Chris Hall, CEO, Primary Comms Group

Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated professional conversations over the past two years. It’s been positioned as the ultimate productivity tool, transforming how we work, think, and create.

I’ll admit, we have approached it with equal parts caution and excitement. Like any major innovation, when the whole world is adopting technology at pace, not understanding its risks is the fastest way to be left behind.

But as the hype starts to fade, we are beginning to see AI for what it truly is: powerful, yes, but it’s not the be all and end all in PR.

I want to acknowledge that the risks and ethical implications of AI misuse are very real, and we are yet to see the full extent of these, especially with the advent of issues like deepfake impersonations, data leaks and prompt injection attacks.

The technology is evolving so rapidly that legislation and regulation will never keep up. PR professionals can’t rely on guardrails to keep them safe; we need a forward-thinking mindset that anticipates risks rather than reacting to them. The work of building proper safeguards deserves its own dedicated discussion but today I want to focus on something else I’m increasingly noticing across our industry.

The limits of “intelligence”

AI is not yet the revolutionary force many hoped it would be. It can help us work faster, but it can’t yet think for us. As I like to describe it, AI is a poor second cousin to human thinking, similar in form, but lacking intuition, originality and the spark that drives great communication.

For now, the best use of AI lies in the mundane and repetitive: media monitoring, research, compiling data and other administrative tasks. It can support us, but it can’t replace the human judgment and creativity that sits at the heart of public relations.

The strategic blunder of overreliance

One emerging concern is the growing number of young professionals entering the sector who are leaning heavily on AI, specifically generative tools, to do their work. It feels efficient, until it isn’t.

If a person outsources their thinking to AI, they risk losing the very skills that made them valuable: curiosity, insight, critical thinking and reasoning. The uncomfortable reality is, if an employee depends solely on using AI, their employer can just as easily use AI without them.

False productivity

By 2026, I believe we will see a clear divide emerge, those who use AI to service PR, and those who use human intelligence to shape PR.

The early adopters of AI have enjoyed a perceived advantage, producing more content, more quickly. But that productivity is often false efficiency. Volume without vision, information without meaning.

This highlights the issue of client‑servicing ethics. A recent example was when Deloitte Australia agreed to partially refund the federal government after a $440,000 report was found to contain errors stemming from AI use, including non‑existent academic references and even a fabricated Federal Court quote.

The view that “technology changes the tools, but never the ethical questions” is a prominent argument within information ethics, championed by philosophers such as John Weckert, and in this case, it has never been more apt.

PR is the business of news

Public relations is the business of news. Communicating what is new, relevant and timely. AI, however, can only work with what already exists, or what I like to call the “olds”. By definition AI can only produce the olds because it is trained on existing data.  It can’t anticipate a story or sense the nuance of a developing issue.

For anyone who overly relies on AI, they risk the seduction of outsourcing their originality and thinking and will be the ones behind the eight ball, not in front of it.

Reclaiming the human element

A recent TIMES article delves into a new MIT study that has revealed how AI is eroding critical thinking skills, potentially dulling our capacity for deep thought. The risk for the PR industry is the same.

AI isn’t the enemy, but we need to be intentional about how we use it. It is a support tool, not a substitute for human intelligence.

The future of PR will not belong to those who use AI the fastest. It will belong to those who think critically, connect authentically, and use AI wisely.

At Primary, while we do use AI tools, our consultants have developed a “sniffer dog” approach to AI-generated content and strategies and aren’t afraid to call it out when it falls short. We have clear guidelines in place and invest in staying abreast of AI progress so we can critically consider what will work best for us. One thing is for sure: our clients can rest assured that human judgment, critical thinking, and creativity remain at the core of everything we deliver, as we continue to make great things happen

In a time when credible information and trustworthy journalism are more valuable than ever, the Primary Comms Group was proud to partner with Business Sydney for an exclusive reception, which featured the Australian Financial Review’s editorial leadership team.

Hosted at the Chifley Square Events Centre, the evening brought together more than 100 business leaders, policymakers and communication professionals for a thought-provoking discussion with The Australian Financial Review’s Editor-in-Chief, James Chessell, and Editor, Cosima Marriner.

The event explored Sydney’s evolution as a global city, the economic and political trends influencing business confidence, and the importance of credible journalism in an age of digital disruption.

After a warm welcome from Business Sydney’s Executive Director, Paul Nicolaou, and an introduction by Primary CEO Chris Hall, James Chessell set the tone for the evening with insights into the changing nature of Australian business reporting and the AFR’s commitment to clarity and independence in an increasingly complex media environment.

Chessell reflected on the pace of global change, from geopolitical tensions and shifting market dynamics to the ongoing influence of technology on how we consume and interpret news.

