As AI reshapes communications, traditional PR faces a reckoning. Accountability, originality, and measurable impact—not spin—will decide who survives.
In Silicon Valley, obituaries are often written too soon. First, it was email. Then the press release. Now, the target is the public relations agency itself.
The argument is seductive in its simplicity: if artificial intelligence can draft a pitch, summarize a strategy, and produce passable thought leadership in seconds, what need remains for the humans who were once billed by the hour to do it?
To test that thesis, I sat down with Susan Thomas, CEO and founder of 10Fold, a woman who has guided more than 500 companies toward the grueling scrutiny of the public markets. Her answer was neither defensive nor nostalgic.
“Traditional PR is dying,” she told me. “That does not mean media outreach or thought leadership campaigns are going away any time soon. What I mean is the traditional boundaries and limitations of PR no longer apply and firms must adjust quickly to adapt.”
It was not a lament. It was a warning.
For decades, public relations operated under a comfortable ambiguity. Visibility was presumed valuable. Influence was inferred. Impressions were counted and filed away in quarterly reports. In a world before dashboards and CRM pipelines, that was enough.
It is no longer enough.
The rise of measurable marketing—SEO, performance advertising, revenue analytics—has forced communications into a harsher light. Chief executives now ask questions that clip books cannot answer: How much pipeline? How much attributable growth? What business outcome changed because of this campaign?
Thomas believes the industry’s real reckoning is not with AI, but with accountability.
“AI is not the existential threat to PR and communications agencies,” she said. “To survive in today’s volatile environment, they simply have to earn their place. That means having client discussions that begin with business objectives, which serve as the basis for a communications plan. It’s about reverse engineering the desired business outcomes.”
A press release, she added bluntly, “has no inherent value.” It is a cost unless it drives measurable movement — website traffic spikes, CRM engagement, investor attention. At 10Fold, she said, teams correlate coverage with direct traffic patterns, AI rankings and campaign timelines. It is not perfect, she admits, but it is far more rigorous than impressions and advertising equivalents, the old currency of the trade.
In this framing, AI is not the villain. Mediocrity is.
The AI Paradox: Speed vs. Substance
The fear animating many agencies is that large language models have commoditized content. Thomas sees it differently.
“AI adoption is not killing agencies; it is critical for both agencies and companies alike,” she said. “The problem is that most don’t use it correctly. AI relies on data and input — something very hard to find when you have an original idea, solution, or approach.”
AI, she argues, is a powerful thought partner and time saver. But it draws from what already exists. Without original insight and a defined position, it produces content that is technically fluent and strategically hollow.
“Without a strong human point of view,” she warned, “AI-generated content quickly becomes generic and indistinguishable.”
In a discovery ecosystem increasingly shaped by large language models that prioritize credible third-party validation, indistinguishability is invisible.
The IPO Illusion
Thomas has seen another recurring misstep: high-growth technology companies failing to evolve their narrative as they move toward an IPO.
“The biggest mistake executives make,” she said, “is not understanding how communications plans must evolve as the company matures and moves toward an exit.”
Early-stage companies talk about innovation and disruption. But as they approach public markets, the narrative must broaden. Investors look for ecosystem relevance, customer validation, and operational discipline.
Hiring a CFO can signal financial maturity. Strategic partnerships signal integration. Vertical expertise signals durability. And once financial institutions are secured and paperwork is filed, the quiet period reshapes what can and cannot be said. Even subtle language shifts in press materials become regulated terrain.
Companies that fail to prepare in stages, she noted, often find themselves constrained at precisely the moment clarity matters most.
The Measurement Reckoning
Public relations has struggled to quantify its impact, not because it lacks impact, Thomas argues, but because it failed to adopt modern measurement frameworks.
“For much of its 100-year history, PR operated on a simple premise: visibility and influence were assumed to be valuable,” she said. “Anecdotal success stories are not enough in today’s environment.”
Compounding the issue is timing. Reporting delivered months after a campaign’s peak offers little strategic leverage. Measurement, she insists, must be continuous and integrated with the systems marketers trust — website analytics, CRM dashboards, pipeline models.
Agencies that sell “activity as value” will not survive. Those that demonstrate proof points aligned to business goals will.
Investors, Narrative, and the New Discovery Engine
Investors, Thomas said, are not interested in marketing spin. But they care deeply about credible narratives that resonate with buyers, partners, and future backers.
With large language models reshaping how information surfaces, third-party validation has become even more important. Discovery is shifting away from keyword density and toward authority and originality. In that environment, earned media and differentiated thought leadership are not ornamental — they are strategic assets.
Strong brand programs, supported by credible external voices, increasingly serve as signals of long-term value creation.
Crisis in the Always-On Era
Corporate reputation no longer moves in neat cycles. Social media and activist stakeholders compress timelines and amplify scrutiny. Yet Thomas resists the notion of a permanent state of emergency.
Preparation, she argues, is the antidote. Establish baseline sentiment before a crisis. Benchmark normal conditions. Define response protocols in advance.
“When leaders understand where their organization stands in normal conditions,” she said, “they are better equipped to respond with clarity and confidence.”
Beyond the Hype
Having spent decades in Silicon Valley, Thomas has seen hype cycles crest and collapse. She does not place AI among them.
“AI is beyond a hype cycle,” she said. “It is fundamentally transforming business processes at every level.”
The exuberance will normalize. Integration will deepen. The tools will become infrastructure. What will remain scarce is not automation, but originality.
The obituary for traditional PR may well be accurate. But obsolescence is not inevitable. Reinvention is.
In the age of automation, the agencies that endure will not be those that defend legacy practices. They will be those that prove — with discipline, data, and differentiated thought — that narrative, when aligned to business outcomes, remains one of the most powerful assets a company can possess.
Prove your value, or be automated out of the conversation.
