By Aaron Henry, Managing Director, Foundeast
For more than two decades, PR technology has followed a familiar pattern. Agencies and in-house communications teams assembled an ever-growing stack of specialist software: one platform for media databases, another for press release distribution, another for media monitoring, another for reporting, another for content optimisation, and increasingly another for AI.
Today, that model is beginning to change.
The launch of AI-powered platforms such as PR Newswire Amplify™ is another sign that the communications industry has reached an inflection point. AI is no longer a niche feature or an experimental add-on. It has become an expected capability.
That is good news for the industry.
But it also raises an important question.
If every PR platform now includes AI, where does competitive advantage actually come from?
The answer may surprise many communications leaders.
AI Is Becoming a Commodity
Read through the feature list of almost any new communications platform and the themes are remarkably consistent.
They promise to:
- Generate campaign ideas
- Research industry trends
- Draft press releases
- Write media pitches
- Produce blog articles
- Summarise research
- Optimise content for search
- Recommend headlines
- Generate reports
Five years ago, these capabilities would have been considered revolutionary.
Today, most of them are available through general-purpose AI models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot.
The technology itself is no longer scarce.
The expertise required to use it effectively is.
The Real Value Was Never the AI
This does not diminish the PR technology companies like PR Newswire have built.
Far from it.
Their real competitive advantages have always been difficult to replicate.
They include:
- Global press release distribution networks
- Relationships with thousands of media outlets
- Journalist databases
- Historical campaign performance data
- Enterprise workflows
- Compliance and governance
- Integrated reporting
Those are genuine assets.
They cannot simply be recreated with an AI subscription.
The AI features, however, are a different story.
Campaign planning, brainstorming, first-draft writing, research, and content analysis have rapidly become capabilities that almost every communications team can access.
That represents one of the biggest shifts the PR industry has experienced in decades.
The Great Unbundling Has Begun
Historically, agencies paid for multiple specialist tools.
A typical workflow might have involved:
- Research software
- SEO software
- Writing software
- Campaign planning software
- Reporting software
- AI software
Today, much of that work can be performed through carefully designed AI workflows supported by specialist expertise.
At Foundeast, we increasingly find ourselves asking a different question before purchasing another platform.
Can AI already do this?
Surprisingly often, the answer is yes.
Instead of adding another expensive subscription, we build workflows around modern AI models, combine them with trusted data sources, and integrate them into our strategic process.
The result is faster research, more flexible workflows, and significantly lower operational complexity.
Agencies Shouldn’t Be Selling Software Access
One of the unintended consequences of AI is that it changes what clients should value.
For years, agencies could differentiate themselves partly through the software they owned.
Today, software is becoming less important.
Clients are no longer paying agencies simply because they have access to an AI-powered writing tool.
They are paying agencies because they know:
- Which questions to ask
- How to validate AI outputs
- How to identify meaningful stories
- How to earn credible media coverage
- How to improve discoverability
- How to connect communications activity to measurable business outcomes
Those skills remain distinctly human.
AI simply makes experienced practitioners more effective.
The Difference Between Content Optimisation and Discoverability
One area where confusion is growing is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).
Many platforms now advertise AI-powered optimisation for AI search.
This is an important development.
However, optimising a press release is only one part of discoverability.
Large language models evaluate information very differently from traditional search engines.
Visibility increasingly depends upon factors such as:
- Topical authority
- Entity recognition
- Semantic consistency
- Expert attribution
- High-quality citations
- Trusted earned media
- Authoritative owned content
- Structured website architecture
In other words, discoverability is becoming an ecosystem challenge rather than simply a writing challenge.
Publishing better press releases helps.
Building an organisation that consistently produces authoritative, connected, well-cited content helps much more.
Why We Built Our Own AI Workflows
At Foundeast, AI is now integrated throughout our communications process.
We use it to accelerate:
- Media research
- Campaign planning
- Competitor analysis
- Journalist profiling
- SEO research
- GEO strategy
- Thought leadership planning
- Content ideation
- Briefing documents
- Performance analysis
Importantly, AI does not replace editorial judgement or media experience.
Every recommendation is reviewed through the lens of communications strategy, local market understanding, and international media expertise.
The objective is not to automate public relations with PR technology.
It is to remove repetitive work so that consultants spend more time thinking strategically.
The Next Competitive Advantage
Within a few years, AI will no longer differentiate communications platforms.
Every major PR technology provider will offer AI-assisted writing.
Every media database will include AI search.
Every monitoring platform will produce AI summaries.
Those capabilities will simply become standard.
The organisations that stand out will be those that possess assets AI cannot easily replicate.
These include:
- Trusted media relationships
- Editorial credibility
- Deep industry expertise
- International market knowledge
- Proprietary insights
- High-authority content
- Strong brand reputation
AI makes these advantages more valuable, not less.
A New Way to Think About PR Technology
The communications industry is not witnessing the replacement of agencies by AI.
It is witnessing the unbundling of traditional PR software.
Tasks that once required multiple specialist platforms are increasingly being consolidated into flexible AI workflows.
The technology itself is becoming democratised.
Strategy is becoming more important.
The agencies that succeed over the next decade will not necessarily be those with the largest software stack.
They will be the ones that combine AI intelligently with editorial judgement, media expertise, SEO, GEO, and a deep understanding of how brands earn trust in an increasingly AI-mediated world.
The question is no longer “Does your agency use AI?”
Almost every agency will with use AI as part of its PR technology.
The more important question is:
Has your agency fundamentally rethought how communications should work in the AI era, or has it simply added another AI button to the same old workflow?