Kylie Galaviz | September 2026

As a current PR student at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas, I have been accused of AI use in my professional writing. This accusation came to me as a shock because I remember sitting in front of my laptop rereading the same paragraphs over and over again, terrified that my writing wasn’t good enough. The writing I had spent so much time questioning was now being doubted for the opposite reason; it was too good to be my own.

I can’t blame my professor though; AI is more accessible than ever, and a great majority of students are using it instead of developing the foundational skills they need to learn. They don’t realize that AI lacks all emotion and the authentic nature that humans have when writing. This is something I have recognized as a weakness in my own writing. I tend to stick to the facts and focus on informing my audience, which can sometimes come at the expense of telling a compelling story.

Humans crave stories that are interesting, challenge their thoughts and make them want to read more. AI cannot provide that type of storytelling that PR professionals are tasked to present to their audience on a daily basis. AI can assist with the writing process, but PR professionals cannot afford to lose the human skills that make their work effective (Withey, 2026). Critical thinking, creativity, storytelling and concise writing are essential to maintaining credibility in a profession that is being drastically changed by artificial intelligence.

AI as a Tool in the Public Relations Industry

In the professional PR world, AI is a powerful tool because it makes things like researching, brainstorming ideas, outlining, and writing a lot more efficient. While the connotation of AI use is on the negative side, it's time that PR students learn to incorporate it in a responsible way to meet the ever changing demands of the industry's employers.

A main example of AI being a helpful tool is that the public relations profession has a demand for deadlines, and using AI is a great way to eliminate any work that might take a human a significantly longer time. For example, if a PR professional is working on a story or press release that needs to be published within the day, AI could easily help them gather credible statistics. Searching and sorting through data takes a long time, but with AI, the professional can prompt AI to give them a curated list of the top statistics and sources that would be beneficial to them, ultimately eliminating hours of work.

Katie Neal, principal and CEO of Katie Neal Coaching & Consulting, wrote a magazine column for PRSA detailing this benefit. Neal gives a personal anecdote about her grandmother and how she switched from baking yeast rolls from scratch to Sister Schubert rolls during Christmas time. She never told anyone, and no one ever noticed. Following that Christmas, she never made yeast rolls again because she now had more time to focus on the things that were important to her, her family.

“Just as my grandmother replaced her original rolls with a store-bought variety, PR professionals are increasingly more comfortable using tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, Writer and Claude to improve their speed, efficiency and creativity of their writing” (Neal, 2025).

Artificial intelligence has now made the long tasks quick and the boring tasks easy. However, was it truly the top-tier information a PR professional should use to write about for the world to see? That is why it is vital that public relations writing doesn’t lose the aspect of humanity.

Keeping the Human Touch

Now that we know AI can be used as a good tool, we still have to know how to use it properly without losing the human touch. Even though AI is able to provide us with all these tools and benefits, it is only going to provide helpful results if the person behind the screen knows how to curate the responses they need.

“The quality of the output usually reflects the quality of the thinking behind the request” (Garner, 2026).

AI cannot read your mind and know exactly what you are looking for when writing. A thoughtful prompt will produce a thoughtful and more in depth response that will be more beneficial. In doing so, how often should writers be doing this?

Where is the line?

So we’re aware that AI is a useful tool and that it should be used responsibly, but where is the line? How much AI use is acceptable in a given story? Well, the answer is that there is no defined line; it’s ambiguous.

The PRSA Code of Ethics does not explicitly state how much AI use is allowed, let alone anything about artificial intelligence. Instead, they use their existing statements and “apply” them to AI use rather than creating a whole new section specifically naming AI. This allows for professionals to be able to tiptoe the line of what is acceptable or not. This could ultimately create harm within the industry if it gets out of control. While this is a very possible outcome, at the end of the day, AI is here and won’t just disappear one day.

Courtney Blackann, from PR Daily, interviewed Lorra Brown, assistant professor of advertising and public relations and director of online digital communication graduate certificates at the University of North Carolina, about AI in professional communications. “If you aren’t considering AI in some way for your work, then you will be left behind because it’s here. We just need to do it more effectively, more thoughtfully, understand the constraints and continue to train and learn as professional writers” (Blackann, 2026).

Ultimately, the question isn’t whether AI should be used in the public relations industry, but instead how it should be used. The responsibility still falls on the PR professional to think critically, fact-check and give their audience meaningful stories. Artificial intelligence might be changing the way PR professionals write, but it should never change what makes their writing human.

References

Blackann, C. (2026, June 30). The best AI tools for writing, research and crisis response. PR Daily. https://www.prdaily.com/the-best-ai-tools-for-writing-research-and-crisis-response/

Garner, B. A. (2026, August 20). AI is only as good as the writer using it. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2026/10/ai-is-only-as-good-as-the-writer-using-it/

Neal, K. (2025, February 8). Make AI Your Writing Ally Without Losing Your Human Touch. PRSA. https://www.prsa.org/article/make-ai-your-writing-ally-without-losing-your-human-touch-ST-Feb25

PRSA Code of Ethics. PRSA. (n.d.). https://www.prsa.org/professional-development/prsa-resources/ethics#code

Withey, C. (2026, April). What’s Changed in Entry-Level PR Hiring. PRSA. https://www.prsa.org/article/what-s-changed-in-entry-level-pr-hiring-APRIL26

AI Note: AI was only used in the final editing process as a draft review.