Can AI improve the PR process?

Journalists, entrepreneurs, and even some public relations professionals will tell you that the PR process is broken, which is where answer engine optimization (AEO) comes in. But could AI actually make things better? Honeyjar, which will be attending this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200, wants to use AI to make the expertise and judgment of the best PR pros available to everyone, including founders who have no idea where to start.

The startup’s founders, CEO Michelle Masek and Chief Communications Officer Nadia Jamshidi, certainly fit the bill when it comes to PR expertise. They’ve both spent decades in the field, doing in-house communications and working at agencies. Masek recently served as senior vice president of marketing and communications for Ev Williams’ venture firm, Obvious Ventures.

How does Honeyjar's AI-powered PR tool work?

As Masek described the challenges involved in “helping with the why and when of comms and marketing for 110 portfolio companies” (the startups her firm had invested in), it becomes clear that the need for effective communications is vast. Honeyjar is her answer to that question, automating processes like writing announcements, finding the best journalists to pitch, and identifying the most promising speaking opportunities.

But Jamshidi told me in a follow-up email that Honeyjar’s vision goes beyond getting press coverage and beyond specific AI tools. “Honeyjar can find reporters, build media lists, scan news and social, track coverage, and surface opportunities,” she said. “Those capabilities are important, but they’re just one piece of what we’re building. The bigger idea is bringing the whole communications workflow together: signals, context, strategy, judgment, timing, and execution.”

And it’s not just for founders. Masek said she’s come to realize there are “millions and millions of unassigned communicators responsible for the work of comms.” They don’t have the title of comms, but they’re marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents, sports team leaders. It’s incredibly horizontal, this need to nail strategic communications.

Nor is Honeyjar trying to replace PR professionals. Masek said she and Jamshidi built the tool they wanted to use themselves. She argued that Honeyjar can make PR firms and in-house comms teams more effective, while allowing individual PR practitioners to “take on that third client without any scaling cost.”

When Honeyjar opened its waitlist, it received 10,000 signups in the first 24 hours, said Masek. Beta testers include Nextdoor, tech startup Coco Robotics, investor Bloomberg Beta, and agencies Mission North and Full Picture. That sounds promising for companies looking to get more attention, but it could be a nightmare for journalists, who already receive more pitches than they can respond to, many of them already written by AI chatbots.

Masek noted that while Honeyjar can draft a pitch email or a social media post in the customer’s voice, the customer actually has to hit send or publish. “We never want a world where the human is removed from the loop,” she said. And that’s also where judgment is key. Masek said she and Jamshidi tried to “infuse and encode Honeyjar with our wisdom.” Through a broader initiative called the Comms Lab, they’re now training the product on the judgment of other PR pros as well.

This article was written with the assistance of AI.
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