UpTrajectory Review
UK businesses cut spending on PR and management consultants to 4.2% of their budgets in September, even as total business spending rose 3.1% year over year and AI service purchases climbed sharply. City A.M. reported those figures on 10/06/2025, and Omar Hamdi, chief executive of London-listed Pathos Communications plc, read them as a signal that AI is forcing PR firms to prove they can scale beyond billable hours. The original piece at The Next Web likely explores Hamdi's argument in depth, though the excerpt stops short of his full reasoning. We know the tension: clients now buy AI tools directly, and agencies must justify their fees against software that drafts press releases and media lists in seconds.
For a small-business operator, this shift cuts two ways. If you run a lean shop, cheaper AI tools mean you can handle media outreach, crisis communications, and content creation without a retainer that eats your marketing budget. Yet PR firms still hold relationships with journalists and influencers that no algorithm replicates. The 4.2% figure suggests your peers are already voting with their wallets, testing whether a $200 monthly AI subscription replaces a $5,000 monthly agency fee. Before you follow them, audit which parts of your communications strategy actually require human judgment—media training for executives, nuanced crisis response, or local community engagement—and which parts software handles adequately.
What is genuinely new here is not that AI threatens white-collar work; it is that PR, a relationship-driven field, now faces the same disintermediation that hit manufacturing and retail. Hamdi's position as a listed-company CEO gives him a direct stake in proving his firm can adapt, which makes his framing both credible and self-serving. We agree that the billable-hour model is under pressure. We remain skeptical of claims that AI alone delivers strategic counsel. The excerpt omits whether Pathos has actually scaled profitably using AI or merely plans to, a distinction that separates industry leadership from investor relations.
The downstream effects will split the market. Large agencies with Fortune 500 clients may absorb AI as a cost-saving layer, protecting margins while keeping premium fees. Mid-tier firms face the real squeeze: clients who once paid for routine content now demand higher-level strategy at lower prices. Small agencies and solo practitioners who master AI tools could undercut established players, or they could find themselves commoditized into gig workers training algorithms. For PR professionals, the wage premium for basic writing and media-list building will shrink. For businesses, the risk is homogenized messaging as every firm leans on the same large language models, making authentic voice a scarcer commodity.
Watch whether Pathos and its peers disclose concrete AI-driven revenue growth or cost reductions in their next earnings reports. If they cannot show margin improvement, the 4.2% spending share may reflect permanent client defection rather than a temporary pause. In the next quarter, compare your own communications spend against your lead-generation results. If you use a PR firm, ask which tasks they now automate and whether they pass those savings to you. If you handle communications in-house, test one AI tool against one agency deliverable you received last year. The firms that survive this transition will not be those that use AI, but those that charge for judgment while software handles the rest.
“the share of UK firms spending on public relations and management consultants fell to 4.2% in September” — The Next Web
Takeaway: Audit your PR retainer now: demand that your agency show which deliverables AI handles and whether those savings reach your invoice.
Excerpt from the original — The Next Web
City A.M. reported on 6 October that the share of UK firms spending on public relations and management consultants fell to 4.2% in September, even as overall business spending rose 3.1% year on year and spending on AI services increased rapidly. For Omar Hamdi, chief executive of London-listed Pathos Communications plc, those figures are less a death notice for […]
This story continues at The Next Web …