9 AI Prompts for Public Affairs Professionals Who Want Better Thinking, Not Just Faster Drafting
Discover 9 practical AI prompts for public affairs professionals to improve policy messaging, pressure-test arguments, anticipate objections, and communicate more clearly with EU stakeholders.
“What is the single weakest sentence in this briefing, and how would you fix it?”
This is a prompt I would probably never have come up with myself.
And yet, it is exactly the kind of question that makes AI useful for public affairs work.
Not because it writes the briefing for you.
But because it helps you test the thinking behind it.
A lot of AI use in public affairs still focuses on speed: summarise this, draft that, turn this into an email. Useful, yes. But not the whole story.
The real value is when AI helps you pressure-test your message before someone else does.
A policymaker.
A journalist.
A Commission official.
A sceptical attaché.
A client.
A colleague in the meeting who spots the weak point before you do.
So here are 9 AI prompts for public affairs professionals who want better thinking, not just faster drafting:
- Rewrite this message so it would survive a hostile question from an MEP in the relevant EP committee.
- List the 5 strongest objections a Commission desk officer at [DG] would raise to this proposal, then tighten the argument.
- Translate this policy language into something a national journalist would not misinterpret.
- What is the single weakest sentence in this briefing, and how would you fix it?
- Adapt this message for a sceptical Permanent Representation official who is short on time.
- Strip this text of buzzwords and replace them with concrete, defensible claims.
- Assume the audience is politically neutral but institutionally risk-averse, rewrite accordingly.
- What is the hidden assumption in this argument that could be challenged in a meeting?
- Reduce this to a 30-second spoken answer that sounds credible and not rehearsed.
The point is not to let AI do your public affairs work for you.
The point is to use it as a sparring partner.
To make your arguments clearer.
To make your messages harder to misread.
To find the sentence that sounds fine until someone challenges it.
To prepare for the question you hope no one asks.
That is where AI becomes genuinely useful.
Not as a shortcut around expertise.
But as a tool that helps you use your expertise better.
Stop Using AI for Answers. Start Using It for Better Questions
Discover why the real power of AI isn’t in providing answers, but in helping you ask better questions, uncover blind spots, and explore alternative perspectives for smarter decision-making.
Picasso once said: "Computers are useless, they can only give you answers."
That was true in his time, and still true today if you only use AI as a search ("answer") engine.
The real value is in the questions we ask:
- see blind spots in our reasoning ("Identify hidden biases or blind spots in my plan.)
- test assumptions we didn’t know we had ("Highlight my explicit or implicit assumptions.")
- explore alternative framings of the same problem ("How can this problem be viewed from multiple angles? How would a manager, a psychologist, a physicist, and musician look at it?") Or take these for example:
- Instead of asking “What’s the EU’s position on AI regulation?” try “What unintended consequences could the EU AI Act have for small startups?”
- Instead of “Summarize this report,” try “What’s missing from this report that an NGO focusing on circular economy could ask?”
- Instead of “Write a press release,” try “What would make this story credible to a skeptical journalist?”
AI doesn’t (and shouldn't) replace thinking. Just be sure to ask it the right way.
➡️ looking for AI workshops for your team? Influence Builders has trained 1500+ corporate and government affairs teams, and we'll be glad to work with you.
AI on LinkedIn: Hype, Hysteria, or Honest Insight?
A wry look at the LinkedIn AI conversation: from overhyped promises to doomsday takes, existential musings, and magical shortcuts. Where does reality meet rhetoric?
I get the impression that each time someone talks about AI on Linkedin, it's either:
- "oh this is such a hype/BS that only grifters talk about it"
- "you can go sit on a beach, it'll do everything for/instead of you"
- "whatever it churns out, it's a piece of cr*p that should be ridiculed"
- "here is some existential AI philosophy that I just invented"
- "a magic shortcut to hack your way to the top of the newsfeed"
- "it's the end of [name topic] and let's despair OR here is what to do about it"
- "this is revolutionary and the best of all worlds is about to come"
(I am guilty as charged of some of the above, I readily admit.)
Did I miss anything else?
p.s.: and the opportunistic plug, as the plus one: check out Influence Builders
AI Persuasion or AI Manipulation? The Fine Line Communicators Must Not Cross
AI can powerfully influence beliefs and behavior — for good or ill. This post explores how ethical communicators can harness AI’s persuasive potential responsibly, avoiding manipulation while maximizing impact.
