Tag Archives: PR

To Succeed in AI, Know and Use These 10 Terms Including “Token” and “Inference”

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Today I attended day one of the AI Infra Summit at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Around 4,000 registered which is up from 1,500 last year. By the way, infra stands for infrastructure. Speakers addressed what you need for AI. 

 I noticed a trend. Speakers used a few AI-related terms over and over like “inference” and “token.” They liked to say, “AI factories” instead of or more than just “data centers.” The term math or AI math was tossed around a lot. Tensordyne booth had a digital sign that went so far as to say, “AI is math.” 

I decided to blog about the AI terms used by speakers that got my attention at AI Infra. 

I sat through the press conference (photo below) featuring five companies, including two very young startups, as well as mainstage key notes by Meta, NVIDIA, AWS, Kove (unique software-based memory) and Siemens.

Thank you Royal Huang, PhD and CTO of SuperTech FT – a 5013c that teaches young people a practicum of physical AI and robotics – for checking my list of terms and commenting. Full disclosure is that SuperTech FT sponsored my conference attendance. Huang is an AI consultant who has worked in automobile robotics, health tech, edtech and more. (Royal is pictured below under the tiger in the AI Infra exhibit hall.)

Here’s my list of Top 10 AI Infra conference terms:

  1. INFERENCE: I heard this dozens of times and on many slides from the start of the press conference at 8:15 am right through to the last mainstage keynote speaker hours later. AI inference is the process of using a trained artificial intelligence model to generate predictions, insights or outputs from new, unseen data. Dr. John Overton, Kove’s CEO and a PhD, showed a slide that said, “Unlocking AI inference.” Kove innovates by making unique software-based memory.
  2. TOKENS: NVIDIA’s website says, “Tokens are tiny units of data that come from breaking down bigger chunks of information.” It adds, “The language and currency of AI tokens are units of data processed by AI models during training and inference, enabling prediction generation and reasoning.” Speaking of tokens, NVIDIA’s VP of Hyperscale, Ian Buck, PhD, announced a new GPU today, called Rubin CPX. It will be online by the end of 2026 and it will be able to handle “one million tokens” which apparently is a big deal. It reminds me of that Austin Power movie line, “1 million dollars.”

3. AI FACTORIES: Speakers said “AI factories” much more than data centers on their slides. Not new news but still interesting are Meta’s plans to build a ginormous data center that can handle very advanced AI. Today, one gigawatt which can power all of San Francisco is considered big. Yee Jiun Song, VP of Engineering, Meta, and also a PhD, mentioned in the mainstage keynote one that a five-gigawatt data center is planned! This will be called Hyperion and be the size of Manhattan. 

Royal Huang commented on this topic, “Think of it this way. The data center is the soil and AI is the crop.” 

These next three are more commonly used by business people:

4. LLMs: A lot of speakers talked about training large language models or LLMs. 

5. AI Math: Today’s speakers said “math” several times. AI performs calculations. AI enables calculations. AI can save or cost a lot of money. There is a lot of math involved apparently. Recall that Tensordyne’s booth had a digital sign that said, “AI is math.”

I asked a person sitting next to me at lunch, Asif Batada, Sr. Product Marketing Manager of Alphawave Semi, if he thought math was important and used often in AI. He said, “Yes, math is like water,” and then switched the word to, “oil.” He elaborated, “Math is like oil; smart people are working on optimally using oil.” Interesting analogy.

6. GPUs and CPUs:  A GPU is defined as a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly process and render images, videos and animations as well as do scientific computing, AI and machine learning. NVIDIA Rubin CPX (a future product) is a GPU. Fun fact: NeuReality’s CEO said during the press conference that you don’t want to cram too many GPUs together because that could cause performance to suffer. I guess there’s an assumption that more GPUs are better. He says, not necessarily. And a CPU is a semiconductor chip that acts as the brain of a computer. 

These last words or terms are a bit overused but still valid:

7. OPEN SOURCE: Several mentioned that their product worked with many other brands of technology. Open computing is still a big deal. 

8. SCALE: AI Consultant Huang advised that, “Everyone says they scale. But scaling is the toughest thing to do.” I’m not a huge fan of this term for this reason. Almost everyone in tech claims they “scale.” It’s better to give the proof as opposed to just stating the claim. 

