When AI Gets It Wrong: The Real Crisis Risk Behind Synthetic PR (Commentary by Farrell Tan)
AI-powered spokespeople promise something PR teams have always wanted: control. No off-script comments. No fatigue. No misquotes. Just perfectly calibrated messaging, delivered at scale. But control is not the same as resilience. When AI gets it wrong, it doesn't just fail. It fails differently. The New Failure Mode: Precision Without Judgement Synthetic spokespeople are designed for consistency. They don't improvise, deviate, or second-guess. That is exactly the problem. A mistimed post, a culturally tone-deaf message, a misaligned automated response -- these can trigger a crisis that escalates faster than traditional human error. AI does not read the room. It executes. In traditional PR, crises are managed through accountability. A spokesperson steps forward. A leader responds. Someone owns the message. With synthetic PR, that clarity disappears. As I wrote in "When the Avatar Misspeaks" for Strategic Global ( When the Avatar Misspeaks - Crisis Management in the Ag...
