From social media memory to clickbait headlines and two-second copy from AI—it’s an endless stream of snapshot media and noise. A recent Harvard Business Review study found that AI usage is causing “brain fry” and adding stress on workers. Studies show plateauing and declines in social media usage. Perhaps we’re growing bored of the hollowness?

Reporters and editors are tired of quick content, too – even pushing back on content that feels too AI. I can attest that the instance I’m referring to was actually not produced by AI at all. But how can I blame them? The brain fry is making all the lines a bit blurry.

Many of us are finding ourselves re-engaging with long-form reporting and analysis, burnt out by the superficial analysis that drives clicks. We’re seeking deep perspectives and research in response to all the unreasoned content and images.

My recommendation is that tech PR narratives pivot toward greater depth, authenticity, and analysis.

Decision makers, tasked with deciphering what technologies will advance the productivity and efficiency of their operations, have to understand the real value of solutions. As covered in Forbes, a 2025 MIT study, “The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business,” found that about 95% of enterprise generative-AI projects fail to produce measurable business results, meaning they stall at the pilot stage or show no meaningful ROI. In this time where AI has the potential to add new layers of productivity across industries, those making the decisions and doing the math on the investment need to understand the value in alignment with their operational objectives.

For years, we’ve been focused on short, succinct content that tells part of the story in messages. However, the nuanced application of AI and other advancing technologies is far too complicated for short explanations.

My recommendations are not for higher word count or repetitive concepting. My recommendation is to apply precision in greater analytical depth to produce longer, more thorough PR and marketing pieces.

Here’s how to go deeper:

Go Longer Form on Owned Content – Go back to spanning, long-form white papers. Take the cornerstone messages or data—typically four or five pillars in the narrative—and contextually explain each in layers. Give specific examples and use cases inside the copy. Dive into the architecture and walk through how the platform interacts with the full stack, where appropriate. Create content that is insightful, useful, and technically relevant to its intended recipients.

Upgrade to Deeper Press Releases – Press releases did trend skinnier the last two decades, but anthonyBarnum has been experimenting and issuing longer, more in-depth press releases that span closer to 800 words. We’ve seen Tier 1 reporters respond very well and cover press releases that feature deep data analysis. Your press release can be an insightful resource to reporters, but its narrative needs to be complete.

Reporters Don’t Want AI Copy – Marketers need to be aware that using AI-generated pieces for the media will discredit them with the outlet. Reporters are pushing back on all AI-written content. They are using software tools that score the content based on the likelihood of it being AI-generated. They are also trying to make the distinction themselves if the content is AI-generated because the tools to score it are not consistently accurate by a long shot. Reporters can decipher the repetitiveness, high school AP course-like language, and bullets produced by most standard platforms. Even if it is not AI-generated but looks like it, the piece will still be rejected. You need to proofread against sounding AI, even if it wasn’t AI-generated.

Go Organic – I’m not talking about food; I’m talking about what you write. When targeting the media, the most professional and practical approach is to write media-facing pieces organically.  AI-generated content should serve as background or for very specific, limited needs. There are well documented pitfalls with AI content, such as its inability to synthesize future-looking concepts; its tendency to loop and restate with repetition; its vocabulary and grammar conventions; its less-than-succinct narratives; and its inaccurate inferences. Just like organic strawberries in the grocery store, what you’ll produce won’t look perfect, but it will feel authentic.

Verticalize Narratives – Lean in to verticalized narratives and be more specific. We’re seeing our clients want more vertical benchmarking studies and white papers. This is the right course for marketers; go deeper into the specifics and use cases. For the media, they too want to address specific industry challenges and potential solutions with highly relevant insights to their readership. We’re seeing a strong receptiveness to very granular vertical-specific concepts in the media.

Go for Vendor Neutral and Technical  – When pitching to the media or crafting an expert byline, being vendor neutral goes a long way in building credibility. But in this day of hyper-promotional content, tech companies can stand out by being decisively neutral and unpacking very complex approaches to pain points and solutions. After years of catering heavily to nontechnical business audiences, there’s a shift toward a more technical audience because of its substantive differentiation from superficial analysis.

After years of shortening narratives and sticking to business messages, it’s now time to shift and focus on depth. Technology is advancing too fast, decision-makers are struggling to determine the strongest platforms for their needs, and too much has been boiled down. Bringing back the long-form is currently a winning differentiation in PR execution.

2026 is the year to go deeper on thought leadership and analysis – Reach out if you would like to talk through how.