AI helped SlicedBrand CEO Ayelet Noff refine her media relations workflow

AI’s meteoric rise has sparked a lot of discussion about how it will augment comms workflows. There are also questions about how communicators, both internal and external, will work with AI in addition to their myriad of already challenging tasks.

We spoke with Ayelet Noff, global CEO and founder of SlicedBrand and Dazzle AI. Noff talked about the rise of tech in comms, how it applies to building better processes, and more.

Ragan Communications: Could you tell us briefly how you first started interacting with AI in your role at SlicedBrand and how it’s evolved?

Ayelet Noff: I’ve specialized in the tech comms space for over 20 years and have been working with AI startups since the early beginning. I have loved watching these AI companies disrupt other industries and wondered why AI wasn’t being leveraged properly to address the unique challenges faced by comms pros.

Ayelet Noff, Global CEO and Founder, SlicedBrand and Dazzle AI

It’s impossible for us comms pros, also known as humans, to keep up with the ever-growing number of trends, news, and channels. In the last few years, it’s become clearer to me that we must embrace and use AI so that we can not only survive but thrive in our industry.

I honestly don’t think a great platform for any industry can be built by someone who doesn’t come from the space and understand the industry inside and out. For an AI tool to be able to truly answer the needs of comms teams, you need to be actively involved in designing and training it. The static models that exist today, like ChatGPT, Claude Sonnet, Gemini, and Perplexity, are great, but they’re focused on past data or are still general-purpose models, not trained specifically for communications workflows.

What’s something about AI that you think communicators need to be talking about but aren’t discussing enough?

AN: Comms pros need to be on top of it all. We must embrace and leverage AI to help us so that we’re able to effectively do our jobs without slaving away and drowning in a sea of never-ending research.

It’s also time communicators acknowledge how current comms and PR tools that aren’t built with AI at their core, and instead sprinkle it onto outdated architecture are making matters worse by serving up inaccurate information and unreliable results. This strains the relationship with journalists when PR teams pitch reporters stories that aren’t a good fit, send pitches to personal email addresses, or even get journalists’ names wrong.

When you first started using AI, how did you educate yourself on how to use it?

AN: I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by some of the best AI experts because I worked with them daily and took every opportunity to learn from them. This is also how I met my incredible team of engineers and AI experts who built Dazzle with me.

You need to use and understand the products to know how to create messaging about them. I’ve always needed to be as much in the know about my clients’ products, services, and the industries they served. I’ve prioritized keeping up with all the coverage and latest updates of the space, including tuning into my favorite podcasts, such as Hard Fork, from The New York Times.

How exactly does AI factor into your role at SlicedBrand?

AN: My team and I use AI every day. My team would spend days curating a good media list, which will only take longer as the number of distribution channels increases.

By leveraging our chat assistant, Dazz AI, during the research phase of the PR and comms workflow, which leans on a variety of LLM models and search engines to fetch the most timely and accurate results, my team can now save enormous amounts of time when building media lists. They can tell Dazz what story they’re working on and ask Dazz anything they need to know to find the perfect journalists for the stories they’re pitching. These questions can include, “What are journalists saying about the AI industry at the moment?” or “ Who should I pitch a story about a health tech startup in New York?”

By letting AI do the heavy lifting and handle what it does best, we can focus our time on being creative.

Have you seen any changes to your workflow or customer/stakeholder satisfaction since you’ve begun using AI and automation?

AN: Absolutely! Before, we spent the majority of our time battling with static databases to find the best journalists, podcasters, producers, and more for our clients’ stories. This depleted our time because the tools we were using to streamline the process weren’t effectively using AI to keep up with the fast pace of the media industry. By letting Dazzle’s unique AI handle all the research, my team has cut down the amount of time spent on time-consuming tasks that happen behind the scenes on every comms team.

Do you have a big prediction for AI usage in the next few years?

AN: My prediction is that once comms and PR pros start to use the right AI tools, the annoying spray-and-pray techniques will come to an end. Media pros will easily get all the intel they need to make the right pitching choices, and the sometimes antagonistic relationships with journalists (and audiences) will evolve into one built on more mutual trust and respect.