Shaping the future of PR with AI: Insights from Microsoft’s Frank X. Shaw

In this episode, Microsoft CCO Frank Shaw joins host Jason Mudd to discuss how AI is reshaping PR workflows, strategy, and corporate communications. 

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here:

Meet our guest:

Our episode guest is Frank X. Shaw, chief communications officer at Microsoft. Frank leads global communications strategy, product PR, media and analyst relations, executive and employee communications, and global agency partnerships. He shares insights on how communicators can leverage AI to focus on high-value work and improve efficiency. 

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. How to identify high-value PR work and apply AI to repetitive tasks
2. Practical AI applications for media monitoring, analyst engagement, and internal communications
3. How autonomous AI agents can enhance predictive insights for communications teams
4. The mindset needed to embrace AI tools without fear of job loss
5. How efficiency gained through AI can drive growth rather than just cost-cutting

Listen to the episode here:

Quotables

• “It's not like you can outsource your judgment, but you can augment it.” — Frank Shaw
• “I don't look at all this technology as something that is going to cut costs. It's going to allow us to do the things that are in front of us that we want to do that we can't get to right now because we don't have the resources and the time.” — Frank Shaw
• “The mindset has to be one of experimentation, curiosity, trying new things, being willing to fail, at some, grabbing every tool that comes out there and thinking about how we can apply it to the work that we do. “ — Frank Shaw
• “I think everybody should be experimenting with stuff at home and at work because it's moving really fast, and the way you stay on top of it is just to play.” — Frank Shaw
• “People say the corporate communication profession has changed over the years. And my argument is it really hasn't changed. We just have better tools. But those same tools require us to be even better practitioners, more strategically minded.” — Jason Mudd

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.

Resources

Guest’s contact info and resources:

• Frank X. Shaw on LinkedIn
• Microsoft website
• LinkedIn Learning: Communicator’s Guide to AI Tools and Mindsets for Modern PR and Media course

Additional Resources:

• Axia’s AI Relations service
• Microsoft Copilot Studio
• Microsoft Bing
• Get to Know Microsoft Edge
• Introduction to ChatGPT
• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR with Jason Mudd podcast.
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations.

If you like this episode, you're going to love this:

• How to stay ahead of AI in communication and marketing
• Navigating AI ethics in PR
• The PR playbook for getting recommended by AI
• 95% of AI citations come from PR content
• How AI is transforming strategic communications
• Rethinking press releases with the rise of AI
• AI storytelling and PR strategy with Egnyte’s Jessica Pantages

Recorded: February 27, 2026 

About your host Jason Mudd

Jason Mudd is a nationally recognized public relations expert featured by CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, PRWeek, and The Wall Street Journal.

Named North America’s top PR leader by the World Communication Forum, he serves as CEO of Axia Public Relations — recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Jason has advised some of the country’s most admired and fastest-growing companies, leading campaigns for iconic brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, GE, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.

He’s also a professional public speaker, accredited PR practitioner, published author, entrepreneur, and host of On Top of PR with Jason Mudd — a podcast ranked among the top 3% globally by Listen Notes and a top 100 marketing podcast on Apple Podcasts. His guests have included leaders from Disney, Mall of America, Priceline, Southwest Airlines, Tyson Foods, and Wells Fargo.

Find more On Top of PR episodes on: 

Transcript

Episode Transcript

00 - 18:23

Frank

So we have to get used to the idea that in addition to having people we work with, we all have agents, we work with these agents work for us. And in the same way we think about how do we get the best use out of the, people? Because people have unique talents. These agents will have unique talents, as well.

19:01 - 29:11

Frank

And so we have to think about how do we manage them, how do we incorporate them into our workflows? In the same way we think about how we work with our, our teams and our individuals here.

29:13 - 39:05

Announcer

Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.

39:07 - 01:01:17

Jason

Hello, and welcome to. On top of PR, I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. In this episode, we're featuring Frank X Shah. He serves as Microsoft's chief communications officer, where he leads global communications strategy, storytelling, product PR, media and analysis, analyst relations executive and employee communications, global agency partnerships, and military affairs.

01:01:19 - 01:16:04

Jason

He plays a key role in shaping how one of the world's most influential companies communicates with customers, employees and stakeholders. And our topic is the future of AI. I want to say, Frank, welcome to the show.

01:16:06 - 01:19:18

Frank

Thanks. Great to be here. It's, a lot to talk about.