With great power comes great responsibility.
As much as AI can change conspiracy beliefs with great effectiveness, it can just as well be misused by hostile actors for propaganda and nefarious purposes.
Ethical communicators must be proactively using AI-powered persuasion methods/tools without trespassing into manipulation territory.
(Original study: https://lnkd.in/eVKMZYtC)
➡️ Looking for AI workshops for your team? Influence Builders has trained thousands of managers, diplomats, and communication professionals.
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
AI Video Is Getting Scary Good — And That’s Great News for Creative Communicators
AI video tools are evolving fast — and they’re opening up fresh, creative possibilities for corporate and strategic communication. Here’s a quick demo showing just how far things have come (and why it’s time to start experimenting).
AI video is getting really good, especially for creative ideas.
This is just a quick, fun take testing its capabilities.
Possibilities are endless.
Finally, an opportunity for corporate and strategic communications to get interesting.
Influence Builders | The Right Street
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
Stop Wasting Time on Repetitive Tasks: How a $100 Automation Changed Everything
Most repetitive digital tasks can be automated — easily and affordably. Here’s how a simple $100 Make.com setup turned manual monitoring into a seamless workflow, and why even non-tech professionals should explore basic automation for their everyday work.
Repetitive tasks waste your time? Simple automation but never bothered to look into *how* to do it?
I wanted to monitor a friend's Facebook page and make it possible for anyone to sign up with their email to get a notification (with the content of the post) when he publishes a new item.
With the help of a freelancer, we built a simple Make.com automation that does exactly that.
Cost: $100, but once you learn the basics, it's a 30-minute effort.
This is extremely simple for anyone dealing with automation, but it's eye-opening for us the non-geeks and semi-geeks to see how easy it is to do.
And of course, the sky is the limit when it comes to "if/then" automations.
- event management
- briefing generation
- meeting preparation
- basic policy tracker,
- invoice management
- social media monitoring
- newsletter creation
…almost any workflow can be automated in a 100% customized way *exactly* the way you need it.
It's a paradigm shift once you dip your toe into it. Definitely so for me.
Are you using such tools? What's your experience?
cc Influence Builders: AI workshops for your team
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
7 practical tips to solve problems with AI
Discover seven actionable ways to use AI for problem-solving in public affairs and strategic communications — from smarter prompting to persuasive messaging and stakeholder mapping — shared by Jacques Foul and Andras Baneth at our recent Brussels workshop.
From Normies to Demigods: Which Level of AI Mastery Are You At?
A sharp breakdown of the five levels of AI mastery — from casual users to those who actually build the models. Where do you fall on the spectrum between AI sceptic and grand master?
Are you an AI sceptic or a grand master?
As David Szabo-Stuban brilliantly summarized, there are five core levels of AI mastery.
These are as follows:
Level 0: The Untouched (8 billion): AI is someone else's problem. Or opportunity. Or apocalypse. Whatever, it's not theirs.
Level 1: The Normies (~800 million): Free chatbot users. Weekend warriors. For them, ChatGPT = AI and switching from GPT-4o to GPT-5 was an existential moment.
Level 2: The Power Users (~5 million): They pay $20/month because the free tier is not enough. They get limited requests, they want better models, more access. Becoming power users. Somewhat frustrated by hallucinations but still very confident in how AI will disrupt everything. They usually think there's an AI tool for everything and don't necessarily understand how they're basically all the same tech.
Level 3: The Builders (~500k): They use ChatGPT Pro or Claude Max. They build rudimentary stuff with n8n, Zapier or Make. They don't trust ChatGPT outputs anymore and have developed an intuition for spotting hallucinations. They are all in on AI but don't yet know how deep the rabbit hole goes. They dominate Linkedin with their fancy n8n workflows where they call everything an AI agent.
Level 4: The Operators (~50k): Using Claude Code or Cursor to build stuff for themselves. Learning how to navigate AI swarms for building. Learning engineering principles to get better at things. Spennd increasingly large amounts of time with plumbing context instead of typing into models. These ppl stop hyping AI, because they know how much of it is held together by WD-40 and duct tape.
