. I imagine that there will be, a lot of creativity employed. I know that there are people out there like Kim Clark holding weekly calls about what we can do to address this. She’s focused specifically on DEI. But the big picture is that this is something I think that we have to get through, do what we can to improve things and, and to address it and to ensure that our stakeholders feel comfortable with us so that we can continue to do business.

But the idea that we can fix this I, I think that’s a bigger thing than Yeah. That what PR people can do and what business can do. We can contribute. Yeah. You know, Edelman’s saying that business isn’t a better position than anybody else [00:24:00] is not a big help, frankly. No. It requires all these elements to be in play as well.

The, the collaborative efforts, et cetera. I think you are right. She, I think I mean, I’m, I’m hopeful that we’ll see pushback more than we’re, we’re seeing some already, but we don’t know the outcome of that yet. I mean, there’s some local I was reading one of the UK newspapers today that there’s an example across the US in various states of state governments not.

Not going to take action according to what Trump’s executive order is on whatever the topic is. How, whether that’s success or not, we don’t know is Trump is he likely to somehow enforce these things? What I do see though, and I hope I’m dreadfully wrong here, is, is a severe dark age approaching in the United States that will have amplification everywhere.

And I think it might be longer than four years, assuming he, he gets he doesn’t get elected. He can’t actually, can he, he can only run to two times. Well, there’s a, there’s a measure that has been introduced in the house. Yeah, I read that would give him a third term. So, yep. But it reminds me of [00:25:00] a, a, a, a headline in The Guardian the other day with an excellent illustration.

Talking about it was an opinion piece showed Trump sitting on a, on a throne with a crown, and it showed this is caricatures really of the three tech bros. Yeah, Zuckerberg Bezos and Musk groveling at his feet. Basically it said something, this is where the dark age comment of mind comes, comes into that Trump is the emperor.

He behaving like an emperor and he sees himself outside the law. And history shows us that when an empress does that, the acolytes also see themselves outside the law. So and the comment was made which I thought was very apt that George Washington would, would understand all this ‘cause this is what he wanted to get away from.

And establishing the United States in the revolution that took place. It wasn’t about tea at all. It was about getting rid of this kind of thing. And guess what? You got a modern day emperor in the making. And most people, I think, might think that’s a crazy [00:26:00] thing to say, but. Don’t do that. Pay attention to what’s happening in that regard, because it looks, that’s what it looks like show.

It’s absolutely what it looks like. And you talked about pushback, and I’m not quite sure how we’re gonna go about that effectively. One thing we know, we’ve talked about this on the show before, is that citing facts and statistics doesn’t sway people. No. I’m thinking just for example during the Charlottesville march back during Trump’s first term what they were all shouting was, Jews will not replace us.

Well, Jews represent 0.02% of the world population. 40% of all of the Jews in the world live in Israel. Sorry, we’re not replacing anybody , but citing those facts is not going to sway these people from their views of replacement theory, which is, you know, just one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.

But. They believe it. And, you know, you cite your data, [00:27:00] they’re gonna say, I have my facts. So, so how do you persuade? Maybe you chain them to a chair and make them work with debunk bot. But yeah, it’s no good. It’s, yeah, I, it’s, I think business has limited opportunities here. They should, they should focus on what they’re doing internally.

For the most part, I think, yeah, that makes, that would make sense. You have to do something and it, it doesn’t mean blindly do something. Think about what we said on the calls to action. For instance, what communicators could do. Things like equipping teams for complexity. Have people understand this is the new normal perhaps, and, or, or even if it’s not, but have the discussion and make some plans accordingly.

So you can align some of the things you do and reinforce these messaging. Align with core values. I mean, these are all things that are communication focused that are part of the skillset communicators should have and, and it can now exercise. So that’s, that would be a good place to be. I also think a, a shift to stakeholder [00:28:00] capitalism would be very helpful.