9. SAVING ENERGY and driving efficiency: Everyone mentioned this. A lot. Huang commented, “When you build a data center everyone is after being energy efficient.”

10. NVIDIA, the only proper noun on the list. And as a bonus number 10, Anthropic. Many companies said that their product is used by NVIDIA or they have been working with them. The AWS speaker name dropped working with both NVIDIA and Anthropic.

Royal Huang commented that he thought AI agents, agentic AI or multi-agents should have been included in my top 10. However, I didn’t hear many speakers mention them today. I do recall AWS mentioning it. Huang added that edge AI was also important. He had planned to see many agentic AI talks at the AI Infra conference which goes through September 11th. 

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley-based PR consultant and IBM vet. As a social media influencer and blogger, she’s sometimes invited to press conferences. She is attending AI Infra on behalf of SuperTech FT, a robotics non-profit that trains (mostly) young people to do ‘physical AI.’

Photos: Michelle McIntyre took all of the photos here. The stuffed animal booth give away is from a company called Xage Security.

68% Surveyed by USC Annenberg Say Humans will Remain Essential to PR 

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USC Annenberg’s Global Communications Report examined trends affecting the public relations (PR) profession in the second half of 2025. 

The report team surveyed more than 1,000 PR professionals and like my trusty Nissan Rogue tires or the number of members of Metallica, there are four trends. They are AI, hybrid and remote work, the changing media landscape, and political polarization.

Let’s examine two, AI and political polarization. 

Sixty percent of respondents say AI will have a positive impact on the PR profession while 68% said that humans will remain essential to public relations. I agree with this thinking because at its heart, PR is about relationship-building. I literally get hired as a consultant because I know people. 

As an aside, the biggest use of AI in communications was social media according to USC’s timely report. And Gen Z PR people were the most AI-optimistic: 75% who responded said that AI decreased their workload.

The second trend that’s blaring louder than Metallica Guitarist Kirk Hammett at Levi’s Stadium Friday night, is political polarization. 

The U.S. and in some respects, the rest of the world, is divided in two. Either you are for the President of the U.S. or you can’t stand him. The reason why is that if you respect U.S. laws, it seems more ethical to be against him. But then, how can you be against the President? Do you advise your employer to take a stand on this?

And if you do media relations, it’s also wise to not approve of the President because he says he disrespects major media outlets. Theoretically a PR pro needs to respect outlets like Associated Press.

But if you speak out one way or the other customers or ‘investors’ can get upset. At its heart this has to do with the fact that if you take a strong stand either way, you could lose big revenue. Imagine what Harvard and most major colleges are going through right now. 

My advice is to hire an experienced and skilled PR professional to help navigate messages during this polarizing time. Pepper in an attorney’s viewpoint when tens of millions of dollars are at stake. 

By the way, Metallica’s famous four members never mentioned politics once Friday night at Levi’s! I guess their PR team told them to not bring up a politically polarizing topic.

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Michelle McIntyre is an award-winning tech PR consultant in the Silicon Valley, and IBM vet. The photo of USC above is from its Wikipedia page.

PR Professionals:  9 Pieces of Advice from Fast Company Editors

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Winning awards can boost brand recognition, encourage innovation and create meeting and networking opportunities. Awards that matter are worth the investment of time and money.

Some have a fee so marketing folks, budget dollars for these in 2025. 

Today I attended Fast Company’s video meeting session regarding how to fill out their “World Changing Ideas” awards forms for maximum success. 2024 winners are here. The session was called the “2025 World Changing Ideas Awards Informational Q&A.” 

Senior Editor Aimee Rawlins, Executive Editor, Digital, Morgan Clendaniel and a few others presented. To me, most of the advice applies to creating a variety of PR materials from news releases to pitches. 

They conveyed these nine tips: 

  1. Focus on the past 12 months.
  2. It’s okay to say, “Not for publication” if it’s too early to disclose information.
  3. It matters that you show “capacity growth” with numbers.
  4. Don’t use jargon or marketing speak. We can tell when you lift it off of the website. We know marketing jargon. This was repeated a lot and with passion!
  5. Describe how it compares to others. Where does it sit in the market?
  6. Use the actual name of the solution, project or service. 
  7. Don’t use superlatives. Say what it is, plainly. 
  8. The words need to explain it as fully as possible without URL links.
  9. If a section has a 500-word limit, don’t go beyond that. They read thousands of applications and have to get through them all. 

