From Flash to Function: How AI Is Powering PR and B2B Marketing Operations

From Flash to Function: How AI Is Powering PR and B2B Marketing Operations

When AI first came on the scene in PR and B2B marketing, the spotlight was on how showy applications could churn out endless streams of content, power chatbots that promised to run customer service, and generate ad copy in splashy demos.

However, AI in PR and B2B marketing is entering a new phase based on function over flash.

At the 2025 ANA In-House Agency Conference, Inspired Thinking Group's CEO, Andrew Swinand, captured how the conversation around AI has shifted. He explained that real value is coming from operational AI that automates repetitive tasks, speeds up workflows, and frees up teams to focus on higher-impact work.

As a former journalist and current PR strategist, I believe the value in AI is undeniable but too often applied in the wrong places, like chasing quick wins in content production rather than solving real workflow problems.

The real breakthrough with AI isn't generating more copy; it's relieving marketing teams of the repetitive, low-value tasks that eat up their day, therefore giving them more time to focus on strategy and storytelling.

This method of using AI begins with leaning into the less sexy side of it—the tools that power campaigns and operations behind the scenes.

Focus on Practicality, Not Hype

At the ANA event, conversation moved beyond headline-grabbing AI features toward how the technology is quietly becoming the backbone of marketing operations. This shift matters because too many marketing leaders still fall into the trap of treating AI as a replacement for staff or as an all-in-one solution.

In reality, AI is most effective as an augmentation tool that can take over repetitive tasks so teams can spend more energy on strategy, relationships, and creative thinking.

No one is expecting AI to fully run client relationships, but they do seem to be hoping AI can shoulder more creative and strategic load than is realistic. Some teams lean on AI to draft pitches, generate campaign ideas, or assemble press materials, all with minimal human input.

While AI tools can provide a useful starting point, expecting them to replace human judgment or creativity is risky. What AI does best is reduce the burden of repetitive, time-consuming tasks—not make decisions.

The challenge is that the market is saturated with new AI tools, and without a clear strategy, PR and marketing teams can end up adopting platforms that don't integrate or align with critical workflows. Instead of delivering efficiency, this patchwork approach creates more complexity.

The companies seeing success are the ones that start with focus: identifying specific pain points and adopting AI where it directly addresses them. They treat AI as a way to strengthen the work teams are already doing, not as a shortcut to cut staff or generate more noise.

Behind-The-Scenes Efficiency Gains

The greatest benefits of AI in PR and marketing are unfolding behind the scenes.

Tasks that once took teams hours of manual effort compiling background on competitors, scanning news cycles, or tracking industry trends can now be completed in minutes with AI-powered tools that surface practical insights through the noise. These tools don't replace human judgment, but they give strategists a running start.

PR pros are also using AI to draft the first versions of media briefs or campaign outlines. What used to be an arduous exercise that ate up hours can now be handled in minutes, freeing teams to fine-tune strategy and align with business goals.

Reporting has also become more efficient, as communicators rely on AI-driven dashboards to translate raw data into clear insights. Instead of spending days building manual spreadsheets, marketers can now demonstrate impact more quickly and clearly.

Outreach is another area where marketing teams are putting AI to work. Professionals who once spent hours drafting follow-up emails can now use tools that personalize at scale.

When PR pros use these AI tools thoughtfully, they don't replace authentic relationship building but instead support it, helping marketers maintain speed and consistency while still preserving a genuine voice.

These improvements may not sound flashy, but in the aggregate, they save marketing teams hours each week.

Implementing AI Today

For B2B marketers, the pressure to do more with fewer resources has never been greater. That's where AI's operational advantages matter most—but only when teams use them wisely.

To stay on track, marketing leaders need to create an AI playbook for their teams. This playbook should spell out where AI fits into the organization, where it doesn't, and how teams will review its outputs.

Without clear guidelines on using AI, teams can slip into inconsistency, especially in areas like brand voice or customer engagement. A documented approach keeps everyone aligned and reinforces that AI supports the work rather than replaces it.

Leaders also need to make their purpose clear: they are adopting AI to free up human capacity, not cut it.

When teams understand that the goal in using AI is to shift their focus toward strategy, storytelling, and client relationships, they're more likely to embrace the change. People bring judgment, creativity, and empathy that no tool can replace, and AI gives them the time and space to use those strengths more fully.

Looking ahead, the best marketers in 2026 won't be the ones who use AI to make more noise. They'll be the ones who use it to carve out more time for the work only humans can do.

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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 330-815-1803 or email me at john@x2media.us

Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!

