Marketer Marisa Lather

PR, agents, and AI—oh my! I got a front-row seat into the future of AI and PR last week. 👩‍💻 I had the privilege of sitting in on Fred Cook’s class at the School for Communication and Journalism—and if you work in comms, you already know that’s not a small statement.

Fred invited to discuss AI and PR, and what unfolded was far more than a lecture. Chris Hackney led a session on LLMs, agents, and the structural shifts coming for communications. Then came a role-playing exercise:

The challenge: Using Meltwater’s AI assistant, Mira, teams had 10 minutes to prepare for a high-stakes interview.
•Team Fred → Develop three hard-hitting questions designed to catch the CEO off guard
•Team Chris → Craft three key messages to anchor the conversation

Fred leaned into decades of media instincts. Chris countered with narrative precision. One critical lesson became clear: AI accelerates preparation, but it does not outsource judgment.

What the session reinforced:
✔️ AI is a force multiplier for preparation, not performance
✔️ Speed is useless without message clarity
✔️ Hard questions expose weak strategy faster than weak data
✔️ The real differentiator isn’t tool usage — it’s judgment
✔️ AI + Vision > AI + Prompts

Huge thank you to Fred Cook, Chris Hackney, Sophie Ho, Dino Delic, and the Meltwater team. To Evan Escobedo, David Berger, and Courtney Wemyss, Jr., so great to finally see you legends IRL! And to the students: you clearly showed your curiosity is your competitive advantage. Excited for what you build next!!