
Keeping Up With Trump Twists and Turns, Learning to Harness AI Top the List
Public affairs professionals will be busy in 2025 keeping up with Trump administration executive orders. They also must adapt to expanded uses of artificial intelligence and the growing menace of disinformation.
The first weeks of Trump 2.0 confirm the next four years will be a wild ride with blizzards of executive orders and almost equal numbers of lawsuits trying to block them. The role of public affairs professionals will be to keep their clients informed, daily and in some cases minute-by-minute, while also keeping track of what 50 state legislatures are doing.
Public affairs professionals will be on point to prevent their clients from becoming “radical lunatic” Trump targets. Hiding isn’t necessarily an option, especially when actions could affect a client’s bottom line and reputation.
At the same time, analytical tools powered by AI will play a larger public affairs role in issue analysis and advocacy. AI will play an expanded role in outreach by providing deeper audience insight, sharper key message and more impactful and entertaining content.
AI also will be a mischief-maker, producing disinformation that is convincingly real but false and easy to spread on social media. Battling disinformation will likely become a routine and constant public affairs assignment.
Preparing for 2025 Challenges
To prepare for the challenges lying ahead, public affairs professionals need to understand how AI can impact their role and master at least rudimentary use of the technology. Just as important, they need to learn how governments, business rivals and interest groups are applying AI to their work.
Research and analysis are a basic uses of AI-powered tools that can access and process more information faster with greater efficiency. Public affairs professionals, especially in lobbyist roles, could use AI tools to plow through mounds of bills, committee hearing transcripts and legislative reports to identify issues of interest. They also can support predictive analysis to assess the potential impact of proposed policies and anticipate outcomes.
Government Technology Insider reports, “AI-enabled search filters allow users to narrow results by specific criteria through natural language queries. Legislative affairs professionals can ask for a search such as ‘all statements in the last month on immigration policies from Republican lawmakers who sit on the Homeland Security Committee,’ and AI will instantly surface those results.”
“In the near future, AI-powered search could offer even greater value combined with robust analysis capabilities,” GTI says. “Advanced large language models (LLMs) trained on repositories of legislative data can generate summaries, analyses and insights. The time saved searching for information allows public affairs teams to work on more high-value tasks such as crafting compelling campaigns and guiding effective strategy.”
Supercharging Advocacy
AI can supercharge advocacy campaigns. GTI says public affairs professionals can leverage AI to generate hundreds of unique messages to individual recipients. AI also can assist in developing and sprucing up newsletters, emails and advocacy campaign messages.
Streamlining the production process allows more time to personalize campaigns through compelling storytelling and shared details of an issue. Human oversight remains necessary because AI tools aren’t infallible.
“For public affairs teams struggling under an information avalanche, AI offers a lifeline, automating tasks and fueling strategic thinking with advanced analytics,” GTI says. “Overworked, understaffed teams can refocus their time on the human aspects of advocacy: Building relationships and crafting compelling narratives.”
While AI tools can be used for legitimate purposes, they also can be misused to spread misinformation or disinformation. Well-versed public affairs professionals can recognize such false-flag campaigns and respond quickly and effectively. GTI urges public affairs professionals to align to prevent and expose bad actors who pose as legitimate advocates.
“AI is no replacement for the knowledge and experience of public affairs teams – it’s an amplifier that carries messages further, reaching more decision-makers, helping deepen connections with advocates and strengthening efforts in the face of escalating challenges,” according to Alex Wirth, CEO and co-founder of Quorum. ”By wielding AI strategically and responsibly, public affairs professionals can usher in a new era of effective, human-centered advocacy.”
Spotting Disinformation
Discerning fake news and disinformation can be like trying to see how a magician performs a magic trick.
Tech Target identifies ways to spot disinformation on social media aided by AI. The most basic step is checking the source of information and comparing it with information on reputable news or information sites. Check out the author to see what else they have written and to ensure they are a real person, not a bot. Because of AI’s ability to modify images, compare an author’s profile photo with other images online to make sure it is the same person – and a real person.
Read beyond the first paragraph to make sure you aren’t reading satire. Check to see if the content is sponsored.
Sometimes the fake is in the image, which may have been altered with AI. “Advances in AI have created crisper and clearer images, and voice cloning is extremely accurate,” says Amanda Hetler, senior editor for Tech Target. “Watch for distortions in areas such as hands, fingers and eyes. These parts of the body typically have irregularities in AI-generated content, such as eyes not blinking properly. Also, watch for voice and facial expressions to not line up properly.”
Countering Disinformation
After spotting disinformation comes the task of exposing it as fake or disingenuous and presenting the facts. Yelling foul won’t be enough to push back on malicious disinformation. Public affairs professionals need to go to school to learn how to battle disinformation.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace advises labeling social media content as false or untrustworthy. “Large, assertive and disruptive labels are the most effective” at giving viewers a heads up.
Carnegie also recommends “counter-messaging strategies”. “There is strong evidence that truthful communications campaigns designed to engage people on a narrative and psychological level are more effective than facts alone,” it says. “By targeting the deeper feelings and ideas that make false claims appealing, counter-messaging strategies have the potential to impact harder-to-reach audiences.”
The American Psychological Association offers advice on debunking and prebunking misinformation. “Research shows that debunking misinformation is generally effective across ages and cultures. However, debunking doesn’t always eliminate misperceptions completely. Corrections should feature prominently with the misinformation so that accurate information is properly stored and retrieved from memory.”
“Debunking is most effective,” APA says, “when it comes from trusted sources, provides sufficient detail about why the claim is false and offers guidance on what is true instead.”
“Instead of correcting misinformation after the fact, ‘prebunking’ should be the first line of defense to build public resilience to misinformation in advance. Studies show that psychological inoculation interventions can help people identify individual examples of misinformation or the overarching techniques commonly used in misinformation campaigns. Prebunking can be scaled to reach millions on social media with short videos or messages, or it can be administered in the form of interactive tools involving games or quizzes.”
APA says debunking and prebunking strategies fade over time and require periodic reinforcement.