01:19:20 - 01:38:14

Jason

Oh, yeah. For sure. I'm very excited about this conversation. I've been looking forward to it. The future of AI and PR is a timely topic. One, I know that our audience will be very interested in. There's, we've covered AI, in detail in other episodes, which we'll put a link to in the episode notes for our audience.

01:38:14 - 01:53:16

Jason

But this is our first time talking with you, Frank. And, you've actually, developed a communicators guide to AI tools and mindsets for modern PR and media, a course on LinkedIn learning. How did that come together?

01:53:18 - 02:26:02

Frank

It was one of those things where, you know, we're doing, we're in a fortunate position here of Microsoft because, you know, we have just a tiny little bit of a view into the future. I just, by the nature of the the kind of work that, that we do. And so, you know, from the, the first day we started, getting ready to announce what became GPT four with OpenAI, we knew that it had real impact in the in the kinds of work that that we would do as communicators.

02:26:04 - 02:50:22

Frank

And we started a focused effort to think about how do we reinvent ourselves around this new technology. And we've been on a sprint ever since. Because just as soon as we think we figured something out, new tools, new methodologies, new models, come out and then you have to start that process, over again. Right. So we wanted, and we published some stuff before internally and externally.

02:51:00 - 03:12:19

Frank

And, you know, we wanted to take advantage of LinkedIn learning because there wasn't anything out there that was very specific to communicators. There was a lot of great content around AI and marketing and a lot of related fields. But, you know, the question is what what communicators do. And one of the things that we really wanted to focus on wasn't just like, where are we now?

03:12:21 - 03:26:14

Frank

But also this mindset that we have to get to because, you know, what is true today is not going to be true two weeks or two months or two years from now, but sort of how we approach it has the potential to be more durable.

03:26:15 - 03:29:08

Jason

Okay. Excellent. So.

03:29:10 - 03:29:23

Frank

What was your.

03:29:23 - 03:45:17

Jason

First kind of touch, your interaction with, with AI? I mean, you know, I don't know if it's considered AI, but, you know, we talked before we pressed record about, back in the day. Clippy, you know, used to pop up on your screen and tell you it looks like you're typing a memo or, write a resume.

03:45:21 - 03:51:04

Jason

I can help you with that. And it would therefore generate more of a template response.

03:51:06 - 04:12:04

Frank

Yeah, I think it's interesting. AI has been around for a long time, and people have been pursuing it in a variety of different ways for a long time. And, you know, some of it was through machine learning and predictive analytics and a whole bunch of other things that, had some of the same characteristics that, well, of what we're seeing now.

04:12:05 - 04:33:12

Frank

So clip is a great, great example of that. Some of the, text to speech translation is another, example of that. Heck, even autocorrect and, you know, the different applications that we run has some of that feeling to it. I mean, it's early on. We'll sort of think about it every day. I,

04:33:18 - 04:37:05

Frank

the big change has been the,

04:37:10 - 04:41:04

Frank

increasing power of the large language models, the frontier models in particular.

04:41:05 - 04:50:01

Frank

And it was super clear when when I sat in a room with a bunch of my peers here at Microsoft and we saw GPT four for the first time.

04:50:03 - 05:01:13

Frank

And really became super clear that we were sitting on the cusp of a major shift in how people engaged with technology.

05:01:15 - 05:08:22

Jason

Right. Right. So what are some of the best practices that you and your team use. AI for internally?

05:08:23 - 05:20:21

Frank

Well, it changes on a regular basis. And I think the most, the most important thing is, for us as communicators is to think deeply about the highest value that we bring.

05:20:22 - 05:47:01

Frank

What is it? What is the highest and best use of every hour of our time? Where, where we work as communicators. And then how do we get there faster. What are all the steps between. Something that I think about is super high value. And what can I use AI for in each of these, categories to get me or the team there faster?

05:47:03 - 06:13:22

Frank

And so the first part is really sitting down and, and, you know, basically breaking it down into a chunk of atomic level steps or tasks that you take and then looking at those and saying, hey, where can I help? Where can I automate something using AI that I couldn't automate before? And and where is I still not very useful that I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on that and you test it.

06:14:00 - 06:47:10

Frank

And then you then you rebuild your system around that. And then the key thing is you have to be willing to go back and test it again, because it's going to change because something you said, no, but this isn't very good use of AI right now or I can't automate this now, I can't. So like just a real example for us that has been super useful has been as a global company, our ability to rapidly translate documents into languages that are important, as has always been a constraint.

06:47:12 - 06:49:01

Frank

It's hard to do.

06:49:03 - 06:50:05

Jason

Yes.

06:50:07 - 06:52:05

Frank

And it's not just translating them.