Cosima Marriner joined Chessell for a lively panel discussion that examined the intersection of media, policy and business strategy. Marriner spoke about the AFR’s role in helping readers navigate uncertainty with insight and integrity, highlighting the publication’s focus on investigative reporting and data-driven storytelling.

For Primary, the event reflected more than sponsorship. It embodied our purpose of connecting people, shaping perceptions and driving conversations that matter.

“Strong communication sits at the heart of leadership,” said Primary CEO Chris Hall. “Events like this bring together the people and ideas that move Sydney forward. It’s about understanding complexity and helping organisations find clarity in how they engage, lead, and tell their story.”

From strategic communication to stakeholder engagement and creative storytelling, Primary continues to support initiatives that elevate dialogue and deepen understanding across Australia’s business and policy landscape.

Because when people and ideas connect, great things happen.

Industry leaders came together in Coffs Harbour for the Australian Event Awards and Symposium 2025, a premier gathering celebrating innovation, collaboration, and leadership across the events sector. 

Primary Comms Group CEO Chris Hall was proud to represent the agency as part of an expert panel discussion on “The Value of Public Relations and Communications: Transparency and Accountability in Crisis Management”. 

The session explored a powerful question: “the event has been perfectly planned, everything has fallen into place, but have you planned for the unforeseen, the unexpected?” The discussion examined the essential components of effective crisis preparation, emphasising the importance of identifying risks and potential issues early, developing robust communication and contingency plans, and defining clear lines of communication and action for staff and volunteers. They also discussed how to activate these plans swiftly and effectively under pressure, ensuring responses are coordinated and calm, and how strong preparation plays a vital role in protecting both organisational and event reputations. 

Chris shared how Primary’s approach to crisis communication goes beyond response. It’s about preparation, consistency, and trust.  

“For Primary, participation in the Symposium was an opportunity to contribute to a critical industry conversation about how effective communication frameworks can empower teams to respond calmly and confidently when faced with the unexpected. From multi-stakeholder coordination to reputation management, strong communication remains at the heart of effective crisis response”, said Chris. 

Primary extends sincere thanks to the organisers and fellow panellists for an engaging and insightful discussion, and to all those working to make Australia’s events industry stronger, safer, and more prepared for whatever comes next. 

With more than three decades of experience advising government, corporate, and community organisations, Primary continues to be well-positioned to help clients navigate through complex issues, manage crises, and strengthen stakeholder trust. 

Start cooking the popcorn and grab a comfy chair, preferably with line-of-sight to a TV. The scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump on Monday 20 October in Washington will rate like a State-of-Origin decider.

The main topics are supposedly critical minerals and the AUKUS submarines, but if you work in public affairs this is all about the “optics”.

Even the Oval Office assignation doesn’t end up live-to-air, how it’s managed will be fascinating theatre.

Meetings between Heads of State are usually micromanaged within a millimetre of their lives. Agendas are hammered out in advance and furiously agreed. Diplomats equip each party with tightly scripted remarks, and nothing of any substance is said until media depart and the doors are closed behind them.

The end products are usually carefully constructed, vacuous written communiques and posed images of smiling handshakes.

Last February’s meeting between Trump, his Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky remains one of the most extraordinary news events of 2025.

Trump invited cameras in – and let them stay. Zelensky and his minders must have known something was up. Trump and Vance then set about slamming a clearly mortified Zelensky around the room like a Nerf ball. It was like watching a car crash.

How can Albo’s team prepare the PM for a meeting with someone who runs on impulse most of the time, and whose modus operandi is disrupting first and taking advantage of the fall-out later?

In issues management, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. All scenarios in-between are considered and planned for.

It’s still unclear whether the exchange will be a contrived set-piece or a televised cage match because It all depends on what side of the bed POTUS wakes up.

Craig Regan, Senior Account Director

Image: AI generated

Primary Comms Group is proud to welcome Plain English Foundation, Australia’s leading provider of plain language training and editing, to our growing portfolio of education and professional development clients.

A recognised authority in the art and science of clear communication, Plain English Foundation helps organisations cut through complexity and communicate with confidence.

Each year, it delivers hundreds of trusted training courses to government agencies, regulatory bodies, and private organisations that want to make their messages more accessible and effective.

Primary Comms Group is excited to partner with Plain English Foundation to expand its presence and impact across Australia, while further positioning it as a national leader in plain language training and consultancy.

This new collaboration builds on our long-standing relationship with Lumify Group (formerly DDLS), a related entity of Plain English Foundation. Since 2019, Primary has supported Lumify across multiple initiatives, including the successful rollout of its rebrand campaign.

At Primary, we’re passionate about supporting organisations that make communication more effective and inclusive. We look forward to working closely with the Plain English Foundation team to ensure their message and their mission continues to be heard loud and clear.

Primary is proud to announce we’ve been appointed as the official press office for Castle Group, providing media management for one of Western Sydney’s leading residential land developers.

