Want to Hire a Press Release Writer? 4 Reasons to Choose a Human Writer Instead of AI in 2025

Do you really want AIs writing press releases for your business?

AI is fast and never talks back. That makes it appear useful and helps distribute press releases very fast. If you can give AI the relevant information, you can speed up your PR distribution enormously.

But…

• 66% of people are very wary of receiving disinformation from AI
• 94% of people believe AI-created content should be labeled
• 88% of journalists are worried about the impact of AI on journalistic integrity

Expert writers are alive and well because they can do things AI cannot do. Real people can “read the room.” Skilled writers can convey the most appropriate emotion for your industry and press release. Accomplished authors can respond swiftly and effectively to events.

The human touch is still a competitive advantage.

Don’t believe me? Think this is just a Luddite view that resists change?

Let’s take a look at what AI does, what it cannot do, and why people still have a decisive advantage.

The Rise of AI in PR: Efficiency Meets Expectation

AI is no longer on the horizon; it’s a daily reality in the communications field. The rapid adoption rates paint a clear picture of a significant shift in how PR work gets done.  

Rapid Adoption: AI Tools Are Now Standard Issue

The integration of AI into PR workflows has been swift. A 2025 Muck Rack report found that 75% of public relations professionals now utilize generative AI tools in their work, a figure nearly tripling since March 2023. Furthermore, 90% of communications leaders state AI plays a role in their overall strategy, and looking at the broader content landscape, 90% of content marketers plan to use AI in 2025.  

Among PR pros using the tool, common applications include brainstorming ideas (82%), drafting content (72%), and editing/refining drafts (70%). AI is clearly becoming integral to the writing process.  

The Allure for Communications Teams

Why the rapid uptake? AI promises significant efficiency gains, automating time-consuming tasks and potentially reducing costs – key considerations for any business. With C-suite reliance on communications expertise growing (84% of PR leaders report increased reliance ), AI offers a way to enhance data analysis and meet heightened expectations. The speed at which AI can produce a first draft or summarize data is a major draw.  

What AI Can Do: Capabilities in Writing Press Releases Today

Current generative AI models offer several useful functions for professionals tasked with creating press releases. Understanding these capabilities helps define where AI can realistically assist.

Automated Drafting and Structuring

AI excels at quickly generating initial drafts based on provided prompts or raw thoughts. You can instruct AI to follow standard press release formats, ensuring the basic structure (headline, dateline, intro, body, boilerplate) is in place. It can also summarize background information or synthesize key details from multiple sources.  

Supporting Tasks: Ideation, SEO, and Repurposing

Beyond pure drafting, AI can be a valuable brainstorming partner, suggesting angles, headlines, or calls to action. It can help integrate relevant SEO keywords to improve online visibility and assist in repurposing the core key message from a press release into various formats, like social media posts for different platforms.  

Key Tools Overview (Briefly)

While many tools exist, platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are commonly used in PR. Each has nuances: ChatGPT is a versatile generalist, Claude often excels at nuanced writing and handling large documents, and Gemini leverages Google’s real-time search capabilities. However, their core function for press release generation remains similar: producing text based on human input.  

The Algorithm’s Edge: Critical Limitations of AI Writing

Despite its strengths, relying solely on AI for press releases carries significant risks stemming from its inherent limitations. These aren’t just bugs; they reflect AI’s nature as pattern-matching technology, not a thinking entity.

The Accuracy Problem: Hallucinations and Misinformation

A major concern is AI’s tendency to “hallucinate” – generating plausible-sounding but incorrect information. This can include errors in names, dates, technical specifications, or even citing non-existent sources. For any company announcement, such errors severely damage credibility, demanding rigorous human fact-checking for any AI-generated release.  

Lost in Translation: Lack of Nuance and Context

AI struggles with the subtleties of human language – irony, cultural context, emotional undertones. It can oversimplify complex issues or miss the specific audience sensitivities crucial for effective communication, especially during product launches or sensitive announcements. It cannot replicate a human’s ability to “read the room”.  

