Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#113 How Comms & PR pros stay relevant in an AI world (feat. Ana Pista)

• Season 1 • Episode 113

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What would you do if a client came to you and said they no longer needed your services, because they’re going to use ChatGPT instead?

This is the situation today’s guest, Ana Pista, faced recently.

If you don’t know Ana, start now! She’s the founder and CEO of Ardent Communications based in the Philippines. She’s a seasoned PR expert with more than two decades of experience, having honed her skills while working for big companies like HP and Microsoft.

In this conversation, we cover how to deal with clients who want to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) instead of our services, using AI in our own practices, the ethical considerations, and so much more.

If you work in comms, PR or marketing, and AI is encroaching on your world, you want to  listen to this one!


Links mentioned in this episode:

Follow Ana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-pista-apr-871742108/

Ardent Communications Inc. 

AI Centre of Excellence (ACE) 

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What would you do if a client came to you and said they no longer needed your services because they're going to use chat GPT instead? This is the situation today's guest Ana Pista faced recently. If you don't know Ana, start getting to know her now. She's the founder and CEO of Ardent Communications based in the Philippines, and she's a seasoned PR expert with more than two decades of experience having honed her skills while working for big companies like hewlett Packard and Microsoft, she played a pivotal role in transforming ardent communications into the Philippines leading technology, public relations firm. Now, Ana's contributions to the Global Alliance for Public Relations and communication Management have been nothing short of groundbreaking. In 2024, she became the first Filipino elected as a director of the organization, which highlighted her commitment to advancing the PR profession worldwide. She's a dedicated advocate for the advancement of public relations and has been a key player in shaping the future of the industry. Ana's Tanya in the Public Relations Society of the Philippines, where she currently serves as the vice president -external has solidified her reputation as a leader, while her role as a speaker at the World Public Relations Forum in China in 2023 also reinforced her status as an industry thought leader. I met Ana at the IABC APAC Fusion event recently in Manila, and I was blown away by her expertise and insights into the impact of AI on the PR and comms world. So I could not wait to get her on this show. I. In this conversation, we cover how to deal with clients who want to use AI instead of our services, using AI in our own practices, the ethical considerations, and so much more. If you work in comms, pr, marketing, or anything in between and AI is encroaching on your world, you want to listen to this one. So without further ado, here's Ana. Hello Ana, and welcome to the show. Hello, Mel. Really it's a privilege having being here, Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you after meeting you and seeing you speak at the Fusion Conference in Manila a couple of weeks ago now. But before we get into all of that, can you tell us a little bit about you, what you do, and how did you come to develop your expertise? All right. So I'm Ana Pista. I I found I'm the founder and CEO of Ardent Communications. Ardent Communications is the premier technology PR in the Philippines. Everything is happening in the country. Technology is coming in, most of the brands are coming in. We were at the forefront of doing things for most of these clients. There is where we started offering PR for a very niche market, actually, which is technology. So we were doing that for about a decade, and then we realized to expand our services. So right now it's not just technology accounts, but almost all, industries covering all industries, pharma, utilities, and all that. So we have expanded that for over two decades of servicing our clients at Ardent Communications. Oh, congratulations. It's a huge thing to start a business and keep it going for that long. So well done. How did you get into pr? How did you decide that public relations was for you? Oh, that's a good question. I actually it was an accident. I. I'm part of literature major, so I was wanting to teach in college literature, English, stuff like that. And then when I graduated, a friend of mine was supposed to be interviewed in a Edelman affiliate in the Philippines, already got hired, he called me and he said that, Ana, would you want to apply for a PR firm? And I said, what's that? What do they do? So am I qualified for that? And then he said, just go in the interview. Please take my spot because I'm already hired by another agency. So I did, and when I got there, it's like a, the interview became a conversation. You felt that it's your eureka moment that, oh, this is what I want to do, this is the things that I've been doing since I was little, taking the lead, doing script, leading the glee club and all that. Doing programs and that. And then writing a press release, being a features writer of the school publication. So it's okay this is cool. So I said, okay. And then I was hired and then I didn't know Edelman and I didn't know that it's the biggest agency when it comes to PR. So I got the job, and I landed being an account executive. And from there I started loving it. And then one good thing happened after the other, I got pirated by HP, Hewlett Packard oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. My knowledge is really on tech pr. So they hired me as an in-house pr, but then after seven months, I said, I still want to be in an agency environment. So I don't want to be limited with just doing one account, but I wanted to all sorts of account. It's it, I find it so exciting and exhilarating. So I resigned and I have no fallback. But then a group of friends of mine asked me to put up a publication business. And I said, I don't like publishing, so I'll go with you if you go with me with, putting up a PR agency. And then all their faces light up and I said, oh, I might have said the right word. So we, from there, we started, like we incorporated we we put up the agency and then we've got the Canon Philippines as the first client of Oh, okay. That's awesome. And then from then on most of the tech PR that I've managed in the past, of course, they know me and they heard about me putting up an agency or I have an agency already, and they called me and they said, can you service us as well? So that's how it started. So yeah we practically managed most of the brands that, for technology yeah. Oh wow. Fantastic. And it is funny how our careers wind and shift like that, isn't it? Like it, yes. I was the same as you when I started in internal comms. I was like, what's internal comms like that's not a thing. What's change? What's that? It wasn't like that when we were at uni. There was nothing like that, so That's great. Yeah. So I'd love to chat to you. You shared a story about how a client wanted to stop using your services in favor of artificial intelligence. Can you tell me what happened? Alright. As we have technology clients and because they're technology clients, they are pretty much aware of the what's available, tools and all that in the market. And then they said that in one of the meetings they mentioned that they will not renew the contract with us. Because they're about to renew the following month. They should be renewing their contract with us. And they said that, we won't be renewing the contract with you because we think that AI can do the job. So the creation or press releases, and all that. And then the distribution as well. So because they thought that what we only do for them aside consultancy they're not thinking about the consultancy we provide them, but more of the output. Like for example, you write a story, you seed it to the media, and then they get outputs and then you report it to them. To them it's as simple as that. We don't do our job that way. There's a lot of thinking, there's a lot of strategizing and all that, and that's what they pay us for. And at the end of the day, it's very hard to to argue because we know very well that yeah, he's right, that he can, they can produce the story out of AI. And and then we go back to, went back to the office and talk about that. And then probably a week after this story about mi, Microsoft, MSN, came up with a story about this basketball player. They create an a press release. They distributed the press release that is out of AI, made by AI. It was a disaster. The headline says useless, basketball player. So it's like really? When I saw that, I said to my team, okay, we need this. We need to present this to the client and show her that this is what's gonna happen if they're fully dependent on AI. So we, for that meeting, I presented, we justified, we, and then that was an opportunity for us to. To tell them this isn't just what we do for you. In fact, this is what we do for you. This is the list of how we handle the things that we do for you. And this is what we are paid for The man hour. And then was able to explain you are given a seat on the table. And fortunately for us they got convinced and they renewed it alate like six months only because supposed to be 12 months. So they were like still thinking of okay, we think that AI will work. And we think that this will work for us, but they gave us another chance to renew the contract for another six months. And so we did. So it happened. So those things happened. In fact it's not just one client. There's another client of the same story. But yeah, again, that's how we approached it. That's how we present it to them, and that's how we tell them that, oh AI is only as good as the data you put in it. So there, there is really a need for human intervention. There's really a need for inputs because it's like a machine made article and it's not gonna be good for your reputation. No, and I think that's a really good point, isn't it, around the reputation damage that can happen and the article you mentioned, but there's also been some other really big examples of where people have relied on AI and it's done more harm than good, like lawyers and journalists and newspaper editors, and that reputation piece is just something they don't think about, do they? It's not their first. Their first thought. It's just how can we be cheaper and more cost effective? Without thinking, actually, if we damage our reputation, it's gonna cost us more in the long run. Yeah true. How does your team now use AI? Because obviously it's such a big thing. It's part of our lives every day now it's only going to get bigger and yes, you're advising clients to still have that human element, but are you yourselves using it and how are you using it? Yeah. Fortunately for agencies like us, because for agencies are mostly young blood, they are the, they are digital natives and they pretty much know how to use it better than the Gen Xers, so to speak. But then the Gen Xers, the decision makers are actually the one putting context, the right context to things that they do the consultancy and all, because