Get ahead of the game for 2019

By Kerry Sheehan,

2019 is set to be a big year for #AIinPR — with the growth in artificial intelligence assistants, chat bots and voice search — alongside virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.

As PR and communications professionals, we are increasingly expected to embrace new technologies which we then deploy as tools on behalf of clients or at organisations.

Sometimes we have resistance from those who may not see the value of these emerging technologies. Often, this comes from confusion among clients and organisations who are not educated in detail about related benefits, the value added results attached to employing emerging tech.

It’s the arena of emerging tech, PR and communications professionals really need to step up into.

Utilising artificial intelligence in PR, virtual reality, augmented reality and even mixed reality — powerful PR assets — is the job of PR and communications professionals to connect their clients and organisations with the technology, necessary to get results and to also further grow business.

PRs will need to work with developers and programmers to ensure their brand/organisation’s identity and tone of voice is carried throughout voice search and AI assistants.

The New Year will see virtual and augmented realities inspiring new engagement, with brands, organisations and services tapping into greater creativity.

As businesses become more familiar with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, they will deliver better, more sophisticated, more personalised experiences. With access to more data, better insights, and new opportunities, the future will leave no smart PR or businesses/organisation behind!

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) will continue to improve in 2019, as brands and organisations take up the opportunity to use these technologies to improve the customer, audience and stakeholder experience.

Think Ikea for its virtual kitchen PR with customers and of late, Nickelodeon, which is adding AR to its mobile app and incorporating VR into the ‘SlimeZone’, to try to keep children engaged when it is up against stiff competition to keep the attention of young people.

In the next 12 months, we will also see voice search increase heavily as more people recognise its convenience — PRs have a big role to play in how you speak in a more conversational tone to your customers/audiences/stakeholders, as conversational commerce becomes key to business results. Brands and organisations will need to get savvier on how to be found in voice searches.

We can’t find ourselves in a place where AI assistants and chat bots all sound type the same!

AI assistants will be in more places, with some car manufacturers already going public on their plans to include them in their vehicles. This is a really important area for PRs to get into.

With all this in mind, how do PRs and communications professionals ensure all of this in the virtual world — and that you are aware of the benefits of emerging tech and how it can benefit results.

Come along to our immersive breakfast session on Thursday 22 November where you can try out the virtual kit — VR, AR and MR — for yourself and also become more familiar with #AIinPR.

Why wait for 2019 — be ahead of the game!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/emerging-technology-pr-tickets-49740314620

Image courtesy of flickr user Creativity103