06:52:05 - 06:55:18

Jason

You really should be rewriting them in the native language.

06:55:20 - 07:23:06

Frank

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Right. And so. But you have to do it fast. So either you finish all your stuff, like ten days in advance a week in advance, and you give your teams around the world a chance to dive in and do this, and make sure they get it right. Or with us more often is that things come in hot and so you finish them like the day before, and then they're not able to translate them in time.

07:23:08 - 07:46:18

Frank

Right? And so we now have the ability to have a high degree of confidence in our ability to take the documents and the materials and translate them to language in an automated way, and then have a review process, a human review process, to make sure that you've got it. You've got it right that, you know, it's pretty efficient.

07:46:20 - 08:14:19

Frank

So like, that's, that's a, that's a small example that is like wildly helpful for us doesn't it's not as sexy. It's not as like, hey, let's move on to show you a demo of this. You know, there's no necessarily like there's an agent that created involved, but it's intensely useful. Process. You know, another example is, you know, something that we do a lot of work with is we work with our analyst firms, with Gartner and Forrester or an IDC.

08:14:20 - 08:21:22

Frank

And you know, when they're getting ready to publish something, they come at us with just a mound of questions.

08:22:00 - 08:36:11

Frank

And then we have to take those questions and we have to figure out what the answers are. And again it's a pretty manual process, even though we have answers to those questions in a variety of different places.

08:36:13 - 08:52:02

Frank

So the team was able to, you know, use some of our newer technology to create, a way, answering those questions, using existing materials and populating them into the answers

08:52:04 - 09:03:00

Frank

we save hours and hours and hours of time. And we'll get better and more consistent results as, output.

09:03:02 - 09:23:03

Jason

Yeah, 100%. I love how you said the highest and best use. You know, I use that term a lot. You know, it's very common. When we're talking about real estate and how, you know, the highest and best use of real estate. But you're also reminding me of somebody you might have heard of before. His name's Bill gates, and I think he's famous for saying.

09:23:03 - 09:46:20

Jason

Or at least I've heard that. He said, you know, do what you do best and outsource the rest. Right? And so to that end, you know, how can we focus on our highest and best use and then outsource or delegate, you know, the use of, you know, artificial intelligence to do some of the repetitive task or some of the tasks that, you know, like you're describing that have high value, but maybe it's not your highest and best use per se.

09:46:20 - 10:12:00

Jason

And, you know, I have to just joke that, you know, point out, you know, you saying that, you know, sometimes things are kind of being done at the last minute and not is intentional or timely as you'd like. And I think that, you know, with all respect, you know, you pointing that out, you know, that, you know, Microsoft, a large global enterprise that, you know, in theory has all the resources, you know, available to it.

10:12:02 - 10:28:12

Jason

You know, it's not lost on me what you're saying. I tell my clients and contacts all the time that even the biggest companies in the world will tell you they feel like they have a small budget and that they, you know, are often working, you know, all the way through to the finish line on deadlines.

10:28:12 - 10:42:01

Jason

And so that's not something unique to, small businesses, mid-market companies, agencies, non-profits, whatever. We're all dealing with those things. It's just all relative and and done in scale.

10:42:03 - 11:13:07

Frank

Yeah. And and like. Yeah. And I don't necessarily think budget is part of it. I just think when you're committed to a project, you know, there is this natural desire to make sure that you've, you, you've done everything right. And sometimes that means you're fiddling with documents at the last minute. Which is again it's not ideal. If you're then you're going to have to kick it over to, you know, somebody in Japan, Korea or Spain and say I need this, I need this, you know, to go out on your, on your news sites for the next ten minutes.

11:13:08 - 11:36:02

Jason

Right. Right, right. Yeah. I was just working on a project this morning. I have a reminder on my phone, that pops up and says, you know, perfectionism slows you down. And this morning, I was literally like, overproducing something. And and just spending too much time on it. And the thing popped up on my phone and I was like, I'm so glad that came up right now, because I know it's a reminder.

11:36:04 - 11:53:06

Jason

Yeah. And then Frank, the person that I sent it to, you know, I said, hey, I'm done with this, you know, whatever. They came back and started perfectionism ING me. What I said, you know, or whatever. And I was like, nope, nope, let's stop. Let's just go. Like, let's just go because this perfect is the enemy of done.

11:53:08 - 12:13:13

Frank

Yeah. And this is part of the art. When you talk about the highest and best use of our time, especially as you become more senior. It is it is the ability to decide, you know, hey, I spent, 90% of the effort. And I got to 90%. I'm going to spend another hundred percent to get it to 95%.