As Castle Group’s press office, Primary will drive all external media engagement. Our goal is to ensure Castle Group maintains strong, consistent visibility across property, business and local media.

In addition to managing media relations, we will provide ongoing strategic communication counsel. This includes advising on message alignment across their various channels, strengthening brand positioning and maximising the impact of both media and content initiatives.

This new partnership begins at a pivotal moment for Castle Group. Since its founding in 2014, the company has specialised in low and medium-density land subdivisions in Sydney’s rapidly growing north-west and south-west corridors. It has successfully developed, value-added, and sold projects with an end value of over $1 billion and is now managing a pipeline valued at $1.6 billion, slated for delivery by 2030.

Castle Group is entering an exciting new chapter with the appointment of Ranisha Clarke as CEO. A respected industry leader with more than 20 years of experience shaping Australia’s urban development, Ranisha brings strategic acumen and a bold, community-driven vision for the future. She joins Group CEO and Founder Ritchie Perera in leading the company into its next phase of growth.

Congratulations to Ranisha, Ritchie and the entire Castle team on this major milestone. We’re pleased to be supporting your journey and to help share your story.

Celebrating our work on the Australian Remembrance Foundation: Harbour Sunset Tribute

Primary is proud to announce we’ve been shortlisted for the CPRA Golden Target Awards for our work on the Australian Remembrance Foundation: Harbour Sunset Tribute.

This campaign reimagined how Australians commemorate the ANZAC tradition, on the eve of the day itself. Traditionally, remembrance has centred around the dawn service, but as the Ode reminds us, “At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.”

The Harbour Sunset Tribute brought new meaning to those words, introducing Australia’s first ANZAC Eve commemoration at the Sydney Opera House.

With a four-week window and limited resources, Primary’s challenge was to launch a completely new event with a new name, time, day and location, while inspiring Australians to see ANZAC Eve as a powerful moment for reflection.

We built our media campaign in the lead-up through authentic storytelling, uncovering a central emotional insight through interviews with veterans, their families and Patron Sir Peter Cosgrove.

Through a targeted and creative approach, we:

• Helped secured strategic media partnerships with the likes of the Seven Network, Sky News and The Daily Telegraph, ensuring consistent national visibility.
• Generated 152 pieces of media coverage across print, broadcast, online and social.
• Built momentum in the press through the various campaign elements to help achieve a sell-out event within two weeks.
• More than doubled audience viewership, with nearly 500,000 Australians tuning in to the televised tribute.

The Harbour Sunset Tribute demonstrated how creativity, collaboration and storytelling can achieve national impact. The campaign not only exceeded all objectives, it helped establish a new Australian tradition of remembrance.

We’re very proud of this recognition and grateful to the Australian Remembrance Foundation for entrusting us with this important work.

Congratulations to all fellow finalists.

There’s no doubt about it; we live in an attention economy. A digital world inundated with content from all fronts. From election campaigns to controversial denim campaigns, we’ve seen untoward tactics used to capture mindshare in an age where virality is king.  

Australia’s fragmented media landscape is in flux. At a recent media conference, Influencing Live, journalists shed light into emerging trends and the challenges and opportunities facing the modern newsroom. Trust in journalism is under strain, digital content and new technologies like AI are reshaping how news is produced and consumed, and regulators are struggling to keep pace with digital platforms and capabilities.  

For PR and communication professionals, this means re-thinking how we work with media to build and maintain credibility in a crowded and sceptical landscape.  

Australian newsrooms are facing a dilemma. The big question is how to stay relevant in an oversaturated media landscape, and hold onto the credibility that keeps audiences engaged, while also navigating shrinking budgets in one of the world’s most concentrated media markets.  

Traditional outlets have had to adapt, producing more snackable video content designed to fit algorithms and feeds. Visibility is no longer decided on the front page, but by algorithms and search results, including AI search engines. SEO, thumbnails and trending tags are crucial to how news stories are circulated but risk prioritising clickbait over context which can reinforce distrust, cynicism and algorithmic echo-chambers.  

This year, we saw social media influencers and new media groups flown to the federal budget lock-up in Parliament House and political candidates join popular mainstream podcasts in the lead up to the election. Opportunities once reserved for traditional media outlets have been extended to content creators to engage younger audiences.  

More and more Australians report social media as their main source of news over online news websites and apps, highlighting the new rules of digital PR.  

At the same time, social media is a hotbed for mis- and disinformation. “Fake news”, propaganda, online radicalisation, increasingly believable deep fakes and harmful content spreads like wildfire on digital platforms.  

Australia’s inbound age-verification laws for under 16s and the broader online safety debate will impact how content is distributed by digital platforms. As government move to hold tech giants to account, policymakers must toe the line between protecting young Australians and preserving our privacy and freedoms. 

