How Communications Professionals Should Position Themselves in the Age of AI
You’ve seen the headlines: AI is coming for jobs. The reality? It’s coming for tasks - not the value - driven roles that require nuance, trust, and human connection. Here’s how to position yourself - and your agency - for the AI-powered future. Pro tip: Start today!
Relationships Are Still Everything - Journalists don’t build trust with chatbots. Stakeholders don’t open up to algorithms. You own the relationship equity—the years of trust, reliability, and earned insight. Use AI to scale and inform, but never to replace what makes those connections thrive: you.
Empathy Can’t Be Automated - Crises don’t follow scripts. Empathy can’t be templated. Whether it’s navigating layoffs, backlash, or community trauma, emotional intelligence remains your superpower. AI can surface sentiment—but it can’t truly feel it.
Judgment Is the Differentiator - AI will give you the data. But should you act on it? Strategic timing, stakeholder priorities, political dynamics—this is the stuff of human judgment, not machine logic. You don’t just interpret the news. You anticipate the headlines.
Change Is Your Playing Field - The last few years have proven this: adaptability beats rigidity. AI excels at repeatable tasks. You thrive in ambiguity. When the story changes mid-campaign—or in the middle of a live interview, PR pros bring the pivot.
Influence Is Earned - Leadership in our field comes not just from knowledge, but presence. From the pitch room to the war room, you inspire, persuade, and lead in ways AI simply can’t.
Cultural Intelligence Can’t Be Coded - AI may translate languages. You translate contexts. Cultural sensitivity, tone, timing—these live in human minds, shaped by lived experience, not scraped data.
Last, but not least - never assume your supervisor or executives know how good you are at your job. I used to think that if I delivered high quality results on every project, it would be enough to prove my value to those around me. This is no longer the case.
If you want to strongly position yourself within your company or organization, focus on building relationships, consider learning how to really use AI to speed, streamline and support your strategy, and map your accomplishments each week to things that AI can’t do (yet).