It takes hours to research these awards criteria and advise clients so I appreciated the information session or “sesh” as some like to say. It was better than collecting and reading a lot of tips material. Plus, I was able to attend a ‘freebie’ senior editor panel.

How Can PR Help You Win Awards?

A skilled PR practitioner is to me, similar to a journalist. They will do the investigative reporting at their company and find out what makes the item super cool and useful and then articulate that efficiently. Apparently, you want to NOT copy paste from the website. 

I appreciated the tips immensely (<excuse the superlative!) because they can apply to any public relations materials that are shared with journalists. 

The application deadline for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards is this Friday, December 6, at 11:59 p.m. PT. 

As an aside, the woman worker image was produced by ChatGPT on December 4, 2024. I asked for an image of a 45-year-old woman office worker with a laptop.

###Michelle McIntyre is the president of Michelle McIntyre Communications LLC, a tech PR consulting firm. She’s on the board of PRSA Silicon Valley. To buy a ticket to the 17th annual Media Predicts gala and panel event happening Dec. 10 in San Carlos, California, visit this link here. A panel of journalists from ABC7, Business Insider, NY Times, and TechStrong, will give you tips on working with them and you can even meet them to say, “Hello.”

Michelle is FromMichelle on BlueSky and she has 2.7 million views on Quora.

The CEO & President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Mary C. Daly Sees Cautious Optimism in the Economy, Says the Goal is an Inflation Rate of 2 Percent 

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The president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Mary C. Daly delivered remarks on monetary policy and the economy at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco which is in a sweet location at 110 Embarcadero, in between Fisherman’s Wharf and AT+T Park where the San Francisco Giants play. (Photo of Deirdre Bosa of CNBC and Daly is by Jeannie Entin.)

Naturally Daly focused on inflation and jobs which is what a lot of we citizens care about the most. I was dismayed seeing my dog Ringo’s Rachel Ray brand dog food go from $17 to $34 due to inflation. The good news is that the new cost has stuck for a while. If it doesn’t go up soon I’ll be happy! (The Ringo photo by me is below. He’s a big boy and eats a lot of dog food.)

Daly, who holds an undergrad degree from University of Illinois and a PhD from Syracuse University, said, “We (The Federal Reserve) need to restore price stability and do so without a painful impact on the economy.” She added, “We are still in a fight to bring inflation down to two percent.” 

What is Inflation at Now? 

Inflation looks like it’s around three percent according to the U.S. Inflation Calculator website. This is a very cool chart. Check out the year it was at 7%. 

She said that people are confident that inflation will come down to two percent. She added that the decline in unemployment is declining more slowly than the decline in inflation. Monetary policy is working but it will take more work, added Daly.  She also said that the Bay Area has a lot of innovation that could come and help productivity. She touched on supply and demand and how that affects the economy. (Argh. Thoughts of Econ 101 and 102 undergrad classes are flowing back into my brain. I simultaneously love and hate this topic. Understanding the economy is important if you have a career in public relations. We typically spend a lot of time with company leaders and sometimes advice on business strategy.)

But, Daly added, things are pretty much in balance, in regards to demand and supply of workers. 

Look back to 2022 Daly says. At one point, unemployment was very low and job vacancies were high. As interest rates rose, the vacancies reversed. In April 2024, the vacancies slid down, as per her graphic. We need to have the labor market slow down a bit to bring inflation down, says Daly.  

My opinion is this is the stressful thing about the economy. If companies hire a lot they have less money. They lay off and stock prices might go up. Running a business is tricky business! Back to Mary…

Mary C. Daly summarized by saying, “We are in a better place than 2023. Inflation has come down and the labor market is solid. But we are not there yet. To thrive, people need price stability and jobs.”

I can hear that Queen song in my head. “I want it all. And I want it now.” Balance is hard but I think the Fed is doing a good job. Hopefully my beloved Rachel Ray dog food will stay the same price for a long time!

As an aside, Daly is a great speaker and from the MidWest like me. I could hear that Midwest roots vibe in her messages. Although I love the location of the Embarcadero near all of the cool touristy stuff, I attended Daly’s talk online.