The Generic Trap: Lack of True Creativity and Brand Voice

AI learns from existing data, making its output inherently derivative and often generic or repetitive. Achieving unique content or capturing a specific, authentic brand tone is challenging for AI alone. Over-reliance risks creating bland communications that fail to stand out or resonate.  

Ethical Minefields: Bias, Copyright, and Transparency

AI models can perpetuate biases found in their training data. Using AI trained on potentially copyrighted material raises plagiarism and legal issues, especially since AI-generated content currently cannot be copyrighted in the US. Inputting sensitive company data also poses privacy risks. Transparency about AI use is increasingly expected by audiences.  

4 Reasons Why Human Writers Remain Indispensable for Professional Press Releases

People are better than machines at speaking to people. Somehow, all of us can feel the “human touch” in a bit of writing.

What’s the real competitive edge people have?

#1 – Strategic Insight and Genuine News Judgment

A human PR writer can feel the effect of the story on the reader and their clients. We instinctively look for an answer to the question “Why should anyone care?”

Of course there is a format for a press release. There are a number of strategic elements:

• Headline: The title that captures the main point and entices readers.
• Summary: A brief overview of the key points, usually just a sentence or two.
• Dateline: The release date and usually the city of origin.
• Body: The main content, expanding on the headline and summary with all necessary details, typically 3-5 short paragraphs.
• Boilerplate: A standard paragraph about your company that you can use in all your press releases.
• Contact Information: How journalists can reach you for more details

But a human can look beyond these to find the points that are really newsworthy.

#2 – Creativity, Nuance, and Emotional Connection

Humans offer genuine creativity for novel angles and compelling narratives. Crucially, they possess the emotional intelligence and empathy to connect with the target audience on a deeper level. A skilled writer will find the “heart in the message.” Here’s what people look for:

• Which part of this news is actually important?
• Is this helpful for anyone or just a PR exercise of putting out favorable information?
• How will people feel when they see this? How do we want them to feel?

You can prompt an AI to generate answers to these questions. But even the fact that you have to prompt it reveals a key difference. Humans have social instincts. AI has only specific instructions. Get the AI instructions wrong and the social instincts of the reader will work against the business.

#3 – Building Bridges: The Power of Media Relationships

Public relations, especially securing media coverage, often depends on relationships. Human professionals build trust and rapport with journalists, understanding their needs and pitching effectively – something AI cannot replicate. This is vital to attract media attention.  

Partly due to the rise of AI, news outlets and websites receive hundreds of press release pitches every week, maybe even every day. A real person who can pick up the phone or build a relationship with an editor is far more likely to be noticed in the huge crowd of possibly irrelevant information.

#4 – Ensuring Accuracy, Ethics, and Accountability

Human writers engage in critical thinking, rigorous fact-checking, and ethical evaluation. They ensure accuracy and responsible messaging, and crucially, they (and their organizations) remain accountable for the final content.  

That’s the ideal, anyway. Crucially, humans can be held accountable. At the most extreme level, someone could lose their job for publishing misleading, false, or harmful information. How can AI ever be held accountable? Would it even “care” if it published the wrong thing?

Performance Check: Does AI Content Attract Media Attention?

Does the speed and potential cost-saving of AI translate into effective results for press releases? The data suggests a complex picture where quality and human factors still dominate.

Speed vs. Impact: Measuring True ROI

While AI drafts quickly, its impact may lag. One study comparing web traffic found that over five months, human-generated content attracted 5.44 times more traffic than AI-generated content. The same study showed higher efficiency for human effort, yielding 4.10 visitors per minute of writing time versus 3.25 for AI. True ROI isn’t just about lower production cost; it’s about achieving PR goals like positive media attention or enhanced brand perception, which require quality and strategic alignment.  

Journalist Reception and Media Pickup Challenges

Journalists prioritize news value and relevance, rejecting generic or irrelevant pitches. Given AI’s tendency towards generic output and potential inaccuracies, unedited AI releases likely struggle to gain traction. Furthermore, reflecting widespread concern among media professionals, a 2025 survey found 88% of journalists were concerned about the impact of generative AI on journalistic integrity and quality, up from 79% the previous year. Personalized outreach, a human strength, remains key.  