And this is an attitude that a business adopts. It, we, we, we heard it articulated first when the US Business Roundtable said, we’re no longer gonna focus solely on shareholders. But all stakeholders that has evolved into this concept of stakeholder capitalism. It’s still capitalism. It’s still about making money.

It’s just making sure that that money is fairly distributed and that the issues and concerns of all of your stakeholders are factored into the decisions that you make, not just the shareholders. Makes and I think makes sense. That could have some sort of impact on, on grievance although not the key grievance that that has led us to where we are so well.

Let’s talk about artificial intelligence , because it’s, it’s, it’s been grim up to this point. Neville . Yeah. There, there’s been some reporting over the last couple of weeks that that’s worth a quick rundown. Some, some some new [00:29:00] research and, and developments notably around agents and brands. But let me, let me cover a couple of other things first starting with how AI characterizes brands and there is research that finds that AI search platforms portray brands differently.

So perplexity. Tends to emphasize a brand’s positive attributes when somebody queries it about a brand or when a query produces results that include a brand. But Anthropics clawed will tend to bring up past controversies that the brand experienced. Now, this variability is significant. It means the way a brand is described depends on the AI platform that that people are using.

And that adds a layer of complexity to brand management For communicators, this is underscoring the importance of monitoring how AI platforms talk about your brand, position, [00:30:00] your brand, and take proactive steps to shape that narrative by making sure that your messaging is, is consistent and transparent.

Next we have Meta’s end to fact checking. In the US and reliance on community notes has AI related implications that we really haven’t spent a lot of time talking about. Meta’s change of heart is part of a larger convergence of technological advancement, political change, and those evolving media dynamics that we talked about a couple episodes back this is according to a site I found called TV News Check.

I had never heard of it, but it’s got some really interesting content on it. This shift signals a fundamental change in how social media platforms approach truth. For instance, a study by copy leaks found that there was an 8362% increase in AI generated content on the net from November of 2022 to March of 2024.

That’s almost an [00:31:00] 8500% increase in a year and a half. Now, imagine how that’s going to affect the ability to maintain online information integrity with meta doing away with its content moderation. A lot of this AI generated malicious slop is going to be shared on Facebook, and as AI generated content continues to proliferate across the net, we’ll probably say, see information availability, overshadow information quality as we move from paying attention to journalists.

To news, flu news, flus, who’s going to maintain accuracy amid all that slop? But let’s talk about agents. As we mentioned at the top of the show, OpenAI has introduced its first agents. They’re limited in capability. They can’t do anything malicious, but they’re the first shot out of the gate.

And it’s one of the most exciting developments in Gen AI is the rise of agents that can perform tasks on behalf of consumers. Book [00:32:00] flights, order meals, manage your calendar. But what does this mean for brands? For one, AI agents provide an opportunity to streamline and personalize the consumer experience.

When a user asks their AI agent for recommendations, whether it’s for restaurants, hotels, products, the agent pulls from the information available online to make suggestions that puts the onus on brands to ensure that their digital presence is optimized for AI interactions. If your product isn’t well represented in well in ai, searchable databases or reviews, you risk being overlooked.

Brands can enhance these experiences by creating AI friendly content. For example, structured data on your website can help AI agents better understand and recommend your offerings. If a consumer asks an agent for a family friendly hotel near the beach, a brand with properly tagged data about location, amenities and reviews is far more likely to get that recommendation.[00:33:00]

Another strategy is to partner with platforms integrating AI agents. Imagine an airline developing seamless integrations where an AI agent can book flights, select seats, and notify travelers about upgrades in the brand’s voice. Think about a retail brand enabling AI agents to handle returns, answer product questions, and suggest complimentary items based on purchase history.

The real opportunity lies in how brands humanize these interactions. AI agents shouldn’t just execute transactions. They should reflect the brand’s personality. For example, a luxury brand’s AI interactions might emphasize exclusivity and elegance. While a family-oriented brand might focus on warmth and ease of use, these nuanced touches can turn mundane AI-driven interactions into memorable brand experiences.

