The New Reality of PR: More Clients, More Complexity

The public relations landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift. Large enterprise clients—the "whales" that once formed the bedrock of agency revenue—are increasingly building their own internal communications teams. This forces agencies to adapt by pursuing more mid-market accounts, or "tunas," to maintain growth. But this shift creates a significant operational challenge: a single million-dollar account loss can require winning five or more smaller engagements to replace, multiplying the back-office workload without a corresponding increase in team size.

At the same time, clients are demanding a deeper level of integration. They want their agencies to feel like an extension of their internal team—persistently available and deeply embedded in their operations. This creates a paradox: how do you provide a high-touch, always-on experience for a growing number of clients without overwhelming your team with administrative work?

From Patchwork to Platform: The Problem with DIY AI

Many agencies have turned to AI to solve this problem, stitching together a patchwork of tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot to automate specific tasks. But this approach creates its own set of challenges. Information gets trapped in different tools, workflows remain disconnected, and teams spend more time moving between platforms than doing strategic work. This "context isolation" prevents agencies from achieving true operational efficiency.

As one agency leader told us, "PR is not a very well-served industry in terms of technology providers. You can find tools that do one thing really well, but they’re very narrow." The reality is that PR requires a holistic approach. You can’t half-ass any of it, because relationships require completeness.

Your Process is Your Product

Leading agencies are realizing that in this new environment, their methodology is their product. The way you interact with your clients, your process, your brand. The agencies that can codify their unique approach into a repeatable, scalable framework are the ones who will win.

This is where a new model of partnership is emerging. Instead of buying off-the-shelf tools, agencies are partnering with internal AI consultants who can translate their unique operational challenges into custom, AI-powered solutions. As one of our clients put it, "I can just share what problem I’m trying to solve and the Shadow team will work with you to build out a custom solution that feels like an extension of your team."

This partnership model allows agencies to:

• Codify Their Methodology: Turn proprietary frameworks into scalable Agents and products.

• Consolidate Their Stack: Replace multiple overlapping subscriptions with a single, unified platform.

• Free Up Strategic Time: Automate operational work—from inbound triage and proposal generation to media list management and awards submissions—so teams can focus on high-value client relationships.

The Human Layer Remains Essential

Ironically, as AI becomes more ubiquitous, the human element becomes more important. "The more we start to leverage AI, I think clients are going to look for more human." AI is not about replacing team members; it’s about unlocking and scaling them. When AI handles the manual, repetitive tasks, it frees up your team to be more prepared, more engaged, and more visible with clients.

This is the future of PR. A seamless integration of human expertise and AI-powered infrastructure. It’s about building a persistent, intelligent layer that supports your team, enhances your client relationships, and allows you to scale your unique methodology without compromising on quality.

At Shadow, we are building this infrastructure for and with our clients. We believe that the agencies who embrace this new model of partnership will not only survive the shift to a more complex, multi-layered media landscape—they will lead it.