Human PR more credible than AI, study finds

LAWRENCE — This news release was written by a real-life human being. Trust me.

New research from the University of Kansas has found that when people are told a news release addressing a corporate crisis was written by a human instead of by artificial intelligence, they find it more credible and the organization more trustworthy.

As AI steadily makes its way into more areas of everyday life, people are finding ways to use it in their work, both to successful and negative effects, often without disclosing when they use it. A KU communication studies graduate class was exploring whether people could tell the difference between writing authored by a human and AI when the idea for this study was born.

“Even if people can’t distinguish between human and AI writing, do they perceive it differently if it’s attributed to a bot? That was the essential question,” said Cameron Piercy, associate professor of communication studies at KU and one of the study’s authors. “How does AI affect how people consume things like public relations writing? We were glad to confirm that people favored human-generated content, but there was no difference between informational versus apology versus sympathy versions of the message.”

Public relations scholars have argued that the approach an author takes — whether the company provides a simply informational release or writes a message that is more understanding of the issues the crisis has caused for people — can make a difference in how people respond. Interestingly, the perception of the message’s strategy itself in this study was not influenced by whether the writer was man or machine.

Ayman Alhammad was the doctoral student in Piercy’s class and is a 2025 graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications at KU. A scholar who specializes in public relations and how it reaches different audiences now at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia, he and Piercy co-wrote the study with Christopher Etheridge, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU. It was published in Corporate Communications: An International Journal.

For the study, the authors asked a sample of participants to read a news release issued in a crisis communications scenario. The authors told participants the release was coming from the fictional Chunky Chocolate Company, who recently learned that their chocolate had made some consumers sick because of employee tampering. After learning about the scenario, participants were randomly assigned a news release and told it was written by a human or by AI. In addition to the attribution, the researchers tested one of three strategies to address the crisis: sympathetic, informational or apologetic.

Those who read a release attributed to a human author reported higher levels of credibility and effectiveness of the message than those who read a piece attributed to AI. Those who read a piece that sympathized with people affected by the tainted product, one that provided straightforward information about the situation or apologizing for the incident did not rate any of the three conditions more effective than the others. Respondents did not find a human-written piece more sympathetic than one written by AI.

The researchers said they expected human-written material to be better perceived by readers but were surprised that the conditions did not make a difference. Still, the findings can help inform how organizations approach their communications with the public, and not only in times of crisis.

“To me, the findings raise more questions in this area than they answer, which is part of the fun of science,” Etheridge said. “If you decide to use AI as a writing tool, you really need to be on top of it. We think that’s what can really test the credibility of your organization and you as a writer.”

Etheridge added organizations can heed the same lessons he and Piercy tell their classes about using AI in their writing. To do so responsibly, one must be transparent about its use, be accountable for any mistakes it might make, edit it carefully and be ready for pushback or questioning from readers.

Whether public relations professionals decide to use AI in their communications, the same standards should apply and are backed by the study’s findings. The authors added that while there is no doubt PR professionals are using AI in various ways in their work, they should also do so responsibly and accountably and think about whether using it for crisis communications is the right approach. Infamous corporate crises like the BP gulf oil spill and Tylenol tampering cases of previous decades illustrate that any mistake can be compounded by poor public responses.

“At the end of the day, the public can’t hang responsibility on a machine. They have to hang the responsibility on a person,” said Piercy, who is director of KU’s Human-Machine Communication Lab. “Whether that’s a CEO or someone else, the public seems to be most accepting of a human message.”

Consumers may be wary, as it is not likely to be disclosed if the corporate communications they are reading was penned by a human or machine. For the study, Alhammad wrote the news that participants read, whether it was attributed to a person or machine. And yes, this news release about the research was in fact written by a real person.