Finally, brands have to consider accessibility. Agents should enhance, not limit how diverse audiences interact with your brand. [00:34:00] So ensuring your product descriptions and services are available in multiple languages can help AI agents provide more inclusive results. Moving along from agents. Let’s talk about proactive pr.

With platforms like OpenAI and Google analyzing millions of data points to surface trending topics, brands need to be quick on their feet. Reactive PR is not adequate. Communicators can use AI tools to monitor these trends in real time, allowing brand brands to engage in relevant conversations as they unfold.

I have set up a couple of chat GPT tasks that alert me to things that are happening that I’m not finding through the other tools that I have that might incline me to want to get some proactive messaging out. An example might be if a trending topic aligns with your brand’s mission or values, you can craft timely, authentic messaging to join that conversation.

That’s not only keeps your brand visible, but also positions [00:35:00] it as responsive and in touch with the world around it. And finally, brands are tapping into Gen AI to foster creativity and engagement campaigns where consumers use AI to design products or create unique artworks are becoming increasingly popular.

For instance, fashion brands have used generative AI to allow customers to co-create designs, making them feel more personally invested in the brand. This kind of collaboration not only produces highly personalized content, but also deepens the emotional connection between the brand and its audience.

It’s really a win-win. Consumers get a unique experience. Brands gained advocates who are excited to share their creations with their networks. So lots of opportunities for brands emerging in the AI space that, that it really goes beyond having it write content and create images. Yeah, absolutely. It, it got me thinking, listening to what you were saying, particularly about open AI’s operator the the agent they’ve built, and [00:36:00] also this last bit you talked about reactive PR and so forth that, when we talk about the state of pr, and we’ve got a report coming up on that, actually the state of, of AI in pr. It’s still largely focused on the how many since the last time and, and what they’re doing by percentages. And what we’re gonna talk about in a bit is not much different than that, or we’ve got some better views on it.

This though is the sec next level. That we need to be paying close attention to. And it’s easier to do that because now everyone, I mean this is very loosely talking here. Of course, everyone has acquired the knowledge. They’re up to speed on those basics. Now, how many people are using ai? Yeah, I get it.

To write this, I get to review this or summarize that report or whatever. This is now what we need to be paying attention to. And that article you shared for what you were saying from search engine land has a really simple but very clear kind of explainer at the end, knowing when to leverage reactive PR versus proactive pr where [00:37:00] AI plays a significant role.

And this, when, when you read this, you’ll think, oh yeah, that makes sense. But first time I’ve seen this. All together. This way it’s well done. So reactive pr, the example they’re giving is capitalizing on breaking news. So there’s something happening that outside your control, you didn’t instigate it.

Here’s things you can do. Yes, Jackie and proactive, aligning with cyclical news. I mean, these are terrific examples. So, you know, good for you search engine. Putting that post together, it’s really, really useful. I, I think the exciting one though, to me is, is indeed this so open AI agent, the operator and what they, how they explain it in the in the introduction page on their website.

Is exactly what you were saying at the very start of this, of this segment examples of what they could do. So you know, it, it is like, you know, the, they’ll, you’ll give it the, the task, you’ll prompt it. I mean, this is putting it in real simple terms and off it will go to, to fulfill your task and then come back to you.

But then there’s much more it’ll do. It’ll [00:38:00] ask you question that you haven’t prompted. It would even be able to do multitasking whilst it’s doing these things unprompted. So that’s handy. And especially things, the example they give is dead simple. But you know, it’s the way they explained it to open eyes, similar to using multiple tabs in a browser.

So you are, you are having the operators doing multiple tasks simultaneously by creating new conversations. So the example they give whilst it’s making a booking for a holiday on a holiday website, it’s also ordering a personalized enamel mug on Etsy, like the, like the FIR podcast mug. We had, we had those back in the day, didn’t we?

