EXPOSED
The written output layer of PR — press releases, media pitches, talking points, coverage summaries, sentiment reports, award submissions — is exactly what generative models do at usable quality, and much of a PR manager's week is reviewing and shipping that output. What survives is the part that isn't text: owning the call on whether to respond to a hostile story, standing in front of a reporter or CEO with your name on the advice, and the personal relationships with specific journalists and editors that determine whether a pitch is read. There is no license and no legal sign-off here, so the moat is reputation and accountability rather than regulation.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. A 9 reflects the split inside the job: drafting releases, media lists, pitch angles, coverage clips and monthly sentiment decks are now machine work, while brokering an embargo with a specific beat reporter, running a message-testing session with the exec team, and deciding what the company says at hour two of a crisis are not — so roughly half the calendar resists and half does not.
Some physical or field component. A 5 covers the physical residue that is real but not the job: staffing press conferences, riding along on media tours, walking a camera crew through a plant, and being in the room for on-camera prep — none of it requires manual skill in an uncontrolled setting, but it does require a body in a specific place on a specific morning.
No licence, no signature requirement. A 2 because nothing you issue carries a professional signature — no license to lose, no bar or board to answer to; PRSA's APR is voluntary and no employer requires it, and when a statement is legally consequential the securities lawyer or GC owns the exposure, not you.
The human relationship is the product. A 14 recognizes that the asset is a named list of editors, producers and analysts who take your call because of prior dealings, plus the CEO's willingness to accept your read on a story before publication — that transfers with the person, not the org chart, though it stops short of 20 because much of the PR function is program management that a successor can inherit.
Exists to be accountable for ambiguous calls. A 15 is earned by the calls with no playbook: respond or stay silent on a hostile investigation piece, when to disclose a breach ahead of legal deadline, whether to put the CEO on record, and how to handle a reporter who has half the story — these get made in hours, on incomplete facts, with the share price and executive careers as the downside.
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