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As AI-generated content becomes embedded in daily communications work, legal experts say many PR teams are moving faster than the policies and protections meant to govern the technology.
“It is estimated that the number-one consumer of news content is going to be AI,” said Cayce Myers, Ph.D., LL.M., J.D., APR. “For those of us working in the communication realm, the legal realm, there’s opportunity, and there’s risk.”
Myers, a professor of public relations at Virginia Tech’s School of Communication, was among the guests for the May 11 episode of “AI Pulse,” PRSA’s monthly livestream hosted by Ray Day, APR, vice chair of Stagwell, executive chair of Allison Worldwide, and PRSA’s 2026 immediate past chair.
“For PR people, particularly those on the content-creation side of things, you’re using AI, and you get a good product, but where is that product coming from?” Myers said. “Is it the aggregate of intellectual property owned by someone else? We’re seeing a proliferation of lawsuits in that area.”
Panelist Samantha Rothaus, a partner at Davis+Gilbert, a law firm in New York, advises marketing and communications clients on issues related to AI-generated content and intellectual property.
Accuracy is important for communications professionals who are using AI to generate content, she said, “Not only because inaccuracies look bad for you and your clients, but more importantly, inaccuracy can be misleading and deceptive. And that can create regulatory risks and legal risks.”
Around the country, laws are emerging on different AI-related topics, she said. Those developments “are hard enough to figure out and keep up with, and on top of all of that, in recent months the federal government has been taking steps to try to minimize a lot of those laws, to defang many of those laws. There’s a lot of uncertainty in how to comply, what does compliance look like, what does enforcement look like?”
Creators file copyright-infringement lawsuits
Dozens of AI-related, copyright-infringement lawsuits have been filed, primarily in New York and California, “by any kind of creator that you can imagine,” Rothaus said. “Authors, novelists, journalists, media companies, musicians, labels, filmmakers, visual artists: Groups of these plaintiffs have banded together and filed many, many lawsuits against AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic.”
Panelist Michael Lasky, a senior partner at Davis+Gilbert who founded the firm’s public relations law practice, said he sees significant gaps in AI policies and governance within the field. “And that creates significant risk.”
Day asked the panelists to explain the differences among intellectual property, copyright and privacy.
“Intellectual property, or IP, is the umbrella term,” Lasky said. “For most public relations practitioners, the key pillars are copyright, which protects the fixed, tangible expression of an idea; trademark, which is a tagline, slogan or logo that connotes the origin of goods or services; and the right of privacy, which includes a person’s name and likeness in all of its manifestations — their distinctive voice, their look, their photograph, their persona.”
According to a report the firm produced, 99% of public relations firms are using AI. The top reasons are to write content (79%), take notes or summarize meetings (75%), spark ideas (58%), and monitor media (53%).
Myers said it’s important for communications companies to create policies on how they use AI. Lasky concurred, saying, “It’s a question of using it responsibly to meet a particular need, and of having an intelligent conversation with the client about their concerns.”
In a survey the law firm conducted last fall, 37% of PR companies were developing their own closed, proprietary AI systems, specific to their clients.
“That’s something we’re going to see more of,” Lasky said. But when it comes to using AI responsibly, “you’re either [going to] get this, or you’re [going to] be left behind.”
Illustration credit: THIBNH
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