AI companies commercializing infrastructure and advanced systems need to cut through the hype cycle and demonstrate real enterprise value to Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), beyond mere benchmarks. Creating strategic communications programs that not only educate ICPs but also distinguish brands from the pack, through media relations, content and social, is what we do as an AI PR agency.
AI fatigue is real. There’s a distinct clamouring now for the technology to make the jump from piecemeal applications and overhyped promises to becoming a true AI coworker that can be integrated into sensitive and scrutinized enterprise and government environments.
The intense focus on AI and its capabilities, from the media to policymakers to B2B decision makers to investors and markets, presents an incredible opportunity to carve out category leadership. Yet for companies in the industry, like predictive analytics, algorithmic systems and AI infrastructure, differentiation from the cycle of hype is needed. Real-world deployment and genuine AI innovation wins not only eyeballs but trust when compared to wrapper technology.
This is where strategic and effective communications programs can craft a narrative that turns AI innovation into a headline-grabbing, market-moving moment for a brand. The benefits? Instantly overtaking competitors in the fight for mindshare in this hyper-competitive market and creating recognition and trust with the decision makers that matter most.
We’re a senior-only team of highly experienced PR professionals, who add expertise and value across media relations, content creation and social.
Start the conversation with us about strengthening the positioning of your AI brand.
Noise is drowning out the AI industry. Communications, when done well, cut across this and formulate a clear strategic approach that ensures a brand stands head and shoulders above competitors
AI companies have a unique position right now, dominating markets, policy discussions, business media’s attention and the wider public’s imagination. Public relations is a way to create an image from scratch that taps into the world’s focus on this technology. At its best, it is a mix of channels, including social media management and outreach to journalists and influencers. No one channel is prioritized over another due to the need to reach different audiences in different ways to drive influence and action.
With such a huge focus on the capabilities of AI with media currently, this now provides a genuine inflection moment for companies in the sector to build significant brand awareness and trust. Providing corporate news, insight into the latest AI innovations, appearing on podcast interviews, all activities of media relations can move the dial for AI brands significantly in such a fast-changing environment. Not having it in place is a strategic risk to future growth.
The worldwide focus on the industry presents a very buzzy environment. A PR strategy is critical to cut through this noise and create a clear, methodical approach for an AI brand to reach its most important audiences. Commercial objectives apply to the plan and are then directed back to audiences, the channels they use and how they will be reached.
From NVIDIA GTC to Super AI to Ai4, more and more events are becoming centerpiece moments for the AI industry. Beyond the chance to engage with Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), brands can leverage events for PR purposes, through timing momentum announcements to tie in with their event calendar. This is a smart approach to make best use of marketing budget, while also strengthening industry reputation.
Not all content is created equally and not all content comes solely from a brand’s touchpoints, like its website or social media accounts. A digital content audit is an important approach to reviewing where a brand is online, where it isn’t, and what content and messages are performing or not performing. The key reason to do this is to analyze if a company is actually reaching its key decision-makers and buyer audiences.
Corporate communications serve as a gatekeeper for an AI brand. This is especially important when the overall industry is so heavily focused and reported on. Precision in public communications is necessary to advance a brand’s goals. One misstep could cause serious problems. This function orchestrates all actions from a communications standpoint across an organization, such as engagement of journalists and having a spokesperson speak at an event.
PR expertise is either there or not. It can’t be learned on the job for an AI brand trusting an agency to deliver against its specific brief. This is why we’ve been purposely designed to offer all clients a senior PR team of both strategists as well as executors. Our team provides strategic communications support, as well as being in the weeds of day-to-day media engagement.
Media works in certain ways that can’t be fully understood by industries outside it. Having a foundation in journalism, when applied to PR and brand building, is highly effective given the close relationship between the two disciplines. We are an agency that is rooted heavily in a journalistic background, with nearly all our team members once being journalists. This benefits our clients greatly as we’re skilled in navigating their brand through both proactive and reactive engagement with journalists.
Bespoke PR services are what is required for AI firms to differentiate their brand, but also to best address their unique goals. Be it earned or owned channels, the best approach to achieving success is to have a strong mix of tactics for a communications campaign. We do this for our clients by providing a complete support level that encompasses everything from influencer marketing to media outreach.
Changing PR agencies every couple of months is not an ideal situation, especially considering how much time and effort internally the process takes, from onboarding to offboarding. We’re a PR agency that is specifically focused on building multiyear relationships with our clients, as we have done across our portfolio, since we turned the lights on at our agency.
