AI-washing in PR, or the expensive mistake companies are making with AI
Before you read: TL; DR
The boomerang effect: Cutting PR for "AI-automation" is the most expensive way to learn that prompt engineering isn't a strategy.
The efficiency trap: Using AI doesn't make expertise cheaper; it makes the expert more dangerous (and more valuable).
The invisible tax: Every "cheap" AI-generated post you publish is actively training future AI systems to ignore your brand in favor of authoritative competitors.
The bottom line: You aren't saving money on a retainer; you’re paying to become invisible in the next generation of search.
Estimated Read Time: 4–5 Minutes
Let's talk about the elephant in the boardroom: AI-washing.
Companies aren't being replaced by AI, they're using AI as convenient cover for cost-cutting decisions they were going to make anyway. In our world, fire the comms team, blame "automation", try to DIY everything with ChatGPT. It's efficient! It's the future! It's... a disaster waiting to happen.
And here's the kicker: many of them are now quietly coming back, tails between their legs, having learned the hard way that prompt engineering isn't the same thing as strategic communications. But they're not coming back humble. Oh no. They're coming back with spreadsheets, ready to negotiate "AI-adjusted" rates.
The audacity is genuinely breathtaking.
The boomerang effect 🛰️
Over the past 18 months, I've watched a predictable pattern emerge, be it at Laika or in my own freelance activities. A client cancels their retainer, citing "internal optimization" or "exploring new methodologies". Translation: we're going to try doing this ourselves with AI tools because how hard can it be?
Six months later, radio silence. Twelve months later, a carefully worded email. Eighteen months later, they're back in your inbox asking if you have capacity. These brands are having what NASA would call a "re-entry problem", they launched themselves into the AI void without a proper return strategy, and now they're burning up on the way back down.
Turns out, prompting ChatGPT to “write a press release that goes viral" doesn't actually work. Who knew? (Everyone. Everyone knew.)
The AI can write words, sure. It can mimic formats, generate ideas, even draft decent copy if you know what you're doing. But it can't build relationships with journalists who've heard every pitch angle twice. It can't read the room in a crisis briefing. It can't sense when a CEO's messaging is landing wrong and pivot in real-time. It can't intuit the cultural nuances that make or break a campaign in international markets.
And, even more critically, it can't do the one thing that's become the most valuable activity in modern communications. But we'll get to that in next month's column.
For now, let's focus on what happens when these boomerang clients land back on our doorstep.
"You're using AI too, right? So you can be cheaper now, right?"
Here's where it gets really interesting. These returning clients don't arrive apologetic or eager to rebuild what they dismantled. They arrive with a new negotiating position that goes something like this:
"You're using AI too now, right? So surely you can offer us 40% off your 2022 rates? I mean, your team's productivity has skyrocketed. We're happy to sign again, but let's be realistic about pricing in the age of AI."
Let me make sure I understand the logic correctly: YOU tried to replace strategic communications with ChatGPT and it failed spectacularly. WE integrated AI tools strategically into our workflow while maintaining the expertise, relationships and judgment that actually drive results. Therefore, WE should be cheaper.
The reasoning seems to be that because agencies leverage AI tools to enhance efficiency, the value of strategic communications has somehow decreased. This is like arguing that because architects now use CAD software instead of drafting by hand, buildings should cost less. The tool changed. The expertise, judgment, and strategic thinking didn't.
In fact, the architects who mastered the new tools became more valuable, not less, because they could iterate faster and deliver better results.
But there's something these clients fundamentally misunderstand about what's happened in the market over the past few years. And it's not just about productivity tools. It's about something much bigger.
Your content strategy is training AI to forget you exist
Those companies that tried to maintain some form of communications in-house using AI tools? Many of them have been actively damaging their brand's visibility without realizing it.
Here's a truth that most marketing departments haven't grasped yet: the content you're creating right now is training data for the next generation of AI systems. And inconsistent, unstructured, or low-quality content teaches these systems that your brand is unreliable, unclear, or unimportant.
Let me break down how brands are accidentally training AI to skip them:
Inconsistent messaging across channels? Your PR team (when you had one) said one thing. Your social team says another. Your e-commerce descriptions are from 2019. Your AI-generated blog posts contradict your own case studies. When an AI system tries to synthesize information about your brand, it finds chaos. So it moves on to a competitor with a clearer narrative.
No recent authoritative coverage? AI systems prioritize recency and authority. If your last meaningful media appearance was 18 months ago (remember, right around when you cut the PR budget to "optimize costs") the AI assumes you're no longer relevant to the conversation. You're training it to think of you in the past tense.
