While storytellers of the past were tasked with entertaining their tribes around the campfire and later regaling their monarch at court, nowadays they’re considered to be an essential part of any PR team.

More than just the latest industry buzzword, their work focuses on developing high-quality, engaging and/or persuasive content that has the power to entice new customers, build trust or change the tide of public opinion.

According to The Wall Street Journal, storytellers are joining the executive boards of leading companies in droves, yet most choose to outsource to PR agencies like ours, with great success. This practice is predicted to become increasingly popular, with the global PR industry expected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%!

In short, investing in storytellers is a great way to generate all-important growth.

But why are storytellers so important all of a sudden?

According to the IPA’s Q4 2025 Bellwether Report, PR was one of only two marketing streams to see increased investment in the UK last year.

To explain the ‘wider confidence problem’ behind stalling investment, researchers point to the volatility of economic markets, as well as the wildly unpredictable political landscape. Simultaneously, AI continues to sweep a technological revolution across the globe, and the sector is evidently cautious of its advances.

All of these scenarios provide the perfect backdrop for the storyteller to work their magic. In the midst of a crisis - whether it’s limited to your organisation or based on world events - your stakeholders crave reassurance from credible, emotionally intelligent and human sources… not robots.

While AI models can only draw on the data they’ve been trained on or what surfaces in search results - which may be outdated, incomplete or misleading - storytellers can quickly utilise social media and the 24/7 news cycle to their advantage. Applying critical judgment to each scenario, they’re able to craft a carefully considered and consistent narrative that is unmistakably human.

This is no easy feat. To be successful, the storyteller must be a specialist in all forms of reputational management, as well as a creative copywriter with a knack for thought leadership and a master of media engagement.

Can’t AI do all of that?

Nope. High-quality content that is pitched to journalists by a human and achieves coverage organically (ie. without paying for the exposure) is inherently more trustworthy and authoritative than that which is produced by the robots.

Ironically, AI-powered Large Language Models (LLMs) are actually programmed to seek out and prioritise impartial content that shows signs of legitimacy and is endorsed by third-party sources, making it FAR more likely for storytellers work to appear as a top search result than any old drivel which is spat out by a chatbot.

Does that mean we shouldn’t use AI?

Love it or hate it, AI is shaking up the PR industry. Our 17-strong team of skilled storytellers understand the pros and cons of AI and, rather than shy away from it, we’ve decided to use it to better our service offering.

For instance, while other PR professionals cling to old-school methods, we’re excitedly exploring programmes that enable us to automate tedious reports or quickly condense complex information to provide the base structure for more detailed drafts. By delegating the cumbersome tasks to the robots, we’re free to dedicate our time to thoughtful copywriting, campaign strategy and building those all important relationships that ultimately benefit our clients.

AI-powered tools also dig deep into the data to arm the storyteller with crucial statistics that clients really care about. Historically, it was difficult to quantify the impact of traditional PR, but we’re now able to track commercial, reputational and relationship KPIs in real time. This is incredibly helpful for understanding if campaign messaging is landing with the intended target audience, or if a step-change is needed to maximise efficiency, effectiveness and ROI.

Advanced media-monitoring and social listening tools also take the leg work out of continually tracking public sentiment and, when the storytellers are one-step ahead of this curve, we have a better chance of getting a firm handle on a crisis before it escalates.

There’s no denying, however, that AI has already proven to be a downright nuisance when it comes to spamming journalists and generating subpar ‘press releases’ that are littered with inaccuracies, which absolutely no one wants to read. In the understandable pursuit of saving time and money, AI could actually do more harm than good if not closely monitored.

It seems that we’re far from ready to let the robots take control of our stories. An algorithm is no match for creativity, thought leadership, ethical decision making and human judgment; better leave all that to the storytellers.