Billions of dollars are flowing into the AI sector, valuations are reaching record levels, the technology and the companies associated with it are setting the global agenda like never before. Yet competition is beyond cutthroat; PR is a way to brand-building to differentiate and dominate from the pack. Our streamlined process enables onboarding in just 5–7 working days.
Speed is of the essence in the AI sector. An initial kick-off call will bring all stakeholders together to work out the most important information needed to drive the program forward. This takes stock of products (such as AI models or services), existing content such as website content and spokespeople who can help tell the story.
In such a fast-moving sector, most AI firms will usually have some urgent communications needs that must be addressed first. These can range from funding rounds to strategic partnerships to new models. After the kick-off call, there is a move to lock in an initial strategy, agreeing on initial mission-critical tasks.
What is the most important resource AI organizations have? Their own executives. Brand executives have a deep understanding of the AI business and can help to drive the narratives that will spell success. Subject Matter Expert (SME) intake sessions will focus on storylines and content topics that will drive success.
Now to design the media relations and PR strategy. With input from the kick-off call and SME intake sessions, there is movement to finalize and draft a foundational strategy document. This will answer key questions such as who the audience is, what are the desired outcomes and information on suggested tactics.
Now to set up the PR program and deliver results. The final action items include detailed media research on AI journalists within the sector, both specialized and on mainstream titles, to inform targeted media engagement. Investing time here will pay off when the program begins outreach.
Starting with the urgent communications activities identified in the process, the program now moves to the rollout phase. The campaign moves to tactical execution across agreed channels ranging from social media to earned media (journalists, content creators and publications).
With the campaign now moving steadily, it’s time to deliver an initial report structure and metrics to measure success. This is conducted through updates via regular conference calls, delivering metrics such as estimated audience reached and social media impact. This gives ‘live’ insight into campaign performance.
The best PR plans evolve and adapt, and that’s never more important than in an innovation-driven sector like AI. A meeting to review communications activities and impact will help to establish which outcomes have been positive and where improvement is needed. This enables the program to adapt and succeed.
We can help your AI company with content, social and media relations to engineer your next stage of growth.
Our Founder provides his point of view on how communications fit into AI brands and their success level.
David Claxton
Founder of Wise Up PR
AI PR is a crucial strategy for organizations to build awareness of their brands and create trust with everyone from investors to enterprises. With companies in sectors such as algorithmic systems and decision-support systems facing challenges such as pressure to address AI governance, regulation, and safety without overstating controls, communications helps define messaging and a distinctive strategy to boost brand awareness and trust. Wise Up PR is a highly experienced team of former journalists who can help AI organizations ensure the message lands.
PR is essential for all sizes of AI companies and the longer it is ignored, the harder it can be to raise profile and build awareness with external audiences. With firms in the sector facing challenges such as fatigue around the overuse of terms such as ‘AI-powered’ and ‘AI breakthroughs’, the advice of expert PR practitioners can be a vital launching pad in terms of breaking through in trade publications and more mainstream financial media, whether an organization works in applied AI, decision-support systems or AI infrastructure.
The world of AI moves rapidly and has a global scope, so AI PR can help brands stand out not just in their local markets but in other markets around the world. For AI platforms and AI systems, there are global challenges to face, such as increased regulatory scrutiny around training data provenance, IP risk, and model opacity in different territories, and managing narratives around hallucinations, accuracy limits, and trustworthiness. These are global PR challenges, and require global thinking to manage the messaging correctly.
PR can help organizations maximize the impact of their attendance at trade events, ensuring the message gets heard. By pre-arranging meetings with key media in sectors such as applied AI, predictive analytics, or AI infrastructure, trade shows can deliver a great platform to push the message out there, and can be a great opportunity to place spokespeople as expert interviewees, for example. Trade shows can be a perfect opportunity to establish executives as thought leaders.
Marketing and PR in the AI sector should be aligned very closely to deliver the best results for brands in sectors such as AI infrastructure, AI systems and algorithmic systems. Both are different disciplines, but complement each other. When dealing with challenges such as difficulty differentiating applied AI, foundation models, and infrastructure layers, or scepticism towards benchmarks, it’s key that marketing and PR align closely and avoid a siloed approach, which can lead to inconsistent messaging.