We, we did. Not on Etsy. Not on Etsy. Mind you, no. So these are really good, and it reminds me, again, experience back at IBM with IBM Watson. What they were talking about is this. Except they were linking it to business productivity tools, like equipment of Outlook, for instance. Not just the email, but everything, the calendar, the contact list, and all that, that would manage [00:39:00] your agenda for you, manage your business life for you, meetings and, and accepting requests, all that kind of stuff.

And it’ll do all that, right? Eventually you’ll have an agent that will do all that for you. But this, the way they described this is wider and probably far more exciting to, to a general audience. It’s not just business here. And this is fantastic. So this is where we need to be. I think in, in our journey of, of knowledge of what’s possible with artificial intelligence.

And it’s generally talking, it’s about generative artificial intelligence, but not exclusively in a business sense, and for brands specifically, which is the focus of this conversation. So this is really good. Yeah, IBM had an intranet years and years ago. We talked about it on the show, but I bet it was toward the beginning of our, our work together.

It had a homepage that had a module that would look at your calendar identify what was coming up, and then provide you with resources to [00:40:00] help you with. So if you were doing an interview, it would link you to the interview guide and, and the talent acquisition guide. If you were doing a performance review, it would link you to appropriate resources for that.

You know, I, I work with somebody, I was telling about this and she said, that’s the dream is, is that the intranet helps me through my day. Yeah. Without making me go look for stuff. It knows what I’m doing and, and proactively delivers it. AI agents will do that. Drop dead easy. Yeah. Just set up an agent to do that and house it in a module on the homepage of the intranet so that it is targeted to each individual employee through active directory or what have you.

And, and it’s done. So I, I think that’s coming.

Okay.[00:41:00]

In terms of proactive pr, what strikes me about this concept is, is that there’s nothing new to it. You talked about what’s happening in the news. David Meerman Scott, how long ago did he write the book on Newsjacking? Yeah. It was real popular for a while, but I don’t see much of it anymore. Then we did a report years ago.

This was, I think it was a tequila brand that on Instagram, shared a picture of the tequila bottle and a couple of glasses and some . Coffee beans. And it’s because coffee bean martinis were trending on Google . They saw that in the Google Trends report that you can go look at anytime you want. And they said, wow, look at everybody talking about, let’s jump into this conversation.

So these ideas are not new, but they haven’t been broadly embraced. We continue to lean on the old practices of public relations, which is reacting to something that has happened so that we can [00:42:00] fix it. And that’s gotta change. I, I mean, we can’t stop reacting if something happens. We have to address it.

But we have to balance that with, with proactive pr that helps get our messages across. Yeah. And move the needle, or maybe even move the Overton window if we should be so lucky. Right. I think as more people do this, more knowledge will disseminate and we’ll see an uptick in this, I hope. But this is really interesting stuff, I have to say, Cheryl really is.

So, on that point let’s talk about that survey I mentioned that research about what what’s happening with AI and pr. That is a a survey report from Muck Rec that’s just come out. So this I found quite interesting when I was looking into this about how we’re gonna talk about this, because I thought, okay, let’s just look at some linking here.

So there’s no doubt that developments and AI are moving at quite a pace. I think we agree on that. I said those words back in March, 2023, nearly two years ago in [00:43:00] a blog post about AI and pr I wrote. While hype is at its peak, the time is now for learning more about ai, experimenting with it yourself and discovering how it can be of distinct value to you and your work and in your leisure.

With learning and experimenting comes the confidence to discard the hype as you glean insights that help you focus on what matters and what actually is important, except in a large part in the PR profession. I said at the time, the survey by the PRCA, that’s the Public Relations Consultants Association and the ICCO, that’s the International Communications Consultancy Organization, revealed that 25% of respondents categorically stated they would never use AI tools like chat GPT in their work.