Thanks San Francisco Press Club for streaming it and making it very easy to attend. I serve on the board of PRSA Silicon Valley with Curtis Sparrer who is the president of the SF Press Club and he extended a personal invitation to me. Curtis is a busy bee.

Look for a more detailed story on this talk from Jennifer Yoder on the PRSA Silicon Valley website soon. Deirdre Bosa, anchor of CNBC’s tech-focused franchise, “TechCheck,” based out of the network’s San Francisco Bureau, interviewed Mary C. Daly on stage after her remarks. Yoder’s story will incorporate more of what Bosa said. Here is the YouTube video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrY3957xQ-A

In closing, here is a reminder of what we learned in econ 101 class taken verbatim from the Federal reserve website:

How does the Federal Reserve affect inflation and employment?

As the Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy, it influences employment and inflation primarily through using its policy tools to influence the availability and cost of credit in the economy.

The primary tool the Federal Reserve uses to conduct monetary policy is the federal funds rate—the rate that banks pay for overnight borrowing in the federal funds market. Changes in the federal funds rate influence other interest rates that in turn influence borrowing costs for households and businesses as well as broader financial conditions.

For example, when interest rates go down, it becomes cheaper to borrow, so households are more willing to buy goods and services, and businesses are in a better position to purchase items to expand their businesses, such as property and equipment. Businesses can also hire more workers, influencing employment. And the stronger demand for goods and services may push wages and other costs higher, influencing inflation.

During economic downturns, the Fed may lower the federal funds rate to its lower bound near zero. In such times, if additional support is desired, the Fed can use other tools to influence financial conditions in support of its goals.

However, there are many factors that affect inflation and employment. And while the linkages from monetary policy to both inflation and employment are not direct or immediate, monetary policy is an important factor.

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Michelle McIntyre is a PR consultant, IBM vet and head of marketing for PRSA Silicon Valley. She is a Quora influencer in the area of elite college admissions, with 1.9 million views there. McIntyre, a graduate of Ohio University’s EW Scripps School of Journalism currently has a 4.0 GPA in Stanford Continuing Studies. Jeannie Entin who snapped the beautiful event photo for this story is the president-elect of PRSA Silicon Valley.

Do My Favorite News Wires Match Yours? Expert Tips on Issuing News Releases

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When you make a news announcement, do you use a news wire? Here’s how it works. You write a news release, pick a photo and upload it to a newswire distribution service that will shoot it out to the internet for you. 

Then you see a report of where it ran and, wallah, your news is out.

Any traditional PR pro who is skilled at media relations will tell you that you can also skip the wire and pitch it to a few key journalists directly. For B2B news, it might be ten to 20 contacts. For consumer mainstream news it might be more like 500 news outlets. As an aside, the best stories are features. Reporters writing these stories love scoops. Wire releases are the opposite of scoops so use them wisely. 

I like a combo of sharing the news using a news wire service and pitching journalists directly. 

The four news wire services I like are PR Newswire, BusinessWire, EIN Newswire and PRWeb. This is from recent experience. No one is sponsoring my endorsements. 

PR Newswire and Business Wire are pricey, roughly $1,500-$2,000 for a news release and image or other media like a video: These two carry the big brand names and make your organization look richer. I like both equally, e.g. service provided. 

My PR friend Laura Desmarais adds: “News wires are essential for distributing news to a wide audience and ensuring timely updates. My corporate clients need to work with a trusted source, and they like either Business Wire or PR Newswire. They typically stay with one rather than switching resources for a difference in service.”

As a heads up, when you talk to a salesperson from these services, they will attempt to upsell you to four or five releases to save money. With EIN, it’s approximately $399 for four or five releases last I checked. Business Wire will offer you five press releases for around $4,000-$5,000. Prices depend on how long your press release is; What is the number of words? You save money if you buy a bunch at once. I typically buy one at a time.

5 quick tips when considering a news wire service:

  1. Although you can post your news to your own website easily enough these days, with wires like EIN and PRWeb, any company or nonprofit can afford a newswire. Hire a PR consultant to guide you through the process the first time. 
  2. Always post an image or better yet, a newsy video. I advised a client just this month to make and post a talking head video with their newswire release and KRON 4 ran it on their website. On the other hand, another PR friend, Mark Lewis, says if you’re in a budget crunch, just use a photo or video link in the wire release.
  3. When you call the newswire service, tell them the number of words so you can get an accurate price. Long releases cost more. They can’t get you a proper quote without length.
  4. Contact the news wire service about your news a couple of days in advance so you can troubleshoot any problems.
  5. Allow a few hours to work with the news wire editor to get the details correct, such as proper photo captions and to correct errors they may catch. They typically proofread and will alert you to mistakes. I find editors very helpful. 

