When I hear campus hand-wringing about students using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write their essays, I think back to a few years ago, before ChatGPT was a “thing”, when I taught a class at what was then known as Marist College (it’s now Marist University) called Writing for PR.

The purpose of the class was to equip students with the basic skills needed to succeed in an entry-level agency job. We covered the fundamentals: press releases, media alerts, fact sheets, and so on.

But here’s the sad truth: out of 22 students, only two or three could consistently write a clear, grammatically correct sentence. Honestly, reading the rest was painful.

That also happened to be the semester we sent students home for Spring Break and then told them not to come back, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Classes abruptly shifted to remote learning. I’d email instructions: “Write a press release announcing the introduction of something brand new called a ‘stapler’” and students would email back their work.

And then, something amazing happened: almost all my students’ writing improved dramatically. (Thanks, Mom!)

I started my first job in PR back in 1980. Back then, writing was the primary reason you got into the business. Many PR pros came from journalism—they switched because the pay was better.

Even long after the industry had reduced messaging to 140 characters, I always prioritized hiring good writers. They could take complex material and translate it into plain language a layperson could understand.

I had a maxim: “You can’t edit an empty page.”

I’d ask a junior staffer to take a crack at a press release, and we’d sit together to improve it. I didn’t just mark it up with a red pen and send it back. I walked them through each edit, explaining the “why” behind every change. Over time, the red ink lessened. That’s one of the ways you developed people in the agency world. (Of course, much later we would use Word’s “Track Changes” function but the editing-and-teaching process was the same.)

So, not long ago, I was stunned to hear that one of the major PR holding companies now requires the first draft of any writing assignment to be generated by ChatGPT.

My first thought? AI is known for “hallucinations”—aka making shit up. My second thought? If AI ever got accurate and reliable, the entire process of molding junior account execs into senior ones could be fundamentally disrupted.

And guess what? That improvement is taking place – rapidly.

A few weeks ago, the local library where I serve as a trustee installed a ginormous generator, enabling the building to operate as a warming and cooling center during extended power outages. It deserved a press release, so I went to ChatGPT and typed:

“I need a press release about a new generator that will allow our library to serve as a warming and cooling center.”

What I got back was a nearly perfect press release. It just needed a couple of tweaks and our boilerplate.

The scales fell from my eyes.

We’re witnessing a massive shift in the value proposition of PR agencies. Why pay an agency to write a press release when you can generate one in 30 seconds and have it in the inboxes of media around the world before your coffee cools enough to take a sip?

That said, there are still a couple of skills AI isn’t close to mastering.

First: creative ideation.
Since AI can only remix what already exists, it’s unlikely to dream up something like the world’s largest paella as a PR stunt for a dish soap brand in Spain. That took the wonderfully weird minds at an agency in Madrid.

Second: sound judgment based on experience.
In a crisis, CEOs don’t want a chatbot. They want a seasoned (human) pro who can assess the situation and recommend a proportionate, strategic response.

Those two skills—creative thinking and seasoned judgment—will remain valuable, and agencies that offer them will continue to be well-compensated.

But the age-old agency business model of fielding an army of junior professionals to generate billable hours by doing stuff?
Those days are numbered.

Then what?

Obviously, this isn’t endemic to the PR biz. It is estimated that 70-80 percent of paralegal jobs will be eliminated in the next several years. And first year associates at law firms (who essentially function as paralegals but arrive with massive, soul-crushing student debt) could become an endangered species. But if we lose the first-years, where are the second-years going to come from?

Maybe I should ask ChatGPT.