In the Age of AI Slop, Trust is a Human Advantage:By Bas Wijne, CEO, APO Group

AI-generated content is flooding the internet, and much of it is low-quality and misleading. Editors call it ‘AI slop’: hallucinated quotes, fake press releases, and algorithm-chasing headlines. In an era where content is cheaper and faster than ever, trust has become the rarest commodity. That’s where professional public relations – once accused of ‘spin’ – is playing a new, unexpected role: safeguarding credibility in a post-truth landscape.

AI has a place, but it doesn’t replace people

Let me be clear: AI isn’t the enemy. It’s a powerful tool for information analysis, workflows, and insight. But it has limits. Besides the slop factor, the phenomenon of model collapse – AI models producing increasingly inaccurate results as they are trained on the outputs of earlier models – is a looming risk. In this context, two pillars of PR – direct executive access and verified press releases – are lifelines for journalists and the public.

AI can mimic a CEO’s tone. It can generate a passable quote. It can even create a fake press release that looks real on first glance. But it cannot replicate what matters most:

• A real interview, with real stakes
• A direct connection to a decision-maker
• A verified statement backed by accountability
• A local voice who understands the nuance, not just the keywords

Delivering news you can trust

APO Group is proud to be the largest pan-African PR and communications consultancy and Africa’s only dedicated press release and media content distribution provider, through our proprietary newswire Africa Newsroom.

In the absence of a pan-African regulatory authority equivalent to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, Africa Newsroom serves as the de facto Primary Information Provider for Africa: an outlet trusted to deliver official, verifiable corporate and public sector communications across the continent. Every piece of content distributed by Africa Newsroom is reviewed, optimised, and traceable by our team.

On the PR side, when our team arranges an interview between a journalist and an African minister or facilitates a press briefing with the CEO of a global firm expanding into Nairobi or Abidjan, we’re doing something AI can’t: building trust through human access.

In just the past month, we’ve facilitated over 200 executive interviews for brands like Coca-Cola and Canon – connecting journalists to real decision-makers rather than AI-generated personas. That’s not automation. It’s deep relationship work.

Press releases still matter – when they’re done right

Too many people write off the press release as an outdated format. But when done well – fact-checked, compliant, attributed, and distributed to the right people at the right time – a press release becomes something else entirely: a verified signal in a noisy, synthetic world.

The trust cascade: PR → Journalists → Public

The recent fallout from OpenAI’s indexing scandal – where shared ChatGPT conversations were found discoverable via Google Search – is a stark reminder of what happens when content is detached from context, consent and control. Public confidence took a hit, and brands using shared links for internal communications or published content are still scrambling to contain the damage.

When information ecosystems break down, trust becomes a chain reaction. PR plays a key role in this cascade:

• We provide credible inputs: real people, real quotes, real data
• Journalists vet and amplify those insights
• The public consumes the final story with confidence it came from somewhere accountable

Without that initial layer of professional PR, we risk a content ecosystem built on synthetic sand.

Why this matters even more in Africa

AI-generated misinformation is a global issue, but its effects are sharper in emerging markets, especially across Africa.

Here, independent media outlets are often underfunded, and institutional trust is fragile. The damage from fake news – amplified by generative AI – can be reputational, political, financial. Even existential.

This is why APO Group exists: to bridge the gap between credible African stories and the global media ecosystem.

Human truth is the competitive edge

The future of communications isn’t human or AI. It’s both. But right now, only one side builds relationships. Only one side is accountable. Only one side engages with intent when the story matters.

At APO Group, we’ll keep investing in technology. But our core belief won’t change: the most trusted content still starts with real people.

Our combination of professional PR and trusted, continent-wide media distribution offers something rare: scale and trust. Reach and rigour. The ability to connect journalists to real sources – in all 54 African countries – at a time when bots are flooding inboxes with synthetic noise.

That’s our commitment to our clients, to the media, and to the public. And in the age of AI slop, that’s what makes the difference.