AI is a tool. It should not be a substitute for thought, analysis or creativity. And just like we’re seeing in the real world, business leaders are succumbing to AI brain rot. As the writing gets more watered down, and the pages of text say less and less, you know AI has been leveraged to generate copy without any human oversight. Here are the dangers taking hold in startups as they leverage AI to scale to enterprise sized organizations.
The Sales Pitch
AI is a powerful tool that can help professionals complete tasks but the way it’s being touted as a complete replacement for thought is unrealistic. Intelligent professionals are turning over all planning, strategy and communication to an AI. The output is not creative, but it is fast. The speed is part of the sales pitch for the use of AI, but some executives are now also expecting the rest of the world to respond just as fast.
The Speed Trap
If it took 2 minutes to generate an AI LinkedIn post, some startup leaders are disappointed when it takes more than 24 hours for people to see it and respond. They assume the post is ineffective so they create another in 2 minutes in a different direction. Messaging, branding, strategy are out the window and replaced by something completely different in the pursuit of traction.
There is something to be said for trying new things but in any PR/marketing campaign, the market requires time to respond. If every approach is abandoned before it can gain a foothold, it might just be the constant positioning churn that is turning prospective buyers off rather than the actual messaging. It signals uncertainty to buyers and partners about organizational direction.
This Meeting Has to Be An Email
The reliance on AI engines to validate every decision is making live meetings less productive. Quick calls to get a sign off on something is feeling like a quaint thing of the past. Executives are trusting their gut less to make in-the-moment decisions and require a follow up email that they can feed into an AI platform to get validation, alternative ideas or additional questions.
All of this slows things down. We love a papertrail as much as the next gal but when we can see a CMO shaking on a video call when pushed to give a green light to a simple request, we know they are going to respond a few hours later with a 5 paragraph email so polite it sounds nothing like them for something that could have been as simple as a “yes”.
Glue Can’t Keep The Cheese on Your Pizza or Hold Your PR Strategy Together
In addition to just slowing things down in meetings, the alternative ideas that AI comes up with aren’t based on any real world experience. We have decades of experience informing our recommendations. We know what we’re talking about and just because AI said something, doesn’t make it realistic. No, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or any other national media will cover a product release for a startup with no customers.
When a client pops up with a wild suggestion, unrealistic expectations and impossible timelines, either one of two things has happened – either another PR agency has been in their ear whispering sweet nothings (aka lies) or Claude is their new freelance PR strategist and he’s got some big thoughts based on nothing.
The more insistent that the client is that these ideas can be pulled off in a few days, with little prep, the more likely it seems the idea came from a confident-sounding AI model. Just as an out-of-touch consultant can send companies down the wrong path, wasting time and resources, an AI hallucination can be just as dangerous. Some might argue that an AI generated bad idea costs virtually nothing compared to an expensive out-of-touch consultant, but the end result is the same: wasted effort going in the wrong direction. If you’re paying for an expert – listen to them!
An AI will never push back and as good as that might feel, that’s not how good ideas are created and it’s certainly not how anything actually gets done. Leverage AI to build up your team but beware the marketer or PR person who has lost the ability to think without it.
