Digital PR: Extinction or Distinction?

There was a time when working in digital PR felt electric. Campaigns went viral overnight. Journalists were hungry for content. A single clever data story could earn hundreds of backlinks before lunch. Everyone wanted a piece of the action, and for a while, there was enough to go around.

That was 2020. The pandemic hit, budgets moved online, and PR exploded. Freelancers turned into agencies. Agencies grew into empires. Suddenly, every brand wanted to “do digital PR.”

Fast forward to 2025 and the landscape looks nothing like it did back then.

Journalists’ inboxes are overflowing. The newsrooms are emptier. The rules are changing before our eyes.

The Boom That Broke the System

When COVID arrived, brands had two choices: pivot or vanish. And most pivoted hard. SEO and PR merged overnight, and “coverage and links” became the new gold standard.

For a while, it was glorious. Campaigns were creative, journalists were open, and digital PR was the shiny new marketing hero.

But success created saturation. Thousands of agencies sprang up. Everyone had a “hero campaign.” Everyone was pitching. Everyone was promising hundreds of links and delivering far less.

We created the storm that’s now swallowing us.

The Shrinking Media Universe

Fast forward to today, and the media world is collapsing faster than many in PR care to admit.

By 2025, newsroom cuts have become normal. Entire publications have vanished. AI-generated summaries are now replacing the need for people to click through to articles and that shift is gutting publisher traffic.

According to The Guardian, web pages that once held the top Google position are losing up to 79% of their traffic because users never leave the search results. In April 2025, news publishers’ share of search traffic dropped to just 36.5%, down from about 44% only three years earlier.

That’s catastrophic.

And when fewer people visit news sites, there’s less ad revenue, fewer journalists, and fewer places for your stories to live.

So, we’re in a world where there are more PRs than ever before, but fewer journalists to pitch, fewer columns to fill, and less patience for the same recycled campaigns.

Now Add AI to the Chaos

If that wasn’t enough, the AI wave has arrived and it’s rewriting everything.

Agencies are building AI tools to automate entire PR workflows. Idea generation. Pitch writing. Expert sourcing. Even media list creation.

Sounds efficient, right? Maybe too efficient.

Because in practice, it’s creating new problems: fake experts, AI-generated stats with no source, copied campaigns, and generic pitches that all sound the same.

One recent study found that around 19% of AI-generated content contains factual errors and in PR, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.

We’re seeing agencies pump out “automated thought leadership” and “AI-created experts.” It’s faster, sure. But it’s also eroding trust, the one thing PR can’t afford to lose.

If the industry becomes a race to automate, we’ll end up with content that’s technically flawless but emotionally empty.

SEO (which I’m contributing to) is ruining PR, not just digital PR, but traditional PR too.

The Ones Who Will Survive

The future of PR won’t belong to the biggest agencies, or even the loudest ones.
It’ll belong to the ones who stay human.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Genuine Relationships
Journalists are tired of mass pitches. They want people who bring them real stories, not auto-generated press releases. Those who’ve built authentic media relationships will still cut through the noise.

2. Smarter Storytelling
Forget link bait. The campaigns that win now are rooted in genuine insight, emotion, and cultural timing. AI can analyse trends, but it can’t feel them.

3. Hybrid Skillsets
The new PR pros will blend storytelling, SEO, and AI fluency. They’ll understand how content surfaces in AI-driven search and how to make their clients visible there.

4. Radical Transparency
Agencies that are honest about how they use AI and how they validate it will earn trust. The rest will quietly burn it.

5. Nimble Beats Big
Agility wins. The fastest agencies, not the largest, will adapt and thrive. Being able to pivot in weeks, not quarters, will define who stays relevant.

How Publications Will Evolve and What That Means for PR

As traffic drops and ad revenue dries up, publications are being forced to rethink how they survive.

Many will pivot away from pure click-driven content and focus on quality, niche expertise, and community-driven journalism. Others will diversify revenue with paid subscriptions, branded content, events, and partnerships.

We’re already seeing this happen. Publications that once relied on display ads are now experimenting with sponsored editorial series, insight-driven reports, and collaborative brand features.

This shift will change digital PR too. The chase for “earned-only” placements will give way to more blended partnerships – part editorial, part paid, but still rooted in authenticity and storytelling. PRs will need to think like publishers and approach collaboration with a new level of sophistication.

In other words: the agencies that understand how to create mutual value for brands and the media, will lead the next wave of opportunity.

The Big Reality Check

Digital PR isn’t dying. It’s just evolving.

The shortcuts that worked in 2020 – mass pitching, templated data drops, and vanity metrics, are already losing their power. The next phase will reward depth, strategy, relevance and authenticity.

As publications look to cement and monetise relationships with their audiences, content will need to be more relevant than ever and offer even more value.

AI won’t kill PR. But it will expose who actually knows how to build stories and relationships and who’s been relying on spreadsheets and spamming journalists with irrelevant content.

We’re moving from a world of “more” to a world of “better.” And that’s not a bad thing.

Final Thought: Survival of the Smartest

This is the extinction or distinction moment for digital PR.

Those who chase scale, shortcuts, and automation for the sake of it will fade fast.
Those who stay strategic, creative, and human will thrive.

The industry isn’t collapsing. It’s being refined. And those who adapt will be the ones shaping what comes next.

Because in an era where AI can generate anything, authenticity will be the only thing that still stands out.