The Trust Factor: Audience Perception of AI Content

Public skepticism towards AI-generated news and content is significant. Many worry about accuracy, with 66% of US adults expressing high concern about receiving inaccurate information from AI. There’s also a strong demand for transparency; research indicates 94% of consumers believe AI-generated content should be disclosed. Sending communications perceived as inauthentic or non-transparent risks damaging trust.  

Finding the Sweet Spot: A Hybrid Strategy for Effective Press Release Writing

Given the pros and cons, the optimal approach for creating high quality press releases in 2025 involves a hybrid strategy, combining AI’s efficiency with essential human oversight.

Leverage AI for Efficiency, Retain Humans for Strategy & Quality

View AI as an augmentation tool, not a replacement. Use it to accelerate parts of the process, freeing up human team members for strategic thinking, creative refinement, and relationship building. The goal isn’t just a finished press release, but an effective one.  

Recommended AI Uses (Under Supervision)

Focus AI on lower-risk, efficiency-driving tasks:  

• Generating initial drafts from detailed human briefs.
• Brainstorming headlines and angles.
• Summarizing research or background details.
• Suggesting relevant keywords for SEO.
• Repurposing core messages for different channels (e.g., social media blogs).

Non-Negotiable Human Oversight

Certain functions MUST remain human-led to ensure quality and manage risk:  

• Strategy: Defining goals, target audience, and the core message.
• Fact-Checking: Meticulously verifying all AI-generated facts, figures, names, and details.  
• Editing: Refining for clarity, accuracy, nuance, brand tone, and engagement. Treat AI drafts as raw thoughts needing polish.  
• Ethical Review: Checking for bias, insensitivity, or misleading content.  
• Media Outreach: Handling all direct journalist contact and relationship management. Making that phone call or sending that personalized email.  
• Final Approval: Signing off before any distribution.  

The Importance of Clear Guidelines and Transparency

Establish internal policies for AI use, including mandatory review steps and disclosure practices. Transparency with your audience and potentially with media outlets builds trust. Many free resources are available online to help create these policies.  

Explore More on Content Strategy and Effectiveness

Deciding between AI and human writers for press releases is just one piece of your overall communication puzzle. Creating consistently valuable content requires a strategic approach that goes beyond individual announcements. If you’re looking to refine other aspects of your content efforts, you might find these resources helpful:

• Maintaining momentum with your audience often involves more than just press releases. Understanding the right cadence for publishing can make a big difference. Explore insights on finding the optimal posting schedule in our article on How Often Should Business Blog.
• Press releases function best when integrated into a larger plan. Developing a cohesive approach ensures all your content works together to achieve business goals. Learn how to build a comprehensive plan with our guide to B2B Content Marketing Strategy.
• Whether using AI assistance or relying solely on human writers, evaluating what’s working (and what isn’t) is crucial for improving ROI. Auditing your existing content can reveal valuable performance insights. Discover how to conduct an effective review with our Content Audit Guide.

Augmentation, Not Abdication – The Future is Human-Led AI

Artificial intelligence offers powerful tools for streamlining communication tasks, including drafting press releases. The efficiency gains are undeniable. However, as we’ve explored, relying solely on AI for critical communications carries significant risks related to accuracy, nuance, authenticity, and ethical considerations. The evidence shows that effective public relations requires more than just speed; it demands strategic insight, genuine creativity, ethical judgment, and the irreplaceable human touch.

Ultimately, the most effective approach involves leveraging AI as a powerful assistant under human direction. By combining AI’s efficiency for specific tasks with the strategic oversight and creative refinement of skilled professionals, businesses can ensure their press releases are not only produced quickly but are also accurate, compelling, and truly effective in building relationships and achieving communication goals. As AI becomes more common, that authentic human element becomes an even greater competitive advantage.

If you’re looking to harness the power of expert human writing for your press releases and content strategy, we invite you to contact Human Ink to discuss how we can help.