Honeyjar offers AI tools to improve PR and comms at every company

Honeyjar is trying to turn PR from a niche skill into software anybody can use. The startup, headed to TechCrunch Disrupt this week as part of the Startup Battlefield 200, says its AI can help write announcements, find journalists to pitch, and spot speaking opportunities.

That pitch comes from two founders who know the job from the inside. CEO Michelle Masek and CCO Nadia Jamshidi have both spent decades in communications, moving between in-house roles and agencies. Masek recently ran marketing and communications at Obvious Ventures, where she was dealing with what she called the “why and when of comms and marketing for 110 portfolio companies.”

Honeyjar is aimed well beyond founders who don’t know where to start. Masek talks about “millions and millions of unassigned communicators” — people whose titles may be marketer, investor, author, creator, school superintendent, or sports team leader, but who still get handed the communications problem. The product is supposed to help them do the work more strategically, not just blast out more copy.

And Honeyjar is not trying to erase the human part, which is the only sane approach here. The company says customers still have to send or publish anything the system drafts. Jamshidi says the bigger goal is to pull the whole workflow together: signals, context, strategy, timing, and execution. The product is also being trained through a Comms Lab on the judgment of other PR professionals.

The early numbers are loud. Honeyjar says its waitlist pulled in 10,000 signups in the first 24 hours, and beta testers include Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, Bloomberg Beta, Mission North, and Full Picture. Masek also says the system may sometimes tell a founder they are not ready for coverage. That may be the most interesting part. Plenty of AI tools can generate more noise; far fewer are willing to say, politely, that the room is not ready for you yet.