It was my great privilege to be invited to speak at the Forum Humas BUMN ‘Future of PR’ Congress held in Bandung during March. FHBUMN is a forum for public relations practitioners from all the state-owned enterprises in Indonesia, dedicated to developing knowledge and competencies and improving sector performance. FHBUMN is an affiliate of the ASEAN PR Network which is a member of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management.At the main congress I spoke about artificial intelligence and public relations, with a particular focus on ethics and societal implications.
A couple of days beforehand, I also had the opportunity to meet many of Indonesia’s public relations and communications professionals in person, delivering a workshop session for them on communication audits, research, measurement and evaluation.
My host, and chairperson of FHBUMN Congress 2019, Nurlaela Arief, led our post-presentation discussions on AI in PR. With a recently published book on AI in PR, Nurlaela is an acknowledged expert on the topic in Indonesia and it was a fascinating journey exploring how public relations practice is embracing and adapting – or not – to the challenges the emergent technologies bring to our profession. We also had the great benefit of Professor Anne Gregory’s expertise, bringing perspectives from the UK and some of the thinking from the CIPR’s #AIinPR report which I also contributed to last year. It was heartening to have so many discussions on the subject and gain a better understanding as to how AI is being approached by practitioners in Indonesia – and I look forward to many more.