If distrust, fatigue and misuse of technology continue to dominate the narrative, we risk further fragmentation with portions of our population disengaged and misinformed. 

But it’s not all gloom and doom – there’s a chance for a news ecosystem that is more accessible and more resilient. Rebuilding trust will require transparency, investment in media literacy, and sustainable business models that reward quality over clicks.  

Some newsrooms are adapting to the changing media landscape and differentiating brand identity with commercial, content, and engagement strategies, including: 

• Personal branding and perspective-led content to build authenticity and trust with audiences, serving as a key point of difference in an overcrowded landscape 

• Leveraging video content to meet audiences where they are 

• Adopting AI-driven tools to enhance production workflows and implementing AI search optimisation strategies, in addition to SEO, to extend reach. 

• Implementing subscription-based funding models that prioritise a renewed focus on high-quality content, over clicks, in turn building segmented audiences. 

For Australian businesses and government organisations looking to stand out, it’s worth asking: do your PR professionals offer more than media relationships? Do they bring credibility, a commitment to responsible storytelling and an understanding of how audiences are consuming news in today’s environment? 

Olivia Hammond, Account Manager, Primary Comms Group  

The most telling aspect of the Optus Triple O bungle is how the company’s first faltering steps last Friday have defined the whole sorry chain of events. Those of us in corporate communication for more than a hot minute have seen this movie before, so it wasn’t a shock.

If you’re going to call a media conference at the media witching hour of 5.30pm on a Friday afternoon, at least be in control and look decisive. The crisis had been playing out for more than a day, and Optus was neither.

The cardinal rule of crisis management is that you must do something meaningful and positive to make a situation right. You must own it, even when it’s not your fault.

Optus was clear that its failed systems were to blame but actions speak volumes, louder than words. Expressing regret for people dying rings hollow if you haven’t even tried to contact families of the deceased.

The involvement of overseas call centres was a lightning rod for public anger because who hasn’t experienced an operator (foreign or onshore) who isn’t able or empowered to help?

But not telling the regulator and governments about something that’s gone horribly wrong on their watch? Inexcusable when your track record already screams that you can’t be trusted.

Optus has been working to rebuild market confidence after being hit by one of Australia’s biggest cyber-attacks and suffering a 14-hour network outage that cost millions of dollars in fines.

Most commentators have missed the fact that in June, Optus agreed to a fine of $100m for unconscionable conduct for selling mobile services to people who could not afford them.

The irony is that three months ago, Optus replaced its marketing and advertising agencies after a sweeping review. They’ll have their work cut out for them.

Craig Regan, Senior Account Director, Primary Communication

In today’s fast-paced media landscape, announcing your news is no longer enough. To truly stand out, brands must shape the conversation, not just participate in it. That’s where thought leadership comes in. Far from a buzzword, it’s become a vital component of any effective PR strategy.

At Primary, we believe it is essential to integrate thought leadership into your PR efforts. It is not just a value-add but a competitive necessity that drives real impact from media visibility to long-term brand authority.

Thought leadership isn’t about self-promotion. It’s about providing value by offering insight, expertise, and foresight that informs, challenges, and inspires your audience. In a world saturated with content, thought leadership can:

• Enhance credibility by positioning your brand and executives as trusted sources of expertise.
• Build trust with key stakeholders, including media, customers, investors, and regulators.
• Differentiate your brand in crowded, competitive markets by leading conversations rather than reacting to them.

Incorporating thought leadership into PR transforms your media outreach from reactive storytelling into proactive influence-building.

A strong thought leadership piece does more than present opinions. It delivers original, timely, and insightful commentary that helps the audience understand complex issues or navigate industry challenges. Whether it’s a bylined article, LinkedIn post, interview, or op-ed, great content:

• Addresses timely issues or trends
• Offers a unique perspective or data-backed insights
• Aligns with broader brand values and positioning
• Sparks conversation or reflection

For example, a well-crafted thought leadership article on the future of AI in logistics not only shares technical knowledge but also discusses implications for safety, compliance, and workforce development, making it relevant, strategic, and shareable.

A great thought leadership strategy doesn’t end with media placement. It can and should be repurposed and amplified across:

• LinkedIn: Executive commentary can drive engagement, expand professional networks, and boost employer branding.
• Industry events: Turn articles into speaking points or panel topics.
• Owned media: Republish or expand pieces on your company blog or in newsletters.

The goal is to create a feedback loop where every piece of content reinforces your positioning and expertise and opens doors for engagement.

Whether you’re a startup trying to get noticed or an established company working to stay top-of-mind, thought leadership can be the difference between blending in and leading the way.

A focused thought leadership strategy, anchored in authenticity and aligned with business goals, can transform traditional PR into a long-term engine for influence, authority, and trust.

Ready to build your brand’s voice of authority? Contact us today!

Courtney Trewin, Account Manager