Try a news wire if you haven’t already. There are price options for all budgets these days. Combined with some direct pitching, your news exposure should be pretty decent. 

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley-based PR consultant and PR agency and IBM veteran. Her website is here. 

MIT Technology Review’s Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2024 include ‘Twitter Killers’, Gene Editing Tools based on CRISPR and Mixed Reality Headsets

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Controversial robo taxis did not make the ‘first cut’

Three MIT Technology Review representatives held an event today to unveil their breakthrough list of technology for 2024. The items are timely now, more consumer-y than in years past, and according to the editors are “big meaty technologies poised to change the world.”

The surprising thing to me is that the first thing I saw when entering the LinkedIn live virtual event was a message in comment saying something like, check out our list of breakthroughs that did not make the list here. 

My message to industry folks reading this is, if your technology was not included, feel free to write to them and give your feedback. Hire or contact your PR pro to help you say it in an interesting way.

During the event, a communications engagement representative interviewed Amy Nordrum, executive editor of operations, and Mat Honan, the editor in chief who is based in San Francisco. I liked the Bear decoration on the wall behind him. I thought he might be a UC Berkeley grad but his LinkedIn says he went to University of Georgia and Emory.

How do they decide on the list? PR people, university researchers and company folks pitch them solutions throughout the year, and they are considered. Journalists need interesting pitches so that their editors okay their ideas so they don’t just toss out ideas to be nice to someone they may have met with. 

My experience is that they are open to in-person meetings. You need to be able to clearly articulate why your offering matters. A quality PR consultant can help figure out how to phrase something to get a response from MIT Tech Review. 

I’ve taken many technologists to meet their editors: Typically the true breakthrough news gets coverage in a feature. 

Relationship building is beneficial too. They might meet for a few minutes to shake your hand and make a new contact for future projects. If you are pitching a conference meeting, try to get in touch at least six weeks in advance and ditch the industry jargon when doing so.

MIT Technology Review editors mentioned weight loss drugs, AI for Everything, the Twitter Killers List, the first gene editing treatments based on CRISPR, Super-Efficient Solar Cells, Mixed Reality Headsets, and Solar Geo-Engineering technologies. Please visit the outlet’s website for the full list here. 

Examples of Twitter Killers mentioned were Mastodon, Threads and Blue Sky. Threads is up to 100 million users: I find engagement hard though due to lack of hashtag capabilities. Discord and Slack were smartly brought up. Slack is universally used by all people I do business with. Discord is popular with Gen Zs but I don’t like the way you can make your identity secret there. 

Apple’s Vision Pro Headset which will be out in February was mentioned. (See the photo that goes with this story. Photo credit goes to Wikipedia.)

The editors said to keep in mind that mixed reality headsets have not done well in the past with consumers. They added they were more impressed with the underlying technology because of how you can be present where you are and also be in or near something that’s virtual. Apparently, it’s wicked awesome, as they say in ‘Bahston.’ (I used to live in Salem, MA.)

They mentioned that Mexico has banned some solar geoengineered experiments. 

They deeply and passionately stressed what did not make the list. Honan said that he’s been testing robo taxis in San Francisco and because of Cruz running over and dragging a pedestrian, they took it off the list. They mentioned Waymo expanding its robo taxi program. As an aside, I never heard anyone say anything bad about Waymo so they must be the darling of the autonomous vehicles industry.

They added that some new Alzheimer’s drugs had major side effects and there was an experiment in Asia that showcased male to male reproduction. Wow!

They invited the audience and readers to vote on what the last item should be. The options are thermal batteries, lab grown meat and robo taxis. 

The purpose of this story is to help clients and prospective clients understand what makes journalists tick. If you understand media outlets, it’s easier to get their attention and coverage. Hire a PR consultant if you need help with media relations.

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Michelle McIntyre is a global tech PR consultant who lives in the Silicon Valley, IBM PR vet and VP of Marketing for PRSA Silicon Valley.