Level 5: The Researchers: They don't use AI. They build it. This is PhD superstar territory, demigod level knowledge.
Notice the pattern? Each level is ~10× smaller than the last. Each wall you break through filters out 90% of the people who were with you."
(See his Lumberjack newsletter for more: https://lnkd.in/etu6VwBS)
Would you agree? Which level are you at?
➡️ Influence Builders: AI workshops for your team
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
Just Because You Can Use AI to Read People, Should You?
Can AI really read someone’s personality just from their LinkedIn profile? This post explores the growing ability — and ethical grey zone — of using AI to analyze people for meetings, persuasion, and personalized communication.
Just because you can, does it mean you should?
Though it's not commonly known but you can download anyone's Linkedin profile as a PDF.
What is less commonly known is that you can easily feed this PDF into ChatGPT or any other AI tool so you can "play" with that information.
(The downside, or limitation, is that a person's Linkedin profile is obviously just a tiny snippet of who they really are. Or even more, it's rather who they want to be seen as. Even considering this, it's 'not nothing'.)
How?
You can add a prompt along the lines of "You are forensic psychologist. Take this person's profile and make educated, well-reasoned guesses about their personality, characteristics, and general traits. Ignore low-probability guesses. Consider that this is how they want to be seen, which may not fully reflect who they truly are. Look for telltale signs as well."
That's surely fun, but it can have a real utility:
- meeting preparation: "Give me tips on how to connect better in our meeting, considering his/her personality style."
- personalized messages: "Take my briefing/email/note [attached] and suggest ways to make it resonate more with this person, based on his/her profile."
- persuasion: "Based on what you understand about this person, suggest new messages/ideas about [topic X] that would likely appeal to this him/her."
Is this ethical? Where are the boundaries of tech, messaging, and communication?
Thoughts and comments welcome.
➡️ Looking for AI workshops for your team? Check out Influence Builders
cc Jacques Foul (thanks for volunteering for this experiment 😎)
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
AI-Written Buzzwords Are Taking Over—But Good Taste Is Still Human-Made
LinkedIn is drowning in “transformative,” “delighted to announce,” and “unlock crucial insights” — thanks to AI-written posts. A new study shows just how bad it’s gotten. Here’s why the last mile of writing still needs a human touch.
Oh please... don't "unlock" "crucial" "insights", or "let me be clear" and be "delighted to announce" the "transformative" "testament".
Enough of AI-junk and/or ChatGPT-powered Linkedin BS.
Pimplico Journal ran the numbers and found that the (over)use of these words, largely due to AI-written posts, has skyrocketed in the UK House of Commons.
(I wonder what the situation is in the European Parliament...?)
I'm a strong believer in the incredible potential and power of AI tools but the 80/20 rule must be kept in mind: it can take you to 80% of the way but the 'last mile' must be done by you, the human, and apply:
- good judgment
- good taste
- critical thinking
- relatable language
When you do that, the result will be stellar. Ignore it at your peril.
(more details about the original study: https://lnkd.in/e6kEC83T)
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
From Listener to Speaker? Getting Inspired at the Next Big AI Event
Attending an upcoming AI conference to catch the latest on trends, tech, and big ideas — this time as a participant, maybe next time as a speaker. Let’s connect if you’re going too!
Getting ready to hear about hashtag#AI trends, technology, and some sermons 😎
This time as a participant, perhaps one day as speaker 🤖
Anyone else from my network going to be there..? Let's meet.
This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
Featured articles
and Insights
This compilation takes us through the history of the first #EPSO candidates, showcasing their journey and achievements from the very beginning to the present day—and even looking ahead.
A compilation of the first #EPSO candidates throughout history, until today and beyond.
(Have you played with ChatGPT-4o's new image capabilities? Pretty impressive.)
*This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
Discover the inspiring story behind The Ultimate EU Handbook, a book born from the unexpected connection of a chance pitch and years of creative collaboration.
20 years ago, John Harper said 'yes' to an unknown person's unsolicited book pitch, which set of a chain of positive events. Yesterday, another book came to be as a result of two years' intense work and creativity of Sonia Gongu, Martin Tomov, Ljiljana Pavkov... and 'The Ultimate EU Handbook' was born.
Special thanks to Maryana Panyevina, Klym Ahrykov and David Meszaros for your support to make the launch event at Ambiorix Center & Podcast Studio special.