they aren't there yet. So they are very good at using AI. In fact, they're the ones in our office whenever there's a task that we are to do, they are the one recommending a tool. They're, that they're that knowledgeable. We can do a for example, in one of the meetings one of them said that, we need to produce this video and we only have one week to produce this, so we better, put things together and all that. And then somebody from that brainstorming meeting said that we can do that in six hours. And then I was like, oh. And then I tried hearing from her and said, but, and then we have to get a a person that can do the voice and all that. Oh, AI can do all of that. Yeah. In fact, we can choose this and that. I was so amazed I didn't know of that tool. Yeah. And then she mentioned it and then, okay let's give it a try and then mind you, in six hours, the video was done. Oh wow. Yeah, and I was like, so surprised. And then she even asked me, what do you want to be the voice of this video? A girl or a boy, and then we, there's a rationale behind it. And then how young the voice should be.. How it should sound, and then I have options. So I was like, so amazed. And then I said, I okay, for this particular client is the target market, so this kind of voice and it should be female. And that was created in 40 minutes. Wow. We chose the voice, we chose the kind of voice and the tonality and everything. And then that's it. We finished with a with a video production and we didn't pay for the voice. We didn't pay for cameras and everything else that usually it'll take us two weeks to do. Yeah. Yeah. And it took us like, like six hours to finish that. But the, of course, the editorial synopsis, the how it should go and all that was done, that's when we put like a lot of time for that. But when it's ready, it can be produced in a video in in fact, six hours is quite long because that's one when they're still asking me for decisions and stuff. But if they did it their own themselves and decide on their by themselves, then it's, I think it's just three hours. Wow. So that's how technology and this AI is helping us. We work smart efficient, faster, and with, much lesser cost. Yeah, I love that example. And I think it points to the fact that AI is it's getting smarter, it's getting better. I use it all the time myself too. Like in Canva, there's some awesome AI tools in there. I was playing with a new one this morning before we jumped on this call called Manus ai. Oh, and I asked it to create a animation based on a podcast script that I uploaded. It's not good. It's really not good because it's a trial and it's always Exactly. Trial and error and practice. Exactly. Yeah. And it will learn. Yeah, it'll get better. But Mel, you asked me about that. My take on that is that the young ones are very, are digital natives. They can really, they know what tools, what are the available tools. In fact, they can select which one is cheaper, which one is free, which one is better. They can tell us on those things. But that's where we have to intervene in terms of what, how to put quality in what they do. Yes. Yeah.'cause we still lack that. And that's when the marrying part. Happens like us, we might not be that knowledgeable or aware of all these tools, and we're not even actually the one using it ourselves, and they're the ones using that because they're the ones working on the client and they're the ones servicing. But it's important that we should, should be the consultants and the one that tells them how to do it better. And the human side, you know how to humanize it because me, I myself, I can tell if the article they made this little 90% Oh yeah, it sounds like a robot. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And then to be honest, it's harder to edit. A, an article that was made out of AI because you know that they didn't, their heart's not into that. And it's easier to edit something that you write from your own, your own take on things. And then it's easier to edit. So that's where we are having difficulty on that. So it's taking us a while, but still it's more efficient, faster, quicker, and as what our masterclass, last week emphasized treat it like an intern. I like that. If you treat it like an intern, it's like you tell them what they need to do, what they need to provide you, and then it's easier to produce whatever you need to produce. Like it could be a campaign or a, an article or a research on something. So you are the ones instructing the AI, the tool and you have to introduce yourself as who you are and what you need from him. And create the right prompt. And then you then that's when you get the right, detail that or info that you can use for your work. Yeah, I love that concept of treating it like an intern. I think that's very clever. Thank you for sharing that. But I do want to ask you, 'cause I know you're part of the Global Alliance for PR and Communications Management, which for our listeners who don't know what that is, it's a collection of different organizations from around the world, including IABC, which I'm part of. And you are part of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines as well. I know that you and some of your colleagues at the Alliance are working on the ethics piece of AI at the moment. What are some of the ethical challenges that you think people struggle with when using AI for comms and PR? All right. It's very tricky because you can either use it to, to spread misinformation and disinformation because I've, as I've said, you can use it in such manner and you could produce the material quite very easily and quicker, faster, smarter. And and then the other part is doing it right, and being