PR roundup covers what Anthropic's new AI watermarking feature means for communicators navigating transparency questions, new research confirming that leadership behavior—not messaging—is the real driver of workplace culture, and how a car-sized hairball rolling through New York City streets became one of the more memorable PR stunts of the summer.
Claude's New Watermark Causing Concern
What happened: This week Anthropic, parent company of Claude, announced a new feature—embedding watermarks in all text generated by Claude. TechCrunch reported that the EU AI Act's Transparency Code (which took effect Aug. 2) provoked the action. The act requires AI companies to mark AI-generated and edited content so other platforms can identify it.
OK, so a tech company is finally following the rules. Good, right? Well, not so fast.
The detail causing the most uproar is that the watermark travels with the text when it's copied and pasted and can even show up on projects that were just edited. Anthropic has yet to confirm exactly how much editing is required to remove the watermark, something that is creating concern among communicators and writers who use Claude as an editing and drafting tool rather than an author. Substack CEO Chris Best wrote about the potential for "Claudefishing"—people calling out others who use AI to generate content then say they authored it as original pieces.
And it's not just Claude that's adhering to the EU ruling. Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and others have committed to the EU Act.
Communication takeaways: The introduction of watermarking seems to show that the industry is shifting from self-policing and trending toward structural enforcement. Claude's announcement has ignited a debate among communicators, with responses showing that the industry is still working out its identity and relationship with AI transparency.
Recent LinkedIn post comments revealed the core tension: while watermarking may signal that AI was involved, it doesn't really provide context.
"A watermark may tell us that AI was involved, but it doesn't tell us who developed the idea, shaped the argument, verified the facts or exercised the judgment," says Michael Chamberlain, Co-Founder of Culture + Brand Partners.
Some PR pros raised concerns about false positives. What if Claude reviews a document for grammar or spelling errors — does a few tweaks in editing produce a watermark when the majority of the writing is the author's own?
"I can't imagine paying $20 a month for a tool that is going to undermine the credibility of my work," said communications executive Kati Murphy.
Other communicators see the possibility of workarounds emerging.
"How long until we see a cottage industry emerge of rewriters who take your AI-assisted content and type out every word manually, just to bypass the digital watermark?" asked Ryan Cohn, Chief Strategy Officer at SachsMEDIA.
Overall, the watermark announcement signals a new shift for the AI era.
"We are in the early stages of this game to re-establish trust and authenticity in content," says Victor O'Brien, Director of Public Relations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. "Time will show that Claude's watermark approach is an overcorrection, but a necessary step to reverse what has become the wild west of low credibility, AI slop on social media and traditional media platforms."
In this case, instead of waiting for other platforms to enact AI transparency policies, communicators might want to develop their own clear guidelines for how AI is used, disclosed and attributed in their work — before someone else does it for them.
Leadership Messaging vs. Leadership Behavior
What happened: The new "Culture at Work Study" from senior-level advisory firm bink finds that the greatest threat to workplace culture isn't a lack of awareness — it's the disconnect between leadership messaging and leadership behavior.
Key findings:
- 91% of culture, communications and HR leaders say the gap between what leaders say and what they actually reward is one of the most damaging cultural forces inside organizations
- 87% say culture has significantly influenced business performance; 84% link it directly to employee retention
- 78% say employees learn the real culture by watching what senior leaders tolerate — not by reading values statements
- 68% agree structural systems matter more than messaging when shaping culture
- 54% say the people responsible for improving culture lack the authority to actually change the systems that shape it
"The real breakdown happens when leadership behavior doesn't match leadership messaging," says Ann Melinger, CEO of bink. "Employees learn what an organization truly values by watching what leaders reward, tolerate and reinforce every day."
Communication takeaways: These findings serve as a wake-up call for any internal or executive communicator: messages alone do not create a stronger culture. If incentive structures, promotions and leadership behaviors inside a business tell a different story than the internal communications, employees will believe what they see — not what they hear or read.
Keith Berman, Director of Internal Communications at Vertafore, an insurtech company, says nice words from executives can act like meringue.
"Light and fluffy and appealing, but easily dissolvable on impact," Berman says. "When you have a say-do gap within an organization, that can destroy credibility faster and more thoroughly than anything else, and trust is one of the hardest currencies in business to earn — both internally in terms of culture and engagement and externally to people who might think about interacting with the company as a consumer, vendor or partner."
Berman offers several tips to help comms professionals prevent or close the gap:
- Raise potential conflicts early. Good communicators have a strategic sense for how things can play out and can help avert a crisis before it happens — use that sense to help executives ensure that actions align with the company's expressed values and incorporate elements into plans and messaging that help defuse potential landmines before they're tripped.
- Advocate for speed and transparency. A key element in the recent Forbes editor Randall Lane firing story was that it apparently happened a month before anyone said anything publicly — until The New York Times uncovered it. It's easier and cleaner — and shows more commitment to values — to openly admit wrongdoing and show the consequences upfront than to quietly sweep things under the rug. Acknowledge that something bad happened, and that the company and leadership took swift action to make it right. Doing so also helps move the news cycle along more quickly because there's less drama involved.
- Quietly advise on the "Brilliant Jerk" liability. Employees learn about a company's real culture from watching what senior leaders tolerate. If high performers are quietly permitted to behave badly because they deliver results, it signals that the company values output over culture. If those same people are held up publicly as spokespeople, it doubles down on that perception.
Giant Hairball Rolls Through New York
What happened: New Yorkers see a lot of things, but a car-sized hairball made many stop in their tracks and pull out their phones this past weekend. Social media users watched as the giant ball of tangled hair rolled through the streets of Manhattan, prompting many to question whether it was AI-generated.
K18 haircare can confirm it was not. The stunt, called The Tumblehair, maneuvered through the city to promote the new FutureIQ Hair Longevity Serum, drawing quite a few double-takes along the way.
Kleo Mack, Chief Marketing Officer at K18, says from a PR perspective, the team knew the outrageous visual had the ingredients to drive conversation—with onlookers and the media alike.
"We initially leaned into the shock, intrigue and mystery of the stunt, then used targeted outreach and media engagement to reveal the bigger story behind it: the launch of FutureIQ," Mack says.
Some behind-the-scenes context: the concept is rooted in real data. K18 says the hairball represents 161 billion strands of hair — the amount New Yorkers could collectively retain using the product.
Communication takeaways: The K18 stunt is a great example of experiential done right: a single, mesmerizing physical object that generates earned media, social chatter and in-person engagement simultaneously. In an era when AI-generated imagery makes audiences immediately skeptical of anything unusual, there's power in actually showing up.
Dayna Castillo, digital marketing strategist and founder of the "Silence, Brand!" internet culture newsletter, says the stunt worked so well because K18 created an unbranded viral moment.
"When New Yorkers saw a giant hairball rolling down the street, there wasn't a logo, brand name or QR code attached to it," Castillo says. "That created genuine curiosity and discovery."
Castillo notes that conversations sparked up online and on the streets: Who was behind the behemoth hairball? Could it be an art project? A brand stunt?