I mean, that’s. That’s come back to haunt him. I tell you, thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then. According to Muck Rec’s latest report on the state of AI and PR for 2025 published this week, three quarters of PR professionals, 75% are now using tools like chat, GPT and [00:44:00] DE to elevate their work. This is substantial progress, I think, according to MuckRack figures, which showed that this is only 28% in 2023 rising to 64% in 2024.

So we’ve seen a clear progression there. It paints the report, paints a fascinating picture of an industry quickly embracing this technology with 93% of users saying it speeds up their work and 78% claiming it improves quality. What’s especially interesting I is how PR pros are using ai, not just for writing and editing, but for brainstorming research, even strategy development.

Yet as exciting as this adoption is, the report raises questions about how well the industry is managing this shift. Fewer than 40% of PR professionals say their organizations have clear AI use policies and fewer than half provide any training. This means many practitioners are navigating this space with little guidance, relying on their own judgment for ethical use and disclosure.[00:45:00]

The report also highlights risks that can’t be ignored. A top concern the next generation of PR professionals may become too dependent on AI neglecting the core skills that underpin the craft. There’s also fear that clients or leadership might see AI as a shortcut for creativity, undervaluing the unique contributions of human practitioners.

So where does all this leave us? We’ve seen how AI can amplify creativity and efficiency, yet its impact on foundational skills and values remains uncertain. Muck Rack’s report offers a powerful snapshot of where we stand, but also challenges us to think about where we’re headed. How do we strike the right balance between innovation and authenticity, between speeding up processes and preserving the craft?

These are critical questions. How can PR professionals use generative AI to create meaningful outcomes while safeguarding the integrity of their work? What steps can the industry take to support ethical and effective use? Big questions. I [00:46:00] think Cheryl, very big questions and even with the strategic development and brainstorming and other uses to which PR practitioners are putting ai, I still think that we are focused on low hanging fruit and not really digging into some of the potential nor I think are we

Examining how we’re going to be able to use it as the agents become available. Anthropic has a demo version of an agent. It doesn’t actually run on your computer. It runs on a virtual machine so that nothing that goes wrong can infect your computer or affect your security or your privacy. But I gave it a, a, a try.

I went ahead and installed what I needed to install on my computer to run the virtual machine, and I ran the agent and I, I produced a video. It’s on LinkedIn and Facebook and on my YouTube channel. But what I used it for was to identify opportunities [00:47:00] in construction related conferences in 2025 that had open calls for speakers or the calls for speakers.

Were going. To come out during the year where the conferences provided us with an opportunity to showcase our subject matter experts in the market sectors where we operate. So my instructions were really clear. I said, first, go to my company’s website and identify our market sectors and our areas of subject matter expertise.

Then find relevant top tier construction related conferences. And I gave it the instructions about calls for speakers. And I said write a document with a strategy for getting into these conferences and create a spreadsheet that lists the top 10 conference. Its date, the URL for the conference when the call for speaker [00:48:00] deadlines.

And I set it off, and you could see in the left hand column it would explain each step. In fact, what it did was it took a screenshot after it had completed each step of the desktop so it could see what it had done and what it had to do next. But I just sat there with my arms folded, well, not quite, because I occasionally would get a message that said, you have reached your rate limit

And I would have to type, please continue. Or it would say, you have to wait one minute and 30 seconds to get a new rate limit. And I go, okay. And then I’d say, please continue. But other than please continue all I did was sit there with my arms folded and watch it do this as it created a document and a spreadsheet.

You, you start to apply this to other work that we do in PR and communications, and it begins to really seem overwhelming. How, how much of our day-to-day activity is going to be taken [00:49:00] over by a well prompted AI agent. I, I think this report is right though in

advising caution because a lot of this work is work that an intern would do. If, if, if I were in a large enough de department that I have, I, I would have an intern. I would have an intern go out and find the conferences. I would probably spend an hour with an intern first. So they understand what our areas of expertise are and what our market sectors are.

then I would turn them loose and they would probably spend a day and a half. Reading about each conference and you know, noting the dates of the call for speakers and what the requirements were. I don’t need an intern for that anymore. An AI agent will be able to do that in three or four minutes without an intern who learns the entry level ropes to begin their progress up the ladder to becoming a partner or becoming a vice president of communications or a chief [00:50:00] Communication officer.

