FIR #520: AI’s PR Meltdown

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FIR #520: AI’s PR Meltdown

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In the long-form FIR episode for June, Neville and Shel consider the causes and implications of surging anti-AI sentiment in the US (which is also growing in other developed countries), as well as the increasing use of “shadow AI” in organizations. Other reports include studies documenting the continued erosion of trust in mainstream news media, the growth of personal branding among communication professionals, a shocking self-inflicted reputation crisis for a UK business, and evidence that employees aren’t reading your internal communications (unless maybe they are). Dan York shares information on Collections in the Mastodon 4.6 release and the W Social situation in his Tech Report. Links from this episode: ‘Shadow AI becomes a massive enterprise liability’: New study claims most of us are now using unauthorized AI tools at workFIR #510: Should Companies Embrace Shadow AI?FIR #419: Is Shadow AI an Evil Lurking in the Heart of Your Company?The Rise of Shadow AI is a Double-Edged Sword for Corporate InnovationAmericans Have Turned Against AI in Incredible NumbersAI’s Public Relations EmergencyAI Data Centers and the Public Relations Challenge for Business OwnersWowcher apologises after email appears to reference crocodile attack on toddlerDigital News Report 2026From Invisible To Influential: The Personal Branding Shift In Corporate CommunicationsWowcher apologises for email referencing toddler crocodile attackWowcher ‘extremely sorry’ for crocodile attack emailWowcher apologises over email that referenced crocodile attack on boyLinkedIn post (Queen of CRM): “I’ve had 16 messages about this email…”LinkedIn post (Flo Powell): Wowcher ‘extremely sorry’ for crocodile attack emailThe Attention Recession: Why Your Employees Aren’t Reading What You SendState of Workplace Communication 2026: Why 44% of Employees Tune Out Links from Dan York’s Report Designing CollectionsMastodon 4.6The Untold Story About W Social: Unconventional Beginnings, Strategic Pitches and Conflicting SignalsW Social, Public Institutions and the Theater of European Digital SovereigntyW Social, Fictional Metrics and the Beauty of Open Data The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, July 27. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 520 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California. Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson in Somerset in the UK. Shel Holtz: And it’s good to be back with you for our long-form episode. We really enjoy doing our short midweek episodes, but these are an opportunity to dig into some meaty topics. And we have six for you this week. Obviously, we’re going to be talking about some artificial intelligence, but not exclusively. So we have some other communication-focused topics to share with you, and some comments from listeners from the last month’s worth of episodes. And to get to those, Neville, how about a recap of what we’ve talked about in the last month? Neville Hobson: In the long-form episode 515 for May, on the 25th of May, we led with the rise of AI agents, the harms they could cause, what companies should do to ensure these agents deliver benefits, and how communicators can take a leading role in addressing the issue. We also talked about AI copyright lawsuits, Google’s search overhaul, what’s becoming standard media relations practice on podcasts, the question of whether the time is coming for value to be at the forefront of client billing, and the rise of short-form video clippers. A lot of content in that bumper issue. Hefty but good, as we like to say. And then The Economist is building two versions of its web presence: one for human readers, one structured for AI agents. In FIR 516 on the first of June, we discussed what this means for communicators and raised an important counterpoint. Websites aren’t going away. We said the answer is to do both, not abandon one for the other. And we have at least one comment on this one, don’t we, Shel? Shel Holtz: We have several comments on this one, starting with Sylvia Cambié, who says: “A really interesting episode. Your point about the need to be deliberate when we write copy for websites and think about what an agent would extract is fascinating. Here’s a task that communicators can do well. Great to see new tasks like this emerging for comms. It ...

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