The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson · www.mollymcpherson.com

AI Already Wrote Your Crisis Story. You Just Don't Know It Yet

April 1, 2026·13 min·1 clip

Molly McPherson reveals how AI is already writing your crisis story before you even know it.

Molly McPherson opens the episode by stating that a quiet shift has occurred in crisis communication, which most organizations and leaders have not caught up to. She notes that time is no longer a buffer for shaping narratives, as social media enabled the public to shape stories in real time. McPherson observes that many still dismiss social media as noise, but AI now organizes that noise into summaries presented as truth. She emphasizes that if you wait in a crisis, a version of the truth gets built without you, making it difficult to undo. The biggest risk is being summarized at scale by AI when customers or reporters search for your name. McPherson explains that AI compiles everything people are saying from platforms like Reddit, TikTok, and news, creating a default narrative if you haven't responded. She points out that dismissing early signals as just social media noise cements the crisis rather than avoiding it. The episode is aimed at communicators who understand both internal operations and external perceptions. McPherson discusses balancing speed with accuracy, concluding that waiting surrenders the narrative and you don't need perfect information, just clarity. She advises against using AI to write every word of a statement, as trust is built on signals like volume, velocity, credibility, and emotion. McPherson states that you train AI on your reputation daily, whether you realize it or not, and suggests using tools like Perplexity for a better reputation assessment than Google. She clarifies that you don't have to cause a crisis to be in one; if stakeholders are impacted, you're in it. Crises are defined by proximity to pain, not just fault. McPherson explains that trust is her metric for a crisis, and if it's breaking rapidly, you're in one. Trust leaks from within an organization's culture before spreading outward. She simplifies it for leaders: if trust is breaking, revenue is next, as customers disengage and media follows. The episode advises starting with truth and trust rather than just tools or dashboards when considering AI in crisis management. McPherson stresses the need for a human element in crisis response, as leadership is a human process technology cannot replace. She provides a real-time example involving air travel delays due to TSA issues during a government shutdown, noting Delta Airlines' CEO Ed Bastian called on Congress to fix the problem rather than distancing the airline. McPherson concludes that in today's environment, crises are defined by proximity to pain, and people remember who showed up to ease it.

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