I think this is a serious problem and not enough attention is being paid to it. Yeah. Because there’s so much excitement about what this can take off our plate that we’re not thinking about how the up and coming people in this industry learn the ropes. There’s just seems to me gonna be fewer and fewer ropes to learn.

Yeah, that’s a very good point to emphasize. We are excited about all this and we are being galloping down the road with excitement and this is falling by the wayside. It seems to me. It also seems to me that we need to address this now because the pace is picking up and the, the new outcomes up.

People who talk about are accelerating in, in, in the frequency and the shortening the time between them all. So now is the time to be looking at this. And it could well be that not just in communication. I think the legal profession and many other professions where that sort of description you made of a career path, let’s say, and knowledge [00:51:00] path an insights path in the organization is is well for most organizations I would say it’s important.

But that is, we expressed it well that we, we relying on something that can perform all those tasks in minutes as opposed to days. And we have choices here. What are we gonna do? We’re gonna do the minutes, aren’t we, not the days. And plus we’ll save money on our budget. So that kind of thing. It, it, it definitely needs to be addressed at an organizational level, I would say.

I think if I were the leader of a public relations agency, I would be convening my top leadership and starting the process of rethinking career paths. And I would be doing that in the client side too. Frankly, we know, especially among millennials and Gen Z, how important career development is to them in the jobs that they choose.

They want a company that is going to pay attention to them take their desires to grow seriously and provide them with not just the opportunities to learn, [00:52:00] but a clear path to get to where they want to go with their managers working with them. With AI taking over a lot of these roles what does that career path look like in a lot of jobs?

I mean, you know, I work in construction, so a lot of construction jobs, frankly, aren’t gonna change that much until we have AI empowered robots that can actually go, you know, do a concrete pour or, you know, build rebar form work or, or what have you. Yeah. But. For a lot of jobs how you get from a college degree to wherever it is you wanna end up in your career is going to look very different.

And this is on top of the fact that anybody who thinks that we’re not going to have significant job loss down the road from this just isn’t paying enough attention to, to what’s actually happening. There are gonna be a lot of people outta work at, at some point, and as a society, we need to figure out what to do about this.

I’ve already heard somebody refer [00:53:00] to it. Oh, we’re just creating a big welfare state. And as a perception problem, the idea of a universal basic income when the machines are generating all the wealth is, is not the same as, as a welfare state. Not suggesting that’s the only solution I. Don’t know, that’s for other people to figure out.

But somebody has to start figuring it out because we’re gonna get there sooner than we’re ready for. So what we can do at the business level is start to think about our employees and how we’re gonna accommodate their desires to grow in their careers. In a world where AI is doing 60, 70, 80% of what that job used to do five years ago,

that Dan York Huh? Go down. So give two minutes. I need a pee. I knew that was coming. . Yeah. I thought I’d last, but I had a di a a Coke zero just before we started. [00:54:00] Best product Coke has ever made. I’ll be right back. Okay. Two minutes.[00:55:00] [00:56:00] [00:57:00] [00:58:00]

It’s a dilemma to me. We’ll talk about that. But first, with the tectonic shifts in the media, is content marketing still as viable a practice as it has been? The content Marketing Institute’s 2025 enterprise content marketing research report finds that while content marketing is thriving, the landscape has become more complex for openers, there’s good news.

The report highlights that 71% of enterprise marketers surveyed believe their organization’s content marketing efforts are either moderately or very successful, which is actually a, a slight increase from last year. But success isn’t without its challenges. One key takeaway from the report is the growing pressure to prove return on investment.

