AI is the COVID-19 of today. Everyone has to deal with it, it is hard to manage, and whilst some are sadly falling victim, there are undoubtedly many profiteers. If a press conference were held, the minister in charge would say: "We are done with AI, but AI is not done with us yet."

The presence of AI is leading many to becoming increasingly AI-weary, especially across the PR and communications profession. But what are the real effects on our work and jobs?

Maybe it's not all that bad. For a podcast, I recently spoke with Eva Schram, editor of the biggest Dutch business daily Financieele Dagblad, in which she indicated that she doesn't really want to hear about AI anymore. About eight years ago, she was working in Silicon Valley and the self-driving car was on the verge of breaking through and blockchain was the "disruptive" technology for the financial sector.

Yet we still steer cars ourselves as autopilot and self-driving capabilities still have a long journey to go, as it is not yet good enough, let alone allowed. And I don’t know about your personal use of crypto, but everyone I know is still happy to have a traditional bank account.

We have followed these types of hyped technology trends too many times before. Is AI being over-hyped? Are we expecting too much from it? Yes and no. This is not a bland answer, but the very nuance we should try to embrace with these kinds of acclaimed developments.

AI is nothing new; we have been using it for years without being aware of it. It is now grabbing more of our attention because it has rapidly become more advanced, and more visible. We are seeing its application accelerate in our industry because our people are creative – especially when it comes to saving them time.

There is a Dutch saying, translated into “rather lazy than tired”. So, we leave translations to Deepl and ChatGPT makes summaries, and we use Frase for SEO texts. Very easy and it saves time, indeed, we can get more work done in a day.

The impact of AI on your Google ranking

But does this produce the desired effect? There are an increasing number of studies into the differences between human-written texts and AI-generated texts for SEO scores and Google ranking. The majority are showing that human texts are scoring more highly on all three metrics: scoring quickly on keywords, higher ranking and lead generation.

In fact, there are multiple examples of companies that published massive amounts of AI-generated blogs in the expectation of scoring better, but mass is not a cash cow at Google.

There are examples in which website traffic dropped 30-50% and Google ranking dropped noticeably.

Google recently launched it Search Generative Experience (SGE). And an experience it is, at least if you’re looking for some funny AI hallucinations. We’ve seen the examples of missteps, but more interesting is the way people use it. SGE comes down to showing (possible) answers rather than a traditional list of possible linked websites.

Besides the wrong answers, experts and URL-owners we’re afraid of losing traffic to their websites as people got their answer within Google already. The opposite is true however, shows research by Siege media: in the initial launching period in the States, the click-through rates were even higher in the new AI-based set-up than with the organic search result. After the launching phase, the search giant lowered the number of AI-generated results shown to 15% (down from 84%) although not because of the fuss around the wrong answers. SEO might not be dead after all.

Re-evaluation of the human aspect

It's been said before, but humans are still needed alongside AI. In fact, Dutch media specialist Elger van der Wel recently reported in his newsletter to expect a backlash driven by a demand to hear from real people.

Many people are growing weary of AI-led communication and looking for authentic human experiences. A phrase you wouldn't dare write down a year ago. Besides fact-checking, checking sources and simply putting a sense of real emotion into a text, there is another important element that makes human input indispensable. ChatGPT can come up with creative angles but not elaborate on them because everything is based on existing content and logical connections.

New insights, thought-provoking views and dissenting opinions are still thought up by humans. You rarely stand out by repeating what others have already said. Indeed, if you repeat yourself, you become less attractive at some point.

AI throws company data out on the street

And then there is another concern, namely the protection of corporate information, sensitive or otherwise. There are a growing number of examples of data that ended up in the public domain after someone ran it through an AI tool.

Companies are cracking down on this. In recent months, as a PR agency, we have welcomed several new clients whose contracts explicitly prohibit the use of public AI tools in the work performed for them. The reason cited is the fear that corporate data will be made public, but perhaps it is also simply a means of ensuring that communications work is crafted (read: human).

Quite honestly, if AI could do it all by itself, you wouldn't have to hire an agency anymore either. There is no doubt that AI is changing elements of the PR and communications industry. But there is a careful balance to be found in embracing the possibilities, exploring AI tools, deploying it to automate and improve recurring tasks and giving it an opportunity as a sparring partner.

But for now, the core of the work is not leaving our desk. Dutch Volkskrant journalist Laurens Verhagen cites cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter in his column: When mechanization seems to mark the end of creativity, the opposite is true: on that day our eyes open to whole new worlds of beauty. It's preaching to my own parish by saying I welcome it, but I think it's beneficial to all of us.

• IPRA has recently launched an AI Chapter.