3 PR TRENDS SHAPING 2024 from LATIN AMERICA, MALAYSIA AND NIGERIA

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I enjoyed hearing journalists and PR professionals speak here in the San Francisco Bay Area recently, from the San Francisco Press Club interview with the NY Times SF bureau chief to the Public Relations Society of America Silicon Valley Media Predicts panel featuring Barron’s, Business Insider, CNET, and CBS News Bay Area. 

Changes brought about by artificial intelligence overshadowed both of those conversations. These were all locals albeit with global perspectives. 

I wanted to know what folks beyond Northern California thought about 2024 so I did some digging. Here is insight from Latin America, Malaysia, and Nigeria’s PR leaders:

  1. AI continues to shape industries including PR agency billing. – Andy See Teong Leng, President of PRGN and former president of PRCA of Malaysia:

“Looking ahead to 2024, Andy (See) predicts that AI will continue to shape the industry, and he emphasizes the importance of humanizing communications in the face of technological advancements. He highlights the growing significance of sustainability and ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) communications, urging PR and communications professionals to advise their clients on genuine and authentic approaches to social responsibility.”  Link to more input from and a podcast with Mr. See here

In his podcast segment with Abbie Fink and Adrian McIntyre, he said that GenAI may impact how agencies charge clients. Why? Because AI has sped up work. 

  1. Authenticity rules communications. – Olanrewaju Alaka, executive, Laerryblue Media, Nigeria

“In a world saturated with information, authenticity emerges as the linchpin of effective communication. I foresee a PR landscape where brands will strive to be more genuine, embracing transparency as a cornerstone of their narratives. The human touch, I believe, will be the catalyst for building lasting connections with audiences.” For more details from Mr. Alaka, visit this link. His further comments discuss the importance of visual storytelling and PR campaigns with a higher purpose. 

  1. DEI-related actions reinforce stakeholder trust. -Institute for Public Relations, Latin American Communication Monitor (LACM)

The LACM analyzed trends in Latin America’s PR field and what professionals predict for 2024. A survey of 1,134 communications professionals from 20 countries was conducted from May to June 2022. There were multiple key findings. One is that “actions on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) reinforced stakeholder trust.”

The survey went on to reveal that “empathetic leadership increased engagement, improved mental health, and reduced turnover.” For more information from the LACM look here.

In addition to attending the local PR dinners, panels, and fun networking mixers be sure to take the pulse of what international leaders are saying to have a fuller understanding of our diverse and spread-out world. Because one of the major 2024 PR trends is the human touch, continue to attend events in person in 2024 to deepen relationships and forge new ones.

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Michelle McIntyre is a PR Consultant and IBM Veteran based in Saratoga, California, a suburb of Silicon Valley. 

Journalists Caution When Using GenAI to Write, Beware of Dullness

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By Michelle McIntyre

A panel of business journalists gathered at Microsoft in Mountain View, Calif., last night as part of a San Francisco Press Club event to discuss how generative AI has affected their jobs.

One participant, Michael Nuñez of VentureBeat made bold predictions. He’s an advocate of using GenAI regularly at work. The other participants seemed to have more of a ‘proceed with caution’ attitude.

Nuñez predicted that Generative AI will be bigger than Google. 

He went even bolder saying that GenAI is as big as the smartphone.

On top of that he quipped, “In one year AI will have touched every aspect of the journalism process.” Yes, he used the word, “every.” 

Nuñez went into detail about how he uses AI as sort of a smart intern to do some research and writing to save him and his team time. He and the others agreed that it’s important to edit and fact check all AI work. 

They also agreed that prose could be biased.

Although most of their newsroom teams were using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in some way and already had guidelines for its use, none thought that AI would replace them in their jobs in the next five years.

In addition to Nuñez, the journalist panelists were Mr. Boone Ashworth of WIRED, Krystal Hu of Reuters, Julie Jammot of Agence Free Press, Mr. Chris Matyszczyk contributor to CNET and ZDNet, Ben Pimentel of San Francisco Examiner, and Jon Swartz of Marketwatch. Rachel Metz, now with Bloomberg, moderated.

100 Million Downloads in Two Months

It was nice to walk into the event with the Reuters group, by chance, since we arrived at the same time. What a beautiful campus by the way. I was happy to get to know Krystal Hu a bit since I had been frequently quoting data from her GenAI story several times recently in business conversations.