With budgets [00:59:00] tightening in many industries, leadership teams are scrutinizing content marketing investments more than ever. Teams that document their strategies are significantly more likely to succeed at this. The report emphasizes that organizations with clear goals, audience personas, which is important and workflows are better equipped to produce the kind of content that delivers measurable ROI, and they’re able to demonstrate that to those leaders who presumably will then leave their budgets alone.

Just a few weeks into 2025, employee generated content is emerging as a powerful tool, particularly for B2B brands. According to an article in Forbes, tapping into the voices of employees enhances authenticity and extends reach. Employees tend to have their own personal networks of family, friends, and colleagues who trust their recommendations, making their content a valuable asset for brand storytelling.

So if you do a video that features one of your employees, it’s not just gonna get shared through your networks, but through their [01:00:00] networks. Take as an example how a B2B SaaS company might encourage sales reps to share tips on LinkedIn about how they use their company’s software. These posts come across as genuine, relatable, and more credible than corporate promotions.

We also in content marketing need to start thinking about Gen Alpha. Much of today’s content marketing targets are millennials and Gen Z, but Gen Alpha, the kids born from 2010 through this past December 31st. You know that right? Anyone born as of January 1st this year is part of generation beta.

But in terms of Gen Alpha, marketing Brew recently spotlighted how brands like Kids Bop are using platforms like Roblox to connect with the alpha demographic kids. Bop partnered with Game Fam to create an interactive experience within Roblox where could kids could engage with the brand through mini games and music.

This matters because [01:01:00] Gen Alpha represents the future of consumer culture. Not to mention that the oldest of them are already 15 and marketing targets. They’re growing up with digital experiences and their expectations for engagement are through the roof. For brands, this means creating content that’s immersive, interactive, and seamlessly integrated to the platforms where they spend their time.

By the way, immersion is something to consider for internal communications too, and this doesn’t mean people putting on VR headsets necessarily. As Monique Nik would put it, putting employees at the center of the communication process, just like the ROBLOX Initiative, put kids at the center of that experience.

So what should we take away from all this? The content marketing landscape in 2025 is shaped by three big factors. Strategy, authenticity, they’re the word again, and adaptability. So document your strategy. The Content Marketing Institute report makes it clear. Organizations with documented strategies [01:02:00] perform better.

This isn’t just about having a plan, it’s creating a roadmap that aligns content with both business goals and audience needs. Finding that point of connection. We need to leverage employee voices because encouraging employees to become content creators. Is going to extend your reach and deepen audience trust.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s sharing their expertise on LinkedIn or contributing to a company blog and experiment with emerging platforms. Keep an eye on how platforms like Roblox evolve. Even if your brand isn’t targeting Gen Alpha today. Understand these environments in order to prepare yourself for tomorrow’s audiences.

Of course, we’re gonna keep an eye on these trends and share any insights. That will help you stay ahead. But Neville, what do you think got content marketing today? Yeah, I thought you were gonna say, by the way, at the end of that last statement you said you are gonna add so you don’t have to . But we don’t say that we [01:03:00] you do have to.

It’s it’s on you as much as it’s on us. Right? Exactly. Right. Exactly. I, I find it intriguing, to be honest. She, in one, one particular area, which is listening to what you were saying and looking at some of the articles that you were referencing, this is stuff I remember being on kind of discussion agendas two decades ago.

Really but we didn’t call it content marketing back then. So I’m thinking, are we still in the, sorry state where we need to remind people these are the things you gotta do in organizations. Is, is that what it looks like to you? ‘cause that’s what it seems like to me. Yes, that’s exactly where we are.

And if you look at a lot of the content that’s coming out of organizations today, it’s clear that people have not necessarily embraced the principles of, of content marketing. And, you know, you have the Content Marketing Institute, which does really excellent work in this space. I don’t think enough organizations pay attention to the learning that, that they share.

Yeah. That, okay, I get tha

01/25/25 | 0 Comments | FIR #447: Decisions, Decisions: The Struggle to Communicate in the Age of Ubiquitous Malignancy

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