Rob van Alphen, Managing Director of Polaris Digital, spoke with Telum Media, sharing his thoughts on the evolving PR landscape, particularly honing in on the increasing role of AI.
What do you see as the biggest AI trend for 2025?
Contrary to many LinkedIn AI experts and 2025 trend reports, for me it’s not agentic AI. While there’s been interesting progress and lots of talk about coming AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and major intelligence breakthroughs, AI agents can’t be seen in a vacuum and I can’t see organisations achieve the needed level of readiness anytime soon. Almost every step within an agent workflow will require human oversight, integration will be needed with legacy infrastructure, you’ll need the right (clean) data, etc. Even for relatively basic automation flows this is not an easy feat. There’s hype and then there’s reality.
My 2025 trend is far more boring: I expect many more organisations to finally start to properly invest in AI upskilling and putting in place the necessary learning programs and governance for the wider workforce. This wasn’t the case in 2024, but rapid technology progress and growing fears of being left behind will be a powerful trigger.
How do you envision the role of PR professionals to evolve in the next two to three years?
I see two main roles: the Strategic Orchestrator and the Ethical Compass.
An increasing number of basic and repetitive tasks will be fully or mostly done with help of AI; think manual research, short- and long-form content creation, media monitoring and listening, simple data analysis and influencer identification. As strategic orchestrator, your time will be spent on much deeper business, market, and audience understanding, relationship building, holistic stakeholder communications, and better impact measurement.
Meanwhile, as ethical compass, I hope to see PR and Comms teams get a proper seat at the table. They could become the conscience of AI, guiding its responsible and ethical use within the organisation, helping protect its reputation and building trust.
How can organisations balance the benefits of AI with its challenges and risks?
I always say that 70 per cent of the work is about people and processes - it’s not about technology. You can have the best tools, but if your leadership team is not forefronting the change, if staff are not regularly trained, if you don’t have policies and processes to guide ethical usage, and if there’s no active knowledge sharing or collaboration, you won’t reap the benefits that long-term, sustained AI adoption can bring.
A lot of this is about change management and culture.
What future skills do you believe will be essential to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven landscape?
AI literacy will be vital, regardless of role and seniority. But - without sounding clichéd - we must double down on our inherently human strengths, such as empathy, curiosity, ethical decision-making, and critical thinking. Recent studies suggest the latter may diminish with heavy use of and reliance on AI. In a world where we’ll have an abundance of AI-generated content and a steep rise in misinformation, sharpening our critical lens will be crucial. Project and program management will also become increasingly important.
Broadly, I see two jobs for the future: those who adapt to new tools for their work, and those who can do work new tools cannot. For both, continuous learning and adaptability will be crucial.
Rob is Managing Director of Singapore-based digital and AI consultancy, Polaris Digital. He has spent more than 15 years working in digital strategy and digital marketing roles in Europe and the Middle East, and before launching Polaris Digital, was Head of Strategy and Innovation at Sandpiper. Rob will be leading Telum’s upcoming workshop on February 20th, How to Effectively Integrate AI into Your Comms Workflow. Click here for more information on the workshop and to reserve your spot.
What do you see as the biggest AI trend for 2025?
Contrary to many LinkedIn AI experts and 2025 trend reports, for me it’s not agentic AI. While there’s been interesting progress and lots of talk about coming AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and major intelligence breakthroughs, AI agents can’t be seen in a vacuum and I can’t see organisations achieve the needed level of readiness anytime soon. Almost every step within an agent workflow will require human oversight, integration will be needed with legacy infrastructure, you’ll need the right (clean) data, etc. Even for relatively basic automation flows this is not an easy feat. There’s hype and then there’s reality.
My 2025 trend is far more boring: I expect many more organisations to finally start to properly invest in AI upskilling and putting in place the necessary learning programs and governance for the wider workforce. This wasn’t the case in 2024, but rapid technology progress and growing fears of being left behind will be a powerful trigger.
How do you envision the role of PR professionals to evolve in the next two to three years?
I see two main roles: the Strategic Orchestrator and the Ethical Compass.
An increasing number of basic and repetitive tasks will be fully or mostly done with help of AI; think manual research, short- and long-form content creation, media monitoring and listening, simple data analysis and influencer identification. As strategic orchestrator, your time will be spent on much deeper business, market, and audience understanding, relationship building, holistic stakeholder communications, and better impact measurement.
Meanwhile, as ethical compass, I hope to see PR and Comms teams get a proper seat at the table. They could become the conscience of AI, guiding its responsible and ethical use within the organisation, helping protect its reputation and building trust.
How can organisations balance the benefits of AI with its challenges and risks?
I always say that 70 per cent of the work is about people and processes - it’s not about technology. You can have the best tools, but if your leadership team is not forefronting the change, if staff are not regularly trained, if you don’t have policies and processes to guide ethical usage, and if there’s no active knowledge sharing or collaboration, you won’t reap the benefits that long-term, sustained AI adoption can bring.
A lot of this is about change management and culture.
What future skills do you believe will be essential to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven landscape?
AI literacy will be vital, regardless of role and seniority. But - without sounding clichéd - we must double down on our inherently human strengths, such as empathy, curiosity, ethical decision-making, and critical thinking. Recent studies suggest the latter may diminish with heavy use of and reliance on AI. In a world where we’ll have an abundance of AI-generated content and a steep rise in misinformation, sharpening our critical lens will be crucial. Project and program management will also become increasingly important.
Broadly, I see two jobs for the future: those who adapt to new tools for their work, and those who can do work new tools cannot. For both, continuous learning and adaptability will be crucial.
Rob is Managing Director of Singapore-based digital and AI consultancy, Polaris Digital. He has spent more than 15 years working in digital strategy and digital marketing roles in Europe and the Middle East, and before launching Polaris Digital, was Head of Strategy and Innovation at Sandpiper. Rob will be leading Telum’s upcoming workshop on February 20th, How to Effectively Integrate AI into Your Comms Workflow. Click here for more information on the workshop and to reserve your spot.
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