very ethical in doing it. There's a spread of misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes, and all that. And you want to be part of the PR community that is responsible in doing things ethically. As our cry for Global Alliance, for example, we want to be the advocate of being a responsible communicator. And being a responsible communicator is not just doing it right, but telling others how to do it, right. And in the office for example we have to self-regulate. Because, and we tell our clients that, because you always, at the end of the day, you always have an option or you can choose whether you use the tool to earn more money and do things quicker and do on the, do things on the other side and be part of the misinformation and disformation, and you can choose the other one also. And of course we're towards the ethical way of doing things. So Global Alliance is one of the organizations that pushes that principle of being a responsible communicator. So in the office, for example especially in the Philippines there's only cybersecurity and data privacy law and, you can really do the deep fakes and all that. And you won't get criticized for it. And the sad thing is people wouldn't determine actually what, which is the fake and which is not somehow, because that they're not that critical with that. They just look and, 78% of Gen Z here, the source is actually social media platform. So whatever you put in there they are not there to say, oh, that's difficult. That's not true. That's not, and so us as a responsible communicator, we should be watchful of that, and we should be a proponent of like really protecting that. Especially for the young ones whose source of information is the, all the social media platforms. Yeah. In the office we do self-regulation. For example we tell the client. This is 90% AI. We tell them, I'll try it because we want to set the expectations and then when we, there's crisis we tell them that this is not facts, and we tell them we, we are consultants and we tell them how to respond to that. So we do a lot of social media listenings, because you can never go wrong with data. We practice outsourcing the right partners to provide us with the best social media listening tool and provide consultancies to the client relying on that social media listening tool that we did and the result that we acquired. So it's more on, in the Philippines, honestly, at this point is self-regulation. Yeah, that's interesting. And I. It is and you will see this from being on the Global Alliance too, it is so different wherever you go in the world. Like in Australia, we do have the Australian government issued AI ethical guidelines, but they're not, nobody's held to account to those, maybe under other kind of laws or similar laws. But even now we are seeing 'cause we're coming into a federal election, there have been deep fakes pop up about the opposition leader, but they're on a platform not run in Australia. It's run out of China. So then you have this whole legal barriers across borders that you've gotta contend with as well. And as you say, if people aren't educated in how to think critically about the content they're seeing, and to be able to spot AI in action, then we have a really big challenge on our hands. Yes, that's right. That's right. Especially for for the country, for our country, like the election is coming, we're this May, it's election time and as responsible communicators, we should be watching that. We should be telling the younger ones how to protect themselves from getting influenced by wrong information and stuff like that, but you can only do so much. So it's good that organizations like IABC and Global Alliance and PRSP, it's actually our job to to push this. Because otherwise they can shrug up your shoulders and say it doesn't matter. People are, especially the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas are really very knowledgeable right now. No, you can still, they can still get easily influenced by information. So if we're not gonna be at the forefront of this, if we're gonna do the campaigning on being ethically responsible and then pushing the responsible communication, agenda, then yeah. It's gonna be a sad sad sad future for us. And I think you've just struck a chord with me there. We've been talking a bit in recent months about how you demonstrate the value of communication. Particularly when you're in a business or to your clients. And I think one of the things that we can demonstrate as you've been talking about there, is that we are guardians of the truth in a way. That sounds very dramatic, but we are the ones who can be that first line of defense between what is real and what is fake. Being able to educate people and being able to protect reputations by being the people who are best positioned to protect reputations in this world that we're in. That's right. That's right. I've got one last question for you, Ana. What advice do you have for other PR and comms professionals who may be worried about being replaced by AI? Okay. I always say that again AI is only as good as the data you put in it. So you're still the one that's putting the work out there. It's just a tool to help you out. Now it's gonna replace your job if you won't study and upskill because another person would take your place, the one that's knowledgeable about AI. So it cannot replace a job because it needs a lot of human intervention. Especially with the works that we do, it's about reputation management, so how could you put reputation if we just, depend on a robotics type of material that comes out of a tool. So it's still you that's working on that. And then obviously once you are using it, you would know