12:13:15 - 12:14:17

Jason

Right.

12:14:19 - 12:42:00

Frank

Is that, is that the best use of time. Or am I like you said am I good enough. I mean is it good if I gotten everything right and it's not going to be perfect but it'll be successful. Yeah. And that is that's when we apply our intuition, our reasoning, our experience, to the problem. And that's the sort of thing that, you know, I don't I don't know currently, at least that, there's a whole lot of help we're going to get anywhere other than in between our ears.

12:42:02 - 13:15:21

Jason

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the old 8020 rule, right? Like, you know, 80% of a project can sometimes take 20% of the time, and then the other 20% can take 80% of the time with the various approvals and inputs and everything else, you got it. You've got to gain from it. So and I think that's where honestly, the bottleneck for me with using, AI becomes, because you might get a good first draft that's 80% done, like that snap of a fingers from your AI, tools, especially if you've trained them well.

13:15:21 - 13:38:07

Jason

Right? But then the human approval and the human process and the, you know, trust but verify, you know, kind of part is important. I'm also thinking about, I can't remember his name right now, but the guy who says 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome. And, you know that that's one of my, my favorite lines.

13:38:07 - 13:47:15

Jason

So I'll try to remember who that is during the recording here, but, yeah, I think it was oh, it's Dan Martel who wrote the book Buy Back Your Time, which is one of my favorites.

13:47:17 - 13:49:13

Frank

That's a good one.

13:49:15 - 14:11:08

Jason

All right. So let's talk more about the future of AI in PR. And, you know, kind of what are you seeing from your unique viewpoint? Both as a, you know, communications leader, as the CEO as well as, you know, working at a tech company that is obviously, on the cutting edge of AI use an AI.

14:11:09 - 14:12:09

Jason

The future.

14:12:11 - 14:23:07

Frank

Yeah, I think, first of all, I'd say anything, anything that I say from a predictive standpoint is likely to be wrong. I mean, just things are moving so fast and.

14:23:08 - 14:24:23

Jason

Only moving faster.

14:25:01 - 14:51:10

Frank

That's right. And things that we thought were impossible six months ago are now probable. And so, you know, I just, I say that because, you know, I don't I don't think I'm not starting to be right, because there's a couple of trends I think, that are really clear. You know, the first is that we are going to have increasingly powerful agents that we can turn to, to, to complete more and more complicated tasks.

14:51:12 - 15:23:05

Frank

So right now, most people continue to engage with AI through a Q&A process. Or a refinement process. I have this document, simplify it for me. Transform it into something else. Translated make a PowerPoint, you know, like, and these are great. These are useful, tools. Now, we're in the process where you know, we have access to and are using, agents that are more autonomous.

15:23:07 - 15:42:07

Frank

Send me in a, you know, like I want every morning. I want you to go out, and I want you to look at the top news sites, around the world and especially interested in then these ten key influencers, who are talking about whatever topic that I'm interested in, send me a report at, 8:00 every morning.

15:42:10 - 15:50:09

Frank

That includes citations, what they said, where they settled, and any implications, for, Microsoft.

15:50:11 - 15:51:02

Jason

Right.

15:51:04 - 16:21:19

Frank

And then you can you can see that you can, start to engage in predictive role playing, with these agents based on, you know, what's happening. Hey, I see this happening. If this happens, what is the likely outcome? You know, if a if, if if our competitor says X, what do we expect, the analyst firms to say, what do we expect or how do we expect our investors to respond?

16:21:21 - 16:42:03

Frank

What are the ways we can circumvent that? So you can you can use it in a very predictive, or role playing way that gives you a sense of what could happen. And it's not ever going to be perfect. But you now have a, a partner to really effectively work with you. On, on things like that.

16:42:05 - 17:01:04

Frank

So we have to get used to the idea that in addition to having people we work with, we all have agents, we work with these agents work for us. And in the same way we think about how do we get the best use out of the, people? Because people have unique talents. These agents will have unique talents, as well.

17:01:06 - 17:12:10

Frank

And so we have to think about how do we manage them, how do we incorporate them into our workflows? In the same way we think about how we work with our, our teams and our individuals here.

17:12:12 - 17:48:03

Jason

You know, you raise a good point for the communicators, that are working at publicly traded companies, and or those that listening that are in investor relations. You know, my friend has developed, software where you actually can work on the messaging from your earnings calls. With an AI, platform that she's created that allows the AI to kind of use its predictive and, and analytics to tell you what's going to be, trigger questions, what's going to be liked or not, like by analysts.

