The media landscape is evolving. Rapidly. Tech PR firms are navigating uncharted waters as artificial intelligence reshapes not just the technologies they promote on behalf of their clients, but the very practice of public relations itself.
PR pros are very much at the intersection of innovation and communication. They must become adept at separating genuine AI breakthroughs from exaggerated claims, while leveraging AI tools to enhance their own work. Let’s face it – this dual challenge is both exciting and a bit mind-boggling (or even scary!) for those of us in the technology comms space.
The Changed Landscape
The media ecosystem that technology PR operates within has already fundamentally transformed. Journalists now compete with AI-generated content, work under tighter deadlines, and manage an ever-increasing volume of pitches. According to research last year by Muck Rack, nearly a third of journalists now use AI tools in their workflow, from research to content creation and optimisation.
For PR for tech companies, this means adapting strategies to cut through unprecedented noise. The traditional press release is arguably becoming about as effective as a fax machine in most cases. We’re seeing more dynamic, data-driven approaches that anticipate the timeliness of certain stories, for example using analytics to identify when journalists are most likely to cover a specific topic, then delivering a tailored pitch at the optimal moment. Companies unable to evolve their communication strategies in this way risk becoming invisible, regardless of how mind-blowingly innovative their technology may be.
Beyond the Buzzwords: Authentic AI Messaging
One of the most significant challenges in technology PR today is communicating about AI itself. When every startup and their dog claims to be “AI-powered,” genuine innovation becomes buried under mountains of hyperbole. PR professionals must develop technical literacy to effectively interrogate claims and translate them into stories that actually get people to sit up and take notice.
This requires asking the right questions: What specific problem does this AI solution address? How was the AI trained? What are its limitations? By understanding the technology at a deeper level, PR practitioners can craft narratives that go beyond the mind-numbing buzzwords to highlight genuine differentiation and value.
AI-Enhanced PR: The Cognito Approach
At Cognito, we’re not just talking about AI – we’re actively integrating it into our communications practice. Our new in-house media monitoring platform represents a significant leap forward in client intelligence. Unlike traditional monitoring services that simply aggregate mentions, our system analyses sentiment, identifies emerging narratives, and can even start to predict reputational impacts before they fully materialise. This has only really been possible to build in the last six to twelve months because of rapid AI advancement and being able to now leverage the latest AI models to analyse the data we’re gathering.
Anyway, this means our clients benefit from PR that is even more proactive, ensuring we’re consistently front-footed. When industry conversations shift, our teams can immediately provide strategic counsel based on comprehensive data, not just gut feeling or yesterday’s news. For many of our clients which live and breathe in complex regulatory environments and volatile market conditions, this early warning system has proven invaluable in preserving and enhancing reputation.
We’re also actively building specialised AI agents that complement our teams’ expertise to really turbocharge our ability to become “client matter experts” in record time. These systems digest vast repositories of industry information, regulatory frameworks, and competitive intelligence, then make this knowledge immediately accessible to us. For new client onboarding, this has already compressed the learning curve from weeks to days, ensuring clients receive expert counsel from the very beginning of our partnership.
The Human-AI Partnership
Despite these technological advances, the most effective technology PR strategies still centre on human creativity and judgment. And it should be noted our AI tools are designed to support rather than replace the strategic thinking that drives successful comms campaigns. This balanced approach allows our teams to focus on high-value activities like relationship building, creative storytelling, and strategic counsel, while automating the more time-consuming aspects of media monitoring and desk research.
As my CEO Tom Coombes eloquently put it: “The most successful PR professionals won’t be those who resist AI, nor those who rely on it entirely. Rather, it will be those who understand how to harness these tools properly, while maintaining the all-important human centricity that truly drives connection.” I couldn’t agree more.
The Ethics Conversation
No blog post on AI would be complete without addressing the elephant in the room. As advocates for technological advancement, PR practitioners have a responsibility to communicate about AI ethically and accurately. This means acknowledging limitations, being transparent about capabilities, and avoiding language that anthropomorphises AI systems in misleading ways (no, your chatbot doesn’t “feel excited” about your product launch).
At Cognito, we’ve established clear guidelines for discussing our own AI implementations and those of our clients. We believe that maintaining trust requires honesty about what AI can and cannot do, particularly in an era where misinformation spreads faster than Lando Norris (starting as he means to go on!).
The Future of Tech PR
Looking ahead, successful PR for tech companies will increasingly depend on technologic fluency combined with core communication skills. Media relations professionals will need to understand writing a prompt for an LLM as well as they understand headline writing. Campaign planners will need to simultaneously leverage predictive analytics, all the while maintaining the emotional intelligence that guides effective storytelling.
For technology PR specifically, this evolution presents an opportunity to elevate the discipline from mere promotion to a strategic business function built on data-driven insights and real measurable outcomes. The firms that thrive will be those that embrace AI as a partner in the creative process, while maintaining, as Tom put it, the human centricity at the heart of all effective communication.
As we step into this new era, Cognito remains committed to leading through innovation, ensuring clients benefit from cutting-edge AI capabilities while receiving the thoughtful, strategic counsel that we’ve prided ourselves on for the last 25 years. Because let’s be honest – when it comes to navigating reputation in a complex world, you still want a human in the driver’s seat, even if AI is helping you in the pits (I’ll stop with the F1 references now).
Tom Hunt is a director in London and Head of Insights & Analytics at Cognito