Inside the AI Video Boom: What OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes Mean for Marketers

Inside the AI Video Boom: What OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes Mean for Marketers

OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes gave the world its first real glimpse of what a "synthetic scroll" might look like: feeds filled with machine-made, perfectly personalized video content.

The reaction was immediate and intense. Creators were amazed. Cultural critics were uneasy. And marketers? They found themselves somewhere in the middle. Both fascinated by the creative possibilities, yet uncertain about what it all means for their brands, budgets, and workflows.

While much of the conversation has centered on what AI can create from scratch, there's another side of this story that's just as transformative and, for most marketing teams, a lot more actionable right now.

Because AI isn't just changing what video can look like. It's also revolutionizing how marketers produce and use authentic, human-led video.

The Other Side of the AI Video Story

Tools like Sora and Vibes showcase the awe-inspiring potential of AI-generated content. They stretch our imagination and redefine what's possible.

But just beyond that frontier, another revolution is unfolding—one that uses AI to enhance the real, human stories brands are already telling.

AI is making every step of the real-world video lifecycle faster, smarter, and more efficient. It's helping marketing teams:

• Capture and edit real footage faster, automating tedious post-production work so creative energy can focus on storytelling.

• Repurpose authentic video from webinars, customer interviews, and product demos into dozens of short-form and written assets across social media, email, and blogs, extending the reach of a brand's true voice.

• Distribute and measure intelligently, learning what resonates with specific audiences and optimizing for impact across channels.

This is AI working with human creativity, not replacing it. AI is amplifying authenticity—the quality audiences are craving most right now.

When Generative Video Meets Real Production

Generative video models like Sora and Runway also point to a profound shift in how the "craft" of video production itself may evolve.

Today, one of the biggest bottlenecks in creating professional-grade marketing video isn't shooting footage. Animation, motion graphics, and visual effects make content feel polished, but they are highly skilled, time-consuming disciplines most marketers can't touch without an external agency or design team, creating bottlenecks.

AI video tools are beginning to change that. They can synthesize motion graphics, create backgrounds, or even animate static visuals. This dramatically reduces both cost and turnaround time.

In other words, the same technology that can generate fully synthetic videos could soon augment and accelerate the production of "real" ones, giving marketers access to animation-level quality without the traditional bottlenecks.

Herein lies the bridge between the synthetic and the authentic: using generative AI to eliminate friction in professional production so human storytelling can move faster and look better than ever.

Why "Real" Still Matters

If AI-generated video showcases AI's imaginative potential, real video demonstrates its connective power. Together, they reveal the full spectrum of what AI can enable.

In a landscape where digital experiences can be manufactured in seconds, authenticity becomes one of a brand's most valuable assets. People still want to see and hear from real experts, real customers, and real leaders, and AI can make it exponentially easier for those voices to be seen and heard.

While platforms like Sora and Vibes showcase AI's creative potential, an equally important shift is happening alongside them—using AI to enhance and scale authentic, human-led video that drives connection and credibility.

The Opportunity Ahead

For marketers, the real question isn't if we use AI, but where AI adds the most value and where human insight still makes the biggest difference.

Increasingly, the answer lies in using AI to elevate what's real: the authentic moments, voices, and stories that define a brand. When applied this way, AI expands a brand's reach. It helps teams capture genuine content, scale it intelligently, and measure its impact with precision.

As AI-generated video pushes creative boundaries, operational AI is quietly giving marketers superpowers of their own: the ability to produce, personalize, and repurpose real storytelling at a pace that matches the digital world.

It's a reminder that in this new era of AI video, the technology's greatest contribution may come not only from what it can create, but from what it can augment and amplify.

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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 330-815-1803 or email me at john@x2media.us

Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!

If AI Can't Find You, Neither Can Your Customers: How AI Is Changing the Rules of Brand Discovery

If AI Can't Find You, Neither Can Your Customers: How AI Is Changing the Rules of Brand Discovery

If you lead marketing, public relations, or communications at a startup or growth-stage company, your biggest digital risk right now isn't declining website traffic, stale social engagement, or Google's latest algorithm change.

It's total AI invisibility.

We've entered a new phase of online discovery: AI-driven tools are rapidly replacing traditional search.

And although many marketers are still focused on SEO, content calendars, and paid campaigns, the front lines of discoverability have already moved elsewhere.

The question isn't "is our messaging strong?" It's "do AI tools even understand who we are?"

AI Is rewriting the rules of discovery

Across industries, the disruption is accelerating.

Only 25% of companies feel highly prepared for the AI era—but nearly 80% expect it to radically reshape their industry within three years, according to Deloitte's GenAI Q4 2024 report.

The biggest impact? Search, discovery, and digital engagement.