🇪🇺🙏📚
*This was originally posted on Andras Baneth's LinkedIn account.
What began as a discussion about burnout quickly turned into an exploration of something deeper. In my conversation with Dr. Vasadi Anna, a psychiatrist with decades of experience, it became clear that burnout isn’t just about long hours or stress—it’s rooted in expectations, upbringing, and the invisible pressures we internalize from an early age.
English summary of the latest episode of András' Hungarian podcast, 'Lélek Algoritmus – Ilyen az ember (avagy beszélgetések egy pszichiáterrel)' – 'The Soul’s Algorithm: The Human Condition (Conversations with a Psychiatrist).
What began as a discussion about burnout quickly turned into an exploration of something deeper. In my conversation with Dr. Vasadi Anna, a psychiatrist with decades of experience, it became clear that burnout isn’t just about long hours or stress—it’s rooted in expectations, upbringing, and the invisible pressures we internalize from an early age.
Burnout: More Than Just Exhaustion
Burnout gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? Many assume it’s just extreme fatigue, but as Anna pointed out, it’s something deeper. Burnout drains you emotionally, mentally, and even physically. It’s not the kind of tiredness that a weekend off can fix.
A key distinction Anna made: while depression can affect every part of life, burnout is usually tied to work. But it doesn’t stay there. It spreads—first to colleagues, then to family, then to an overall sense of disillusionment.
The Perfectionist’s Trap
Burnout isn’t just about overworking—it’s about overworking with the wrong mindset. People who push themselves too hard, who never feel their efforts are enough, who equate self-worth with productivity—these are the most at risk.
A common misconception: If I love my work, I can’t burn out. But passion doesn’t shield you. In fact, it often makes things worse. Overcommitting, ignoring personal limits, and relying on caffeine or alcohol to keep up are all red flags.
The Long Shadow of Childhood Expectations
Why do some people burn out while others keep their balance? Often, it starts in childhood.
Many of us grow up believing that our worth is tied to achievement. If we didn’t excel, love and approval felt conditional. Some parents—often unknowingly—reinforce this by setting impossibly high standards or withholding affection when a child falls short. Over time, this creates a need for external validation, making burnout almost inevitable.
Take elite athletes. Their entire identity is wrapped up in performance. When they lose, it’s not just a setback—it feels like a loss of personal value. The same happens in workplaces. A high achiever who misses a promotion doesn’t just feel professional disappointment—they feel like they have failed as a person.
Midlife Crisis: Burnout of the Soul
This naturally led us to midlife crisis, which, in many ways, is burnout playing out on a larger scale.
Both stem from the same root: spending years chasing external markers of success without stopping to ask, Is this what I actually want?
The midlife crisis tends to hit in the 40s or early 50s, often when several pressures collide:
- Aging Parents: The growing responsibility of caring for elderly parents forces many to confront their own mortality.
- Teenage Children: At the same time, kids are becoming more independent, adding another layer of emotional complexity.
- Career Pressures: By midlife, most people have built careers, but many start questioning if they’re on the right path.
It’s a perfect storm of obligations, internal and external, that makes people reevaluate everything—from their job to their marriage to their purpose.
Finding a Way Forward
So, how do we deal with burnout and midlife crisis without making rash decisions?
- Rethink Success – Instead of measuring success by salary, job title, or external validation, define it in terms of fulfillment and balance. If your work is draining you, can it really be called success?
- Recognize the Warning Signs – Losing interest in work, feeling detached, and struggling to muster enthusiasm are all early signs of burnout.
- Set Boundaries – Work will always demand more. It’s up to you to decide what is enough.
- Address Deep-Seated Patterns – If your self-worth depends on achievement, it might be time to rethink where that belief came from. Therapy and self-reflection can help break the cycle.
- Embrace Change – A midlife crisis isn’t necessarily a crisis—it can be a wake-up call. Maybe it’s time for a career shift, a realignment of priorities, or simply a different perspective.
Final Thoughts
Burnout and midlife crisis aren’t just work problems or age-related phases. They’re signals—urgent ones—telling us that something needs to change. The real question isn’t How do I push through? but Am I living a life that actually fits me?
If the answer is no, maybe the crisis isn’t a disaster. Maybe it’s an opportunity.
