Honeyjar launches AI tools to widen access to PR expertise
Honeyjar, a new AI startup founded by veteran PR professionals Michelle Masek and Nadia Jamshidi, is launching tools to democratise communications expertise for companies of all sizes. The platform automates key PR tasks including writing announcements, identifying journalists to pitch, and finding speaking opportunities, aiming to bring professional-level communications to founders and other workers without dedicated comms teams. The startup is showcasing its technology at this week's TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200.
Within its first 24 hours, Honeyjar's waitlist attracted 10,000 signups, with early beta testers including Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, investor Bloomberg Beta, and PR agencies Mission North and Full Picture. Rather than replacing PR professionals, Masek and Jamshidi say their tool enhances both individual practitioners and communications teams by handling time-consuming tasks. However, the development raises concerns among journalists already overwhelmed by AI-generated pitches, though the founders maintain that Honeyjar requires users to manually send communications rather than automating the entire publishing process.
- AI startup Honeyjar launches tools to help anyone do professional communications work.
- Early access drew 10,000 signups in 24 hours from entrepreneurs and other communicators.
- Founders say it helps professionals do better work, but journalists worry about AI pitch spam.
New here? Start with this
Honeyjar is a new artificial intelligence platform that automates public relations tasks for companies and individuals without dedicated communications teams. The tool can draft press announcements, identify journalists to pitch stories to, and find speaking opportunities, aiming to make professional-level communications support more accessible to smaller businesses and founders.
The platform was founded by Michelle Masek and Nadia Jamshidi, both veteran public relations professionals with significant experience in the communications industry. Rather than creating something entirely new, they designed a tool to handle the time-consuming, routine aspects of PR work that professionals traditionally spend much of their time on.
The launch reflects the growing presence of artificial intelligence in professional services, from law to accounting to communications. It also highlights an ongoing tension in journalism and PR: whilst AI tools can democratise professional expertise, they risk increasing the volume of impersonal, automated communications that journalists receive.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Professional PR has been gatekept by expensive retainers, leaving qualified founders unable to tell their stories. Honeyjar's insight is sound: automate mechanical work like journalist research and drafting that's time-consuming but requires no judgment, freeing practitioners for what matters—relationships, strategy, and refinement. The founders' credentials and the 10,000-person waitlist suggest genuine market demand for professional-grade tools at accessible prices, not spam automation.
The case against
Journalists already report drowning in AI-generated pitches; automation has demonstrably made this worse. Honeyjar will reduce friction dramatically for 10,000 new senders, most lacking PR training, to contact journalists they couldn't afford to reach before. The result is more volume from untrained senders pitching whatever they find important rather than what's editorially valuable—worsening the information ecosystem rather than improving it.
AI Business Companies Technology
Read the full article at the source →
Originally published by TechCrunch as “Honeyjar offers AI tools to improve PR and comms at every company”.