That shift is already well underway. ChatGPT alone is now processing over 2.5 billion prompts a day (up from 1 billion just a few months ago), and other platforms, such as Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini, are building AI-native discovery experiences that are likely to render the traditional Web nearly obsolete.

Customers are asking questions, making decisions, and receiving brand recommendations—without ever touching traditional search engine results or your homepage.

In a world where your audience's first interaction is with an AI interface or AI-generated response to a search, your brand's visibility depends on what machines can extract from your digital ecosystem—not what your homepage looks like.

Your website is no longer a marketing tool, it's a data source for machines

To cut to the chase: AI agents don't care about your homepage design, clever copy, or conversion-focused layout. They don't scroll; they parse. They don't appreciate brand tone; they extract facts.

If your site isn't structured in a way that AI models can read and process—clear HTML structure, proper schema markup, a clean sitemap, strong metadata—your content might as well not exist.

Marketing teams are still spending time and budget producing beautiful, well-crafted content. But if that content isn't legible to AI systems, it doesn't matter how good it is. AI won't find it. It won't serve it. It won't recommend it.

And that puts your team in a dangerous spot: competing in an entirely new discovery landscape using tools designed for the old one.

If your marketing team isn't "tech savvy" it's time to school up and understand that the pivot to win in this space is not to become an AI engineer but to understand AI from a communications point of view.

AI optimization must start at Dollar One

Marketing budgets—especially in lean environments—must now prioritize AI agents as a primary audience.

In AI-powered Web browsing environments, agents act autonomously on behalf of human users. From the first dollar allocated, your spend should answer one question: Will this improve how AI agents understand, interpret, and surface our brand?

More on agents, below.

Shifting marketing priority expenditures should include the following:

• Technical answer engine optimization (AEO) and/or generative engine optimization (GEO) audits focused on AI accessibility
• Schema implementation and structured data tools
• Content formatting for natural language summarization
• Metadata management platforms
• AI visibility diagnostics (testing with ChatGPT (Agent), Claude, Perplexity (Comet) etc.)

Ad budgets, website refreshes, and even video content are still valuable—but only if they're built on a foundation that makes your company legible to machine systems.

If AI can't see it, your audience won't either.

You don't need a massive budget—but you do need to lead the shift

Here's the upside: This isn't about outspending the competition, it's about outsmarting them.

AI is leveling the playing field. Small, resource-strapped teams can now compete with large enterprises if they structure their digital presence for machine visibility. But that requires a shift in mindset—and in leadership.

This is now your lane as a leader in marketing or comms. Not your CTO's. Not your product team's. You're the voice of the brand, the architect of discoverability, and increasingly, the first line of defense against irrelevance.

The shifting-priorities steps listed above are not IT-only tasks. They are modern marketing fundamentals. And they're only going to become more urgent with each iteration of AI capability.

AI agents are becoming gatekeepers—and decision-makers

The next frontier isn't just AI tools that inform users. It's AI agents that act on their behalf.

Platforms like OpenAI's Operator (Agent) and Perplexity's Comet are rolling out browsing agents that don't just find content—they summarize it, recommend it, and execute actions. Bookings. Downloads. Purchases.

Dr. Karim R. Lakhani warned in his 2025 TEDx Boston talk that AI model capabilities are doubling every 6-9 months. That pace isn't just fast—it's exponential. Fall behind one cycle, and you're on the wrong side of the curve. Fall behind two, and catching up becomes exponentially harder.

This isn't a future problem. This is happening now. And every day your digital presence remains unstructured, AI-native platforms are overlooking your brand—and recommending someone else's.

Earned media is your new power play

Here's one thing that hasn't changed—but is now even more valuable: earned media.

AI-powered search agents are increasingly prioritizing trusted, third-party sources when surfacing answers to user prompts. That means press coverage, interviews, awards, and legitimate media mentions aren't just brand builders—they're AI fuel.

Marketing leaders must think of earned media not just as reputation strategy but as visibility infrastructure.

Each article you're mentioned in, each quote, each headline are now among the most indexable and influential digital assets you have.

If you're not investing in PR and media placement—or if you're letting those wins disappear into your archives—you're forfeiting one of your most powerful AI-era levers.

Visibility is no longer earned, it's engineered

As a marketing leader, you already know that perception drives performance. But in the AI era, visibility is no longer something you earn through reach or budget—it's something you engineer through structure and clarity.

If AI can't see you, your audience won't either. And your carefully built campaigns will never even make it to the consideration set.

The good news? You don't need a reorg or a million-dollar investment. You just need to reprioritize what your team considers core to marketing.

Because the brands that adapt now won't just be found...

They'll be first.

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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 330-815-1803 or email me at john@x2media.us

Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!