The PR Agency Model is Broken
Yesterday, Nividia's CEO disagreed with Anthropic's over whether 50% of entry-level jobs could become obsolete with AI. While that claim can be debated for the economy at large, for public relations professionals, the percentage is likely much higher. That's because our $60 billion global industry operates on an antiquated "thinker" versus "doer" dichotomy.
The "doers" are account executives who spend their days developing media monitoring reports, building PowerPoint decks, compiling media lists, and crafting press materials. Their billable hours, marked up in multiples, form the profit-making center of most agencies. The "thinkers" are seasoned professionals who look the part and whose bios appear prominently in pitch decks. They present the work to clients (and often disappear once the business is won).
But in the age of AI, both "thinking" and "doing" can now be handled by artificial agents, not press agents. The only human role that remains essential is that of the "operator" — someone who interprets client needs through human experience, provides necessary data sources, and engineers prompts to derive deliverables that must then be reviewed and refined to ensure they connect authentically with audiences.
Consider what comprises the bulk of junior PR work: writing clearly and succinctly, distilling complex information into pithy soundbites, compiling media contacts, collating press clips, and measuring coverage through online tools. AI can already perform all of these tasks more efficiently and often more accurately than humans. A sophisticated language model can analyze thousands of media outlets simultaneously, craft personalized pitches at scale, and generate comprehensive reports in minutes rather than hours.
Most PR professionals have a conflicted relationship with this reality. Rather than searching for moats to protect and rationalize our roles, we should be embracing these tools — becoming technical experts, learning to (have AI) code, and developing AI applications built on our base of human communications and business experience.
Instead, we're throwing up our elbows to protect our turf, conceding AI's usefulness in summarization or research while insisting that "bread and butter" communications require a human touch that can’t be replicated by robotic prose. We’re in denial.
The PR agency rate card, traditionally overflowing with an endless hierarchy of titles and hourly fees, can be replaced by one line item: the operator. Six-figure monthly retainers suddenly have fewer zeroes. "Doing more with less" becomes more than a trite workplace expression. Without the coordination tax of managing armies of junior staff, agencies (and clients) can actually accomplish more work faster and with dramatically fewer resources.
The agencies that survive the next five years will be those that embrace this transition now. They'll invest in training their teams to become AI operators rather than traditional account managers. They'll restructure their pricing models around value and outcomes rather than billable hours. Most importantly, they'll recognize that the future of PR isn't about protecting the old model — it's about building a better one.