Hu had written that ChatGPT, the most popular flavor of GenAI, had the fastest growing user base of any consumer app. It achieved 100 million downloads in two months. This is faster than both Netflix and TikTok. 

Have a ‘Wild West’ mentality when using GenAI

Panelists advised the audience to keep in mind that AI could produce misinformation, and it is helpful to have an AI-use company guidelines.

Jon Swartz said you have to deal with GenAI with a ‘Wild West’ mentality because it’s something new. 

He added that he likes talking to other humans in the newsroom to brainstorm clever phrases. He said, AI can’t do this. 

AI Needs to Lighten Up

My thoughts mirror Swartz’s. We’re in Wild West territory. I  asked Bing chat to write me a biography and it was good but not special. It referenced five sources, but it didn’t have that special pizazz or flare. 

Like I might write, “Michelle likes tossing tennis balls to her big dog, Ringo.” If Bing were clever and funny, it would have added that to my bio. However, I was impressed that Bing spelled out the word “veteran.” It said, “McIntyre is an IBM veteran.” That’s more proper than “vet.” I always write, “vet.” 

Why Delegate Something that’s Fun to Do?

AFP’s Julie Jammot said that she’d never want AI to replace the main writing that she does, calling that task fun. She said that the problem with AI writing is that the language is too uniform. 

Got Misinformation?

Columnist Chris Matyszczyk offered clever quips summarizing his attitude which was that AI is sort of badly useful. He mentioned misinformation a few times, and others readily agreed with his points. 

Boone Ashworth said that WIRED did a good job at laying out their use of AI guidelines. Most of the others on the panel said their newsrooms have guidelines as well.  Ashworth seemed the most chill about using AI. For example, he said, it can be useful if you need to ask AI for a recipe of what dish to make as a meal.

Attribute or Don’t Attribute? That is the Question.

There was disagreement about whether or not a story needs to have AI attribution. That means putting, “Written by AI.” Most said it’s essential that AI be mentioned in attribution for many reasons. Nunez disagreed saying, it is just a tool. You wouldn’t note that Adobe Photoshop was used to make an image.

Krystal Hu from Reuters smartly brought up the infamous “stop progress letter.” She said, “The smartest minds are ringing the alarm on AI.” Ben Pimentel added that a pause in advancement is not practical, but it is good that the letter generated conversation.

The president of San Francisco Press Club, Curtis Sparrer of Bospar, introduced the panelists and Microsoft executives served as gracious hosts with warm welcomes, intelligent remarks and a nice food and beverage spread. 

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley public relations consultant, IBM veteran, and head of editorial content for PRSA SV. She’s a ranked future of work influencer who likes to play fetch with her big dog Ringo. Photo descriptions: 1) Entire panel with ‘AI’ on the screen in the back. Credit: San Francisco Press Club 2) Curtis of Bospar with a microphone 3) Jon of Marketwatch and Julie of AFP, the side of Rachel’s face 4) Boone of WIRED with the navy shirt 5) Chris with a gray t-shirt 6) Ben of SF Examiner with the green shirt
Photos 2-6 were taken by Michelle McIntyre with her new iPhone 14 Pro. Watch the entire panel discussion by visiting this link.

5 Tips to Help You Get Paid On-Time as a PR Freelancer by Michelle McIntyre

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Here are five unique tips on how to get your freelance PR work bills paid on time. 

After 10 years in business, I have never had a client not pay me and only one payment was late.

I noticed many PR and media changes over the past decade. Paid content like the infamous Forbes Council has become more acceptable in PR plans. More ‘non journalist’ contributors are being viewed as serious reporters. The line has blurred between analyst and writer. Podcasts were popular, then unpopular and now they are back in style again, or “fire” as Gen zs like to say. Tech reporters have too many assignments and seem way overpitched. One reporter told me he typically had to file five stories a day. That’s 25 a week and 100 per month.

The best idea to get some media attention for a company is to hire an experienced PR pro, one who has kept up with all of these changes.