17:48:05 - 18:20:03

Jason

And, you know, and it looks at, you know, the data, the input of, quarterly, transcripts. Right. And then it will use all this history that it has both on the company and other companies. It'll actually help you improve your messaging, your scripting, and, anticipate questions. And the next phase of it, which I'm not sure if it's live or yet, you know, live or active yet is the prediction on how the market will respond?

18:20:05 - 18:25:16

Jason

You know, which I don't know how that's possible, because we but I see you smiling. Also.

18:25:18 - 18:39:22

Frank

Predicting the market at this point is a fool's errand. So, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, good result here. Price goes down, you have bad results. Your price goes up. Yep. You misspell sales targets and you're a meme stock. I mean, like, at this point, just 100%.

18:40:00 - 19:03:02

Jason

Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, the irony of, you know, I've seen many of my clients get penalized their market, you know, their stock price get penalized because they want so much business from their competitors in a given quarter, right, that their their numbers are way up. And so all their competitors numbers are down. And so the market says, well, just because your numbers up this quarter doesn't mean they're not going to be down next quarter.

19:03:06 - 19:27:16

Jason

You know, like everybody else. And they're like, no, we actually stole big. You know we won big accounts from, you know, our biggest competitor. So we're up and they're down. And these are long term contracts. So you know the market is unpredictable to your point. And we as communications people have a really big challenge in not only communicating that externally but internally and managing market and other stakeholder expectations.

19:27:20 - 19:52:02

Frank

And we need all the help we can get. And so that's that's how I look at this, is that I now have help, and, and and again, it's not like you can outsource your judgment, but you can augment it. And so a lot of these new technologies allow us to get information more rapidly, process information more rapidly, and then we have to make the time to sit and think about it.

19:52:04 - 19:58:07

Frank

Right. Really think and say like what is it. What is it that we want to do here.

19:58:09 - 20:17:06

Jason

And you know, people will say to me and probably you all the time, you know, man, the PR profession sure has changed. You know, over the years, corporate communication profession has changed over the years. And my argument is it really hasn't changed. We just have better tools. But those same tools require us to be even better practitioners, more strategically minded.

20:17:06 - 20:42:04

Jason

Because whether it was, you know, email, the internet, text messaging, social media, and, and now I right those same tools used incorrectly or in the wrong hands or with someone who doesn't have, like you said, you know, judgment or integrity or strategy or years of experience, right. Can have, you know, with great power comes great responsibility.

20:42:06 - 20:55:16

Jason

And so, you know, how many times has a text message gone out with the wrong message or to the wrong audience or an email blast and things like that? And as we start getting into a I, there's going to be even more of that if we're not careful.

20:55:18 - 21:23:23

Frank

Yeah, I think I think that's right. I just think we're in a fascinating industry. And one of the and this has been true for a long time. I mean, where I would I would still be that it's interesting. Yeah. And and one of the things that is interesting is that we, we have seen an ongoing evolution of influence, you know, over the last hundred years where how do people get information, how do they make decisions, who do they trust, who publishes a scale to what audience?

21:24:01 - 21:50:10

Frank

It's just been this massive evolution and fragmentation of influence and authority, which has made our lives more complicated, but given us different opportunities as well. So you have that. And that's been ongoing. Even before I, we had super interesting jobs because this was happening. Now we have more information, we have more insight, and there's different ways of, of, sort of tackling this world.

21:50:12 - 21:59:20

Jason

This episode is brought to you by audible. Enjoy 30 days free of Audible Premium Plus by going to on top of Pre-comp audible.

21:59:22 - 22:24:02

Announcer

You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America's most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

22:24:04 - 22:47:23

Jason

So Frank, I think the question you know, oftentimes when I speak to audiences publicly about, AI, especially among PR practitioners, is always the concern about our jobs and our employment future. And so speaking of the future of AI one, what what would be your message to people who are worried about that? And to what is the future of, employment in the profession, with AI?

22:48:01 - 22:55:17

Jason

As, as a as we talked about earlier, it's growing and it's only going to grow faster. And we're only going to have to integrate it more and more.

22:55:19 - 23:19:15

Frank

Yeah. It's sort of the existential question of the day, not just for us, but for everybody. You know what, what skills are valuable. How do you how do you bring people into the workforce? And what do you ask them, to do? That's right. And I think, you know, again, there's just a lot of unknowns.

23:19:17 - 23:47:20

Frank

As a society, we've gone through this before, right? We've seen significant shifts like this before, and historians have done a good job of trying to put that into into perspective, whether it's the, electrification that took place, whether it's the steam engine on the rise of the factories, you know, whether it's the internet itself, technology, internet, all these things radically reshape the jobs that people do.

23:47:22 - 24:05:16

Frank

You know, it's not too long ago where you would actually have just pools of typists and any business your job was to typed things up, and now we're just all typists. Yeah, right. There are no pools of typists. We all type, you know, I don't know about anybody else, but I spend a lot of my time fingers on the keyboard.

24:05:18 - 24:08:01

Frank

Yep.

24:08:03 - 24:30:19

Frank

And the employment has grown through that. And people are probably having more fulfilling jobs. Yeah. Than they did before. You know, when, if I just think about our industry, there was a time when, you know, people came into the industry as early in career and, and the work that they did is they created press kits and they stuffed press kits, and they mailed them out, and they did these guys.

24:31:01 - 24:33:20

Jason

Yeah, yeah.

24:33:22 - 24:58:14

Frank

So as I'm thinking about as I think about jobs then just in our industry and other industries, I'm I'm relatively optimistic that there is more opportunity that is coming. Some of it is less visible currently, than others, but I but I think it's there. And so then this gets back to where we started, which is this concept of what is the mindset that we have to bring to it.

24:58:16 - 25:29:21

Frank

And, you know, the mindset has to be one of experimentation, curiosity, trying new things, being willing to, to fail, at some that we're grabbing every tool that comes out there and thinking about how we can apply it, to the work that we do. And, you know, the piece that I'm up again that I'm optimistic on is that if I look even here at Microsoft, you know, the time I've been in this job, the company has tripled in size.

25:29:23 - 25:39:01

Frank

Okay. You know, we have gazillions, which is an official number, more products and services than we did when I started.

25:39:03 - 26:06:01

Frank

And essentially we're doing all that with the same size team and it's, and it's because we're, we're more efficient. We taking advantage of all the new technologies out there were more efficient, were more effectively we can pick and choose, you know, what is important to us, with a higher degree of fidelity. And so I don't look at all this technology as something that is going to cut costs.

26:06:03 - 26:15:08

Frank

It's going to allow us to do the things that are in front of us that we want to do that we can't get to right now because we don't have the resources and the time.

26:15:10 - 26:19:23

Jason

So you're thinking about productivity efficiency versus financial efficiency.

26:20:01 - 26:36:19

Frank

Right. There's more. And yeah, so you can either you can hear you look at this is not clear cut something or you can look at it as an opportunity to grow. Right. And like we're all about growth and there's more there are more things that we want to do than we have time for right now.

26:36:21 - 27:02:15

Jason

Yeah, you can all you can only cut so much, right? But you can grow so much more. And, you know, I was having a conversation with my daughter, like, you know, it's easier to actually, earn $1,000 sometimes than it is to save $1,000, you know, or to cut $1,000 from, you know, your budget because, you know, she's 20 something and her budget's already low, and, you know, she needed some money, and I just she was trying to figure out what to cut.

27:02:15 - 27:20:03

Jason

And I said, you'd be better off figuring out something you can sell or side hustle or ask for a raise to get $1,000. Then you're going to be able to find $1,000 in cutting your budget, you know? Yeah, unless unless you got a fat budget, you know, where you're already overspending. But she's already gone through those motions, so.

27:20:03 - 27:20:13

Frank

Right.

27:20:13 - 27:38:02

Jason

Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of kind of organizational efficiency, kind of talk us through in in your role, as the CEO. What is what is your organizational chart look like? There within Microsoft.

27:38:04 - 27:41:16

Frank

Yeah. So, we run we have a global organization.

27:41:18 - 28:00

Frank

Broadly, we have teams that are product and engineering aligned. So we've got teams focused on on gaming and on windows and on productivity and on servers and developers and security. You know, I think about these as, like, you know, these lines of business. We are supporting these lines of business.

28:02 - 28:01:13

Frank

Then we have,

28:01:15 - 28:22:00

Frank

what I think about, as you know, the, the teams that help with content. Right. So what is most important to the company? You know, it's innovation, and trust. So how do we drive those those narratives? You know, forward and those get been pushed into all the existing work that we do.

28:22:02 - 28:39:00

Frank

We have a team focused on an employee, an executive communications, because you have to do a great job of telling your story externally, but you also have to do a great job of talking to your employees. Right. About what? About what you're doing. And then we have a, you know, I, I use this term, they start a fishing trip.

28:39:01 - 28:59:04

Frank

I think about the platform. What is the platform that we stand on? What is the platform for modern communications? What what is required? What is the talent that is required? What are the capabilities that are required? How do we tell our own stories? How do we understand influence? How do we do measurement? You know, those are that's another team that,

28:59:06 - 29:07:22

Jason

We have got you so ballpark about how many lines of business does does Microsoft have, a gazillion, right.

29:08:00 - 29:37:20

Frank

Yeah. I mean, it's a lot. I mean, I, I would broadly speaking, I mean, this is an oversimplification, but you say we have a gaming business, with Xbox and, all the games that we, make and create, we have a productivity business, that, includes Microsoft 365, security, etc., etc. for enterprises small and medium and, businesses.

29:37:22 - 30:09:10

Frank

We have windows that gets sold both to businesses and to, to consumer. Then we have the, consumer products like, Copilot and Bing and Edge and, and all the things that, that sit on there, as, as well and then, you know, we have like, what we do with developers and partners, and I, so, yeah.

30:09:11 - 30:16:00

Jason

An AI is going to touch all of that in some capacity, if it's not already. And I imagine it's already touching all of it.

30:16:02 - 30:38:19

Frank

It is. But there are things that we, we do, like in the developer land, we have, you know, copilot, GitHub copilot for developers and ordinary human beings to use. I use GitHub copilot, and I'm not a developer, and it's and you can build applications and services, on it that are just for me in ways that I couldn't, ever do, before.

30:38:22 - 30:39:20

Frank

And I think.

30:39:22 - 30:45:21

Jason

Example, beyond the one you mentioned earlier of collecting, you know, data and news content.

30:45:23 - 31:02:19

Frank

Well, I did, yeah. I mean, these are these are silly examples. I, I have a kayak. I like a kayak. One of the questions you always have to ask is like, when is a good time to launch my kayak from this specific spot. There is no website that does that.

31:02:20 - 31:03:13

Jason

Yeah.

31:03:14 - 31:19:20

Frank

Right. But I don't want, it's just for me that says like hey when does the ferry come by. What are the currents look like here. What's the wind patterns. When is it going on. Sun's might come up. When's the sun going to come down. And it'll say, hey based on these things these this is a good time for you to launch your kayak.

31:20:01 - 31:23:02

Frank

It's software for one person.

31:23:03 - 31:28:15

Frank

And it's the kind of thing that wasn't ever possible before. But now it is.

31:28:17 - 31:35:00

Jason

Yeah. And you could use that. I mean could you offer that publicly to people. I mean others would benefit from it.

31:35:02 - 31:40:14

Frank

I could, you could but but this is the interesting challenge. It's harder than you think.

31:40:16 - 31:41:09

Jason

Okay.

31:41:11 - 32:03:08

Frank

Because everybody has different expectations. You know, I could create a version of, I can create a word processor. Somebody could create a word processor, could probably be a pretty good word processor, and they could say, hey, I'm going to sell it to you and I can sell it to you for 20 bucks. You hear screaming, you're gonna be able to use this beautiful word processor.

32:03:09 - 32:14:02

Frank

Well, who's going to support it? Who's going to update it? Who's going to transmit it into different language to make sure it stays secure? Awesome. That $20 does not look like it's going to carry this developer very far.

32:14:03 - 32:34:09

Jason

I love what you mentioned support because we've developed some, SaaS solutions for our clientele also. But you know, in the business model, like you're pointing out one support call ruins the, the margins on that customer. Or perhaps that business, you know, because we want to price it low. We want to offer it, make it accessible.

32:34:15 - 32:47:10

Jason

But the moment you've got to get a human involved to provide support to them, you know, you can't charge 20, 50 bucks a month anymore or in your case, per year or whatever it might be. So, yeah, that's a perfect example, I think.

32:47:14 - 32:56:00

Jason

Well, Frank, this was really helpful. What else would you want to share, with our audience, about the future of AI in the public relations profession?

32:56:02 - 33:22:13

Frank

Yeah, I think, you know, I look, I mean, technology, I if you're in the technology sector, you have to be a little bit optimistic about what it can do. For you, when I first saw GPT four, and I remember driving home, after seeing the demo and wondering if I had made a poor career choice, to be in comms.

33:22:15 - 33:52:04

Frank

Because you think about the value that we provide, we synthesize a lot of information. We translate it into language that people can understand. You know, we, tell stories to make it approachable. And I just seen a demo where this large language model did many of those things, and they did a bunch of other stuff to and, like, you just had I had this moment of mere existential dread of saying, like, what?

33:52:06 - 33:55:19

Frank

What am I going to be doing a year from now?

33:55:21 - 34:22:19

Frank

So here we are, three and a half years later. I'm busier than ever. And I have more tools. Right, a big mistake. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have found a way for us not to talk about AI as a singular thing, because a lot of times people hear I and think about this black box.

34:22:21 - 34:37:14

Frank

And AI is going to do this, I is going to do that. It's going to take my jobs, it's going to you know, destroy the universe. It's going to create, you know, all these things. It's like this personification, this AI thing.

34:37:16 - 34:38:10

Jason

Right.

34:38:11 - 35:05:04

Frank

And the reality is it is a collection of tools. And there's some of the most valuable tools ever created, which means that everybody is going to be able to find a tool that works best not just for the industry or the thing that they want to do, but for them personally and how they do it. And that's the really exciting part.

35:05:06 - 35:28:15

Frank

You know, I might be excited. I'm more excited about Excel agent because I've never been very good at Excel. Yeah, than I am about Word agent because I'm a pretty good writer. Yeah, but it's inverse. If you're in accounting like you might have been. And so everybody has this new set of capabilities, everybody has this new set of tools.

35:28:17 - 35:41:12

Frank

And if we approach them with that sense, new tools, as opposed to this black box of AI that is going to do something to us, I think we'll just generally be a lot better off.

35:41:14 - 35:47:00

Jason

Yeah, that's very interesting. Okay, I like it, I like it, and I think I think you're spot on.

35:47:02 - 35:50:14

Jason

Anything else you wanted to add? Mentioned while we're together today?

35:50:15 - 36:03:08

Frank

Yeah. No, I think the last thing I'll say is that I think everybody should be experimenting with stuff, at home if, and at work, because it's moving really fast, and the way you stay on top of it is just play.

36:03:10 - 36:33:01

Jason

Yeah, yeah. That's right. Play. I remember the very first time I ever got on the internet, you know, six hours later and it felt like it'd been, you know, an hour. And the same thing with, you know, ChatGPT, so, you know, it's kind of that same thing is that, you know, if you're not fascinated and excited about the potential in the future and, you know, a little scared, you know, or mindful of what, you know, the ramifications, you know, then I think you're missing a unique opportunity to be here in this moment.

36:33:03 - 36:39:16

Jason

And really take it all in. So, as we're wrapping up, I got to ask you about your artwork there in the background.

36:39:18 - 37:01:05

Frank

Yeah. There is, there's an artist that we've worked with before. The first one says, think like an engineer and write like a poet. And that was, something. I met with a bunch of engineers, and I was talking to them about the role they played, and that's. And that was what I said to him.

37:01:05 - 37:13:22

Frank

You have to think like an engineer, but you have to write like a poet because, like, how do you how do you make things accessible? And then the second one says, every day is a moonshot. So that's how you have to approach it.

37:14:00 - 37:31:16

Jason

I like it, I like it. Okay. Frank, if someone is interested in the course that we mentioned earlier, communicators Guide to AI Tools and Mindsets for Modern PR and Media course on LinkedIn learning. Do they just go to LinkedIn learning and search that up?

37:31:18 - 37:36:06

Frank

That's right. It should should pop up and they can, they can take a look.

37:36:08 - 37:55:10

Jason

Good. And if anybody has follow up questions for you about this episode, I would point them to the episode notes, which will be, on top of pr.com/frank Shaw. And then, but if they wanted to reach out to you, what's the best way for them? Or who's the best contact there for them to get? A chance to ask you any follow up questions.

37:55:11 - 38:06:04

Frank

LinkedIn is a great place to reach me. I spent a fair amount of time on the platform. And so that's a that's a great place to connect, to connect with me and ask questions. So we can keep the dialog going there.

38:06:06 - 38:31:12

Jason

Okay. That sounds great. Well, Frank, I really appreciate you sharing your insights and experience here with our audience today. This has been a great episode, and, we really appreciate your time. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Well, with that, that's been another great episode of On Top of PR. Thank you for being here with us today. If you are, a colleague would benefit from this episode, please take a minute to share it with them on your social media.

38:31:14 - 38:50:08

Jason

And if you haven't yet, please take a moment to leave us a review on the platform of your choice. When you share about on top of PR, we have an opportunity to attract and help more audiences and with our ultimate goal of helping people stay on top of PR with that, this is your host, Jason Mudd from Axia Public Relations.

38:50:10 - 39:02:17

Announcer

This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and check out past episodes at ontopofpr.com.