Honeyjar provides AI tools to enhance public relations and communications for all companies.

Honeyjar, an AI public relations tool founded by CEO Michelle Masek and Chief Communications Officer Nadia Jamshidi, is attending this week's TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200 after collecting 10,000 waitlist signups in the first 24 hours. The company wants to make the expertise and judgment of the best public relations professionals available to everyone, including founders who have no idea where to start.

Background: Public Relations Work Spreads Beyond Dedicated Teams

The idea grew from Masek's experience helping startups tell their stories. She recently served as senior vice president of marketing and communications for Ev Williams' venture firm, Obvious Ventures, where she helped with the why and when of communications and marketing for 110 portfolio companies. Both founders have spent decades in the field, doing in-house communications and working at agencies.

That background exposed a recurring problem: journalists, entrepreneurs and even some public relations professionals say the public relations process is broken. Masek asked whether senior-level expertise could be scaled into AI in a way that helps users do communications work proactively and skillfully, rather than only producing content. Honeyjar is her answer to that question.

Development: From Media Lists to the Full Communications Workflow

Honeyjar automates parts of the work that many teams still do manually, including writing announcements, finding the best journalists to pitch, and identifying the most promising speaking opportunities. Jamshidi said in a follow-up email that Honeyjar's vision goes beyond getting press coverage and beyond specific AI tools. The company can find reporters, build media lists, scan news and social, track coverage, and surface opportunities, but those capabilities are only one piece of what it is building.

The larger goal is to bring the whole communications workflow together: signals, context, strategy, judgment, timing, and execution. Masek said the need is not limited to founders. She pointed to millions and millions of unassigned communicators responsible for the work of communications, including marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents and sports team leaders. The need is incredibly horizontal. They may not have a communications title, but the responsibility is often passed around and the underlying problems are frequently unsolved.

Honeyjar is not positioned as a replacement for public relations professionals. Masek said she and Jamshidi built the tool they wanted to use themselves. In their view, it can make public relations firms and in-house communications teams more effective, while allowing individual practitioners to take on that third client without any scaling cost.

Judgment is the harder part. Masek said she and Jamshidi tried to infuse and encode Honeyjar with their own wisdom. Through a broader initiative called Comms Lab, they are training the product on the judgment of other public relations professionals. Jamshidi described judgment as knowing what to do, what not to do, when to act, and how to adapt to the situation, based on a company's goals and priorities, internal and external developments, and the right message, audience, channel and timing.

Latest Progress: Waitlist Demand, Beta Testers and TechCrunch Disrupt

When Honeyjar opened its waitlist, it received 10,000 signups in the first 24 hours. Beta testers include Nextdoor, tech startup Coco Robotics, investor Bloomberg Beta, and agencies Mission North and Full Picture. The company will bring the product to this week's TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200.

That sounds promising for companies looking to get more attention, but it could be a nightmare for journalists. They already receive more pitches than they can respond to, many of them already written by AI chatbots. Masek said Honeyjar can draft a pitch email or a social media post in the customer's voice, but the customer has to hit send or publish. She said the company never wants a world where the human is removed from the loop.

Masek also said Honeyjar might tell a founder that the company is not ready for coverage. She pointed to reporters asking for better pitches and direct access to experts, and said the future Honeyjar sees is one with more credible pitches from sources journalists actually want to hear from.

Honeyjar is now at the stage where demand, beta testing and a public debut are converging. The product's next test is whether its Comms Lab judgment layer and human-in-the-loop approach can address pitch volume concerns while expanding the reach of senior communications expertise.

Meta description: Honeyjar AI public relations tool by Michelle Masek and Nadia Jamshidi gets 10,000 signups in 24 hours and debuts at TechCrunch Disrupt with Startup Battlefield 200.

Tags: Honeyjar, AI public relations, TechCrunch Disrupt, Startup Battlefield 200, Comms Lab

Featured image: abstract technology style, glowing communications workflow nodes and data signals, no real people, no company logos, no text.