Flooding the internet with AI-generated press releases and content? Here's the beautiful irony: Large Language Models can increasingly identify AI-generated content. And they deprioritize it. Why? Because the training data that makes LLMs valuable is human expert knowledge and human editorial judgment. An AI writing about your brand doesn't carry the same signal as a journalist from a trusted publication writing about your brand.
Every poorly executed "AI-powered" content strategy is teaching future AI systems that your brand is noise, not signal.
You're not saving money. You're paying to become invisible.
The problem isn't AI
Let's be clear: artificial intelligence is a powerful tool. It can genuinely transform workflows, enhance productivity, and unlock new capabilities. For instance, we use Gemini daily at our agency, for research, analysis, drafting, iterating, and more.
The problem isn't AI adoption. The problem is using AI as a convenient excuse for decisions that have nothing to do with technological advancement and everything to do with short-term cost optimization.
It looks like this:
"We're letting the team go because AI can handle it now" (Translation: We wanted to cut costs)
"We're bringing communications in-house and using AI tools" (Translation: We think it looks easier than it is)
"We need to renegotiate rates because you're using AI" (Translation: We want to pay less)
The companies engaging in this AI-washing made a bet: that the hard-earned expertise of communications professionals could be replaced by prompt engineering and that the complex work of building brand authority could be automated away.
They were wrong.
And now they're discovering that the cost of that mistake goes far beyond the retainer fees they thought they were saving.
The invisible tax
Here's what the spreadsheet-wielders missed when they were calculating their AI efficiency gains:
While you were experimenting with ChatGPT to write your blog posts, the entire discovery landscape shifted underneath you. Consumers, especially younger ones, stopped using traditional search engines as their primary way to find information. They were already trusting Tiktok more than they did Google, now they started asking AI systems for recommendations instead.
"What's the best CRM for small businesses?"
"Most sustainable fashion brands in Europe?"
"Which consulting firms specialize in digital transformation?"
When people ask these questions now, they're not clicking through Google results. They're reading AI-generated answers. And those answers are based primarily on one thing: authoritative, credible, third-party sources.
In other words: the exact assets that PR builds, and that you stopped investing in 18 months ago.
While you were AI-washing your cost cuts, your competitors were investing in the kind of consistent, authoritative, strategically placed media coverage that makes AI systems trust them enough to recommend them.
You optimized for short-term budget savings. They optimized for long-term discoverability. Guess whose brands are appearing in AI-generated recommendations when your shared target customers are making purchase decisions?
What happens next
The boomerang clients are starting to understand this. That's why they're back. They've realized that something changed while they were gone, and that their DIY AI experiment didn't just fail to replicate what their PR team was doing: it actively damaged their position in an emerging discovery layer they didn't even know existed.
But here's what many of them still don't understand: the game didn't just change. The rules were rewritten entirely. And the rewrite happened to favor exactly the kind of strategic, authoritative, relationship-driven work that PR teams have been doing all along.
The "unmeasurable" channel just became the most measurable driver of brand discovery in an AI-first world.
FAQ
What is AI-washing in PR and marketing?
AI-washing is when companies use AI as a cover story for cutting communications budgets rather than genuinely integrating the technology. They replace PR teams with chatbots, only to discover that AI tools can't substitute for strategy, relationships, or expertise.
Can AI replace a PR agency or communications team?
No. AI can enhance productivity but cannot replace strategic judgment, media relationships, or cultural nuance. The expertise behind the tool is what drives results — AI changes the workflow, it doesn't eliminate the need for it.
How does low-quality AI-generated content hurt my brand's visibility?
Inconsistent, low-quality content trains AI systems to deprioritize your brand. Every piece of chaotic or contradictory messaging signals low authority — making your brand less likely to appear in AI-generated recommendations over time.
Why are brands disappearing from AI-generated search results?
AI systems prioritize recency, authority, and credible third-party sources. Brands that cut PR budgets lost the earned media coverage that feeds AI discoverability — and are now effectively invisible to tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Does using AI tools mean PR agencies should charge less?
No. AI makes communications experts more productive, not cheaper to hire. Just as CAD software didn't reduce architects' fees, AI tools raise the quality of output — the strategic expertise behind them becomes more valuable, not less.
What is the "invisible tax" of AI-washing?
It's the long-term cost of short-term budget cuts. While brands were slashing comms spend, AI-driven discovery replaced traditional search. The brands now appearing in AI recommendations are the ones that kept investing consistently in authoritative media coverage.
What should companies do instead of AI-washing their communications?
Invest in genuine AI integration alongside — not instead of — strategic communications expertise. Consistent, authoritative content and earned media coverage are what make brands discoverable in an AI-first world.