Crisis PR Will Be a Lifeline When AI Supercharges Misinformation | Opinion

I recently saw an AI-generated photo of Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards squeezing a bottle of baby oil on Jada Pinkett Smith's head. Will Smith was also in the frame, graciously holding the phone to take the shot.

I was mortified, not only at the realness of the photo I was seeing, but at what this means for our increasingly bleak future when it comes to separating truth from fiction.

Grok, xAI's chatbot, recently began replying to unrelated queries with debunked white nationalist conspiracy theories. xAI blamed a "rogue employee" for unauthorized prompt changes and pledged new safeguards, though the incident feels like a troubling sign of a dark future.

Artificial intelligence is evolving faster than our ability to understand its consequences. As it continues to evolve, the spread of misinformation will accelerate at an unprecedented pace, posing serious risks to public trust, safety, and reputation. And while not a comprehensive solution, public relations professionals can help serve as a bulwark.

Crisis PR—the field focused upon managing reputational fallout—is about to become a frontline defense in a war most people have not yet seen coming.

While the internet has enhanced our lives in many ways and brought people together across the globe, it has also provided platforms a place to separate us. While unlimited and instant access to information has been a huge leap forward, AI-generated content threatens to flood our feeds with misinformation. Increasingly, we are entering an era where people, companies, and institutions of all types will need help not just telling their stories, but separating truth from fiction in defense of their reputations.

A single false image, fabricated recording, or scandal invented and amplified by bots will be able to dismantle a person's livelihood and future in a matter of minutes. That's the dark side of AI-enabled misinformation: the power to ruin someone based on nothing more than a computer-generated narrative or image.

We saw this play out already when a fake AI-generated image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral in May 2023. It was picked up by several high-profile accounts on social media and briefly caused a dip in the stock market, demonstrating how even a single false image can produce real-world financial and societal consequences.

In another instance earlier this year, a deepfake video showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky supposedly telling his troops to surrender circulated widely online before being debunked. Though it was quickly identified as fake, the damage was already done. Russian propaganda outlets amplified the clip, and it briefly shook confidence in the Ukrainian defense. It was a clear example of how fast a lie can travel and how synthetic media can produce real-world ramifications.

Crisis PR professionals are the ones who can step in with speed, clarity, and strategy when the digital mob shows up with pitchforks, or when lies, generated in seconds, spiral out of control. PR firms today are increasingly being called upon to defend clients against AI-enhanced disinformation. This includes false narratives fueled by deepfakes, synthetic media, and cloned voices and videos which can fabricate offensive behavior or even criminal acts.

My firm once helped a venue owner who was the target of an AI-driven smear campaign. Bad actors had cloned his voice to make fake 911 calls about emergencies at rival locations. Edited clips circulated online, and a journalist reported the hoax as fact, seriously harming the client's business and reputation.

In response, we deployed a fact-first strategy: collecting official records, leveraging digital forensics to disprove the audio, and launching a focused communications campaign to correct the record. Legal counsel worked alongside us to remove the false claims from press coverage. The key was speed and precision, which involved meeting an AI-powered attack with a coordinated but rapid-fire evidence-based defense.

Real people like this business owner, unprepared with the resources or resolve to defend their reputation, run the risk of being crushed under the weight of lies they cannot outrun. Companies stand to lose decades of credibility in the moment it takes for fake content to go viral.

We are rapidly approaching a future where a personal or organizational reputation is no longer something you must earn, but something that easily can be stolen. But there is a path forward.

It starts with recognizing that AI reputational threats are real and then assembling teams and systems that are equipped to respond instantly. Crisis communicators will be valuable resources to companies, provided they can dissect narratives, act decisively, and defend the truth with some of the same tools used to attack it.

The future belongs to AI, but that does not have to herald the end of fact. Now, more than ever in our history, there will be a burning need for people who fight for truth and decency. I am confident that crisis PR practitioners will rise to the moment. In the age of AI, reputation protection and crisis communication will no longer be optional, but essential.

Evan Nierman is the founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a global crisis PR firm, and author of Amazon bestsellers The Cancel Culture Curse and Crisis Averted.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.