Once you do PR for a client, what can you do to make sure you get paid at all, and on time? Here are five tips:

  1. Tag on a late fee. Don’t be afraid to tell someone who just hired you or plans to hire you that if payment is significantly late, that you are going to charge a late fee. Notify them ahead of time, not after it’s late. Ten percent is fair. I had a data analytics client that ran out of funds while waiting on new VC funding. The CFO told me that because of my late fee, I was literally getting paid first among the list of vendors. 
  2. Assign a number to each invoice. If you assign each a number, accounts payable can quickly refer to each invoice later if there is a problem. I had a minor issue with a longtime European client. Assigning invoice numbers is a life saver time wise. Why? If you label it “February” you can’t tell if it’s for work performed that month or the one prior. And which year? I had sent them 60 invoices over five years so that is five Februarys. Once a European bank started tagging on big money transfer fees after three years. In order to get the client to reimburse me I had to articulate which invoice the fee related to.
  3. Check the fees before agreeing to use a particular service for payments: I tried using PayPal with a Canadian client and the fees were outrageous. They were a percentage of the amount tagged on and it came right off the amount I was getting paid. I seem to recall the number being over $100! The client was so frustrated over Canada to U.S. PayPal business transactions that he opened a bank in the U.S. to pay me, and probably other vendors. I use Bill and Zelle now. That brings me to the next tip.
  4. Automate. Use a service like Bill or Zelle. I use Bill sometimes and it works fine for freelance invoices: Its basic service has no fee. Bill tip: If you have trouble signing up, switch browsers. I love Zelle for paying service providers. I have not used it yet to receive client money, but that may be in my future. I paid my personal trainer via Zelle. I like that it’s fee free. There are a few limits: Zelle is only available in the U.S. A small business can use it as long as their bank offers it through their mobile banking app or online banking service. You can only send up to a certain amount via Zelle in a particular timeframe. Other tips are only pay people you trust with Zelle and treat it like cash.
  5. Get creative to avoid spending hours problem solving. I comped an early-stage startup because solving the billing problem would have cost me a lot of time. A CEO from London asked me for a meeting. I gave him launch advice. He insisted on paying me for two hours. We disagreed on how I’d get paid because I didn’t want to give a stranger my bank account number for the transfer. We had no mutual friends, and he didn’t have a LinkedIn photo. Due to the low amount of dollars, I said, I waive the fee, and have a great day. Otherwise, it would have cost me 10 more hours and a lot of stress.

In summary, employ smart invoice and accounting practices from the start. Thinking that the worst can happen will help you get paid, and on time.

Good luck to all of the new PR freelancers out there.

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley PR consultant, IBM vet and the new head of editorial content at PRSA Silicon Valley. @fromMcIntyre

Full disclosure: The new PRSA SV president Meghan Fintland does PR for Early Warning, owner of Zelle.

This story was edited for brevity on March 7, 2023.

3 Tips on Pitching Podcasts for the Second Half of 2022

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During the pandemic, podcasting experienced stunning growth, and podcast audiences diversified. According to Business of Apps, more Americans listen to podcasts than have Netflix accounts. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that SiriusXM bought Conan O’Brien’s podcast network for an estimated $150 Million.

Every major media outlet seems to have them; some like Adweek are launching podcast networks; and many companies wants their executives on as guests.

Here are some tips on helping podcast producers find guests

  1. Consider a podcast sponsorships budget. Think six months ahead with podcasts. Ask your client or CEO if they want to set aside some budget to sponsor a podcast or a few of them. CXChronicles is a top 10 customer experience podcast. The last time I spoke with the host, he said that he required a quality, timely guest and a few hundred dollars to promote it.
  2. Listen to at least 10 minutes of a podcast before reaching out to the host. It’s way easier to place a client on a show after you listened to it. You can hear the person’s tone and personality: Would it click or clash with your spokesperson’s? Better yet, listen to a couple of full episodes. Let it play in the background while you work.
  3. Know which ones don’t interview guests. Be careful about pitching using an expert’s biography when the podcast is two journalists bantering about news and trends. One example is Mike Malone and Scott Budman’s The Silicon Insider podcast. I know Malone from a volunteer gig. It’s an awesome podcast by the way. It focuses on what’s super timely at that moment.

As an aside, it’s wise to always read or listen to a media outlet before you get in touch with its editor.

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Michelle McIntyre is a public relations consultant, IBM vet, and member of the PRSA Silicon Valley chapter. Her advice on Quora has garnered 1.2 million views. Follow her on Twitter @FromMichelle [“Mic” photo credit: Canva]