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Artificial Intelligence MDC Partners Machine Learning

Reporters, this AI may know what you’re going to cover before you do

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By Kenneth Hein | US Editor

October 20, 2020 | 3 min read

‘How does it work?’ offers an explanation of interesting tech tools in practice. Here we look at PRophet, which is being called the first AI-driven PR platform that helps predict media interest, sentiment and spread before a story is pitched.

newspaper

This AI has ink on its mind.

Prophet is a public relations tool that utilizes natural language processing and machine learning technologies to help PR professionals better craft pitches for the press. It was developed in collaboration between MDC Partners, Stagwell Technologies and Aaron Kwittken, founder of KWT Global.

Pain point: Reporters get pitched – a lot. Knowing what will land is a guessing game purely based on professional experience, labor-intensive research and instinct, with no performance-based data to support or guide a pitch.

How it works: PRophet uses AI – specifically, a proprietary combination of natural language processing and machine learning – to analyze past reporter behavior and predict future reporting potential. It’s not unlike how movie studios and book publishers use AI to predict the commercial potential for a script. It allows PR professionals the ablility to test and refine media strategies before pitching. This in turn enables teams to develop strategies, both around positive news and emerging issues and threats, and present data to support their pitch strategies to internal stakeholders.

Proof point: PRophet’s proprietary technology has sampled more than two million stories from 12,000 reporters. Based on the data, it creates a probablity rate of a reporter covering the item. Even if a story is press hit but is not secured, the fact that the pitch is more informed helps build stronger relationships, says Kwittken.

PRophet also helps reduce internal friction, he says. “Often, a CEO at will think they know more than the PR person. This gives them a chance to push back and say ‘this is not gut an instinct, I ran it through an algorithm. We know endemic media will cover it. If we want to go broader, here are the odds based on the press release.”

Top clients: Ironman, McCain Institute

Key stats: Two million articles have been reviewed by the AI. It is currently tracking 12,000 reporters, globally.

Competitors: Pitch Intelligence, Cision, Muck Rack

Future products: It is planning to roll out products for pitching podcast and broadcast. It will also allow for testing images.

Date founded: PRophet launched this month and is available on a subscription basis. It is funded by MDC Partners’ Ventures Inside program.

Artificial Intelligence MDC Partners Machine Learning

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