that, oh, this is the difference. If you continue using AI, actually you would realize that Yeah it's, it uses a very common word. For example, journey is always there, yes. And you would know that it's 90% ai. Not really, it should be other way around 10% AI and the 90% human touch. So it won't replace our job because the more likely we are the ones or originating doing things like this, but you will be replaced if you will not upskill and you will not learn the tool and you were not aware of the tool, of course, definitely you will lose your job. In fact, in the Philippines right now, when we hire new grads, it's part of the, the thing that we look into the resume is the knowhow in terms of using tools and AI because we have to upskill, we have to know how it's being used so that you'll be more, you can work smarter, faster, quicker, and more efficient, but it won't replace what we do. It won't replace the kind of effort and think, thing that we do for our clients because all that we do is really from the knowledge that we put together. And the tool is just helping us aid aid is just aiding us to, to deliver that. Yeah. I think that's really good advice. Thank you. And I have three questions I ask every guest on the podcast. Are you ready for those? Okay, let's go. Okay. First one, what is one of the best communication lessons you've ever learned, and how did it change the way you approach communication? Okay. It's always being truthful, in what you do. And you can never go wrong with that because, and you have to believe what you do. When you're a consultant and you tell a client of what they need to do, you should be believing that. And it should be something that you have really worked on as a consultant. And because if you do not believe what you say, then all else will fail. Yeah. And it happened to me. For example, crisis. Very well. That this is what the client should be doing. But then there are some clients that are very stubborn and then you would go with the flow because that's what you wanted. And then at the end of the day, you never listen. You never listen to what your mind is saying that this is the approach to this. You do not, never insisted it. If you're not part in the discussion on the table. So what happened was, it has become a much bigger crisis afterwards. So you have to trust your gut. You have to put it out there because that's what you're paid for. That's what you have to do. So yeah you just stand on what you know you should be doing and giving it to the client and make sure that they listen to you. And if they don't, then you are ready to tell that, okay, we said so. I love that. That's really good advice for anybody who's working either externally as consultant or internally and advising people in-house as well. Next question, what's one thing you wish people would do more of or less of when communicating? All right. That's a tricky question. They should be, again I, it should be representing you. It should be you. Authentic you. And in order to aid you with how you want to present it, you have to always study. You have to always back yourself with back your, back it up with research. And you have to be prepared whenever you do that, you have to be backed up with data, with facts and all that, and then stand your ground and be very ethical and be very authentic. I love it. And I think authenticity and communication is something we often have to coach leaders in a lot as well. Especially new leaders who aren't confident yet.. But it comes across when they're not authentic, you can tell. Okay. Last question. Who do you turn to for communication advice? Oh, okay. Of course, that's the reason why you have experts in the field, organizations like IABC, Global Alliance, and you would only know that what you're doing is efficient and good when you are echoing that with fellow experts and communicators. So you should not be closing your doors with opportunities to work, collaborate and do things with fellow communicators. And you should not stop yourself from joining organizations because it'll help you see things beyond the four corners of your agency, you would see it in a different light. Like for example, I would go to Malaysia and it's very near Philippines, but it's different. They are, they're all different things there, and you could learn more from them and then you could bring it home and do it in the Philippines, for example. And then you could also compare, for example, responsible communication. I'd be like, oh, in Europe there's the GDPR, but in the Philippines there's only this and that. So then you mirror, and then you help see the good things of how they implement things and bring it home. And that's why it's global. You can present, represent your company as a global company. That those things keeps on upskilling, keeps on learning, keeps on collaborating with fellow experts. Yeah, and I think the great part about joining these organizations is obviously get to meet people around the world. That's how I met you. That's always fun. Ana, thank you so much for your time today. If people wanted to connect with you and learn more about what you do, how can they get in touch with you? Okay. They can email me at ana.pista@ardent.com.ph, I am now a CEO and of ACE or a AI Center of Excellence, and we are doing workshops for AI and, they can also reach out to me at ana.pista@centerofexcellence.ai Amazing. Thank you so much, and we'll put a whole bunch of links in the show notes as well. Ana, it's been absolute pleasure. Thanks for joining us on Less Chatter More Matter. Yeah, thanks Mel. You're doing a wonderful job. I hope you, get to do this as often because we need someone like you oh, thank you.