The public relations industry has long faced criticism from those within it—journalists, entrepreneurs, and even PR professionals themselves acknowledge its flaws. The question now is whether artificial intelligence could offer meaningful improvements.

Honeyjar, a new startup, aims to address this challenge. Its founders bring substantial credentials: CEO Michelle Masek and CCO Nadia Jamshidi have each spent decades in communications, both in-house and at agencies. Masek most recently held the position of senior vice president of marketing and communications at Obvious Ventures, Ev Williams' venture firm. This background led her to consider whether senior-level communications expertise could be scaled through AI to help users approach communications work proactively and skillfully.

The platform automates various communications tasks—drafting announcements, identifying journalists worth pitching, and finding promising speaking engagements. However, Jamshidi emphasized that Honeyjar's ambitions extend further. According to her, the tool can locate reporters, create media lists, monitor news and social media, track coverage, and identify opportunities. Yet she described these functions as merely one component of a larger vision: unifying the entire communications workflow, encompassing signals, context, strategy, judgment, timing, and execution.

The target audience isn't limited to startup founders. Masek observed that there are countless individuals performing communications work without formal communications titles—marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents, and sports team leaders among them. She noted that this need for strategic communications expertise is remarkably widespread, yet the problems frequently remain unsolved despite being passed around.

Honeyjar isn't designed to eliminate PR jobs. Masek explained that she and Jamshidi created the tool they personally wanted to use. She contends that Honeyjar can enhance the effectiveness of PR firms and internal communications teams while enabling individual practitioners to handle additional clients without incurring scaling costs.

The waitlist attracted 10,000 signups within the first day, according to Masek. Beta participants include Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, Bloomberg Beta, and the agencies Mission North and Full Picture. While this may benefit companies seeking visibility, it raises concerns for journalists already overwhelmed by pitches—many of which are AI-generated. When asked about the prospect of even more low-quality pitches, Masek pointed out that although Honeyjar can compose pitch emails or social posts in the user's voice, the user must still manually send or publish them. She stated the company never wants a scenario where humans are removed from the process.

This is where judgment becomes essential. Masek said she and Jamshidi worked to embed their expertise into Honeyjar. Through an initiative called the Comms Lab, they are also training the product using the judgment of other PR professionals. Jamshidi described judgment as understanding what actions to take, what to avoid, when to act, and how to respond to circumstances—derived from grasping a company's objectives, internal and external conditions, and knowing what to communicate, to whom, where, and when.

In certain situations, Masek said Honeyjar might advise a founder that they aren't prepared for media coverage yet. She noted that reporters consistently express a desire for improved pitches and direct access to experts. According to her, the company envisions a future where inboxes contain more credible pitches from sources journalists genuinely want to hear from.