How to ethically use AI in public relations

Using AI comes with its own ethical and legal challenges.

As we’ve previously covered, emerging artificial intelligence technologies can be a boon for your company’s public relations content production. With its ability to quickly create content, your company can quickly create useful first drafts for the rest of your team to build upon, among other benefits.

While AI is an effective tool for PR content creation, you can’t use content as-is. Before your company begins using AI-generated content for PR, you need to make sure you have a clear usage policy, a process for when an AI takes content from other sources, and a vision for how to deal with copyrighted materials it might use.

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Creating an AI usage policy

When considering using AI for PR work, your company should discuss developing an ethical policy for using AI. Some issues the policy should tackle include:

• When AI should be used
• How your company will disclose when those tools are used
• What processes you will go through to make sure content generated by AI fits your company and its voice
• How your company will copy edit and fact check materials generated by AI

If your company is considering hiring a PR firm, ask what their policy on AI is and how they use it before hiring them. If they’re not clear about their policy, it’s best to look for another firm.

Plagiarism and AI

Due to AI’s design, AI-generated content will likely contain content from other sources in a way that’s considered plagiarism. Therefore, it’s vital your company runs AI-generated content through plagiarism checkers, such as Grammarly, to find out where the AI pulled information from. From there, you can properly credit the original sources.

Copyrighted material and AI

AI models can be and are trained on copyrighted content. This leads to significant issues as to the copyright status of content created by AI in the U.S. While courts have previously said content created by AI is not subject to copyright if there is no proof of sufficient human involvement in the content’s creation, there are still significant questions about the status of materials generated from copyrighted content like stock images.

Before seriously using AI-generated content, it would be wise to consult with lawyers, particularly those who specialize in copyright law, to ensure your company’s AI-generated content is legally sound.

Using AI without harming your company

While AI can be a big help for PR content creation, it also comes with several risks. A strong and effective set of procedures for AI usage is essential for properly making the most out of public relations.

If your company needs help setting a comprehensive AI policy, contact us! We can give you pointers and suggestions for making your company’s AI usage policy the best it can be.

Clients love Jacob’s speed. Jacob is an inbound marketing-certified webmaster. He earned an integrated communications degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville. Jacob joined Axia PR as an intern in August 2015 and earned his way into a critical role at our PR agency.