Perception trumps reality w/ AI writing

Perception IS reality in our business.

Take the recent case of one of the world’s most famous investors using AI to help him write an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

I won’t rehash what happened or the criticisms and defenses. Instead, let’s cut right to its relevance for your PR work.

Your executive could be thinking:

“Wait, what? My PR team has been ghostwriting my stuff my entire career. People didn’t realize that? When I found out Druckenmiller used AI to help write that WSJ piece, it seemed more credible with me because I assumed he always used ghostwriters anyway. Why is using AI so much worse?”

I’ve seen the arguments online that attempt to answer that question, and candidly, I believe they avoid the real reason:

Most people distrust AI.

I know that’s a gross generalization, but it’s real. In PR, we get paid to read the room, even if the “room” isn’t behaving in ways our execs find fully rational.

Data centers are a good proxy for AI in general, and you know what’s happening to them and people who support them these days.

Another problem is “used AI” is so ambiguous it’s almost meaningless. People project their own worst fears onto that phrase. They tend to think in terms of “human replacement.”

That’s why, when they hear “used AI to write,” they tend to jump to the conclusion that AI wrote the whole thing. They skip right past the possibility that the author used AI as a tool to stress-test and wordsmith their original ideas.

For now, all of this means you must be very thoughtful about using AI for thought leadership. I recommend you follow the same “W-AI-T” approach that I advocate for writing media pitches, for the same reason:

Perception is reality.

Even if AI helps you write a better pitch or op-ed than you could on your own, if a journalist or, now we see, the general public thinks you used AI, they dismiss it as not real.

Until the norms become clearer, use AI only in ways your exec could comfortably describe publicly. Follow your target outlet’s policy to the letter.

That still leaves lots of open policy questions. When does editing become authorship? Which uses require disclosure? How do those standards change across various PR formats?

That’s why I’m grateful my friend Gab Ferree, former comms SVP and founder of Off the Record, has taken on the challenge of laying out an effective AI and comms policy for you. She’s giving a FREE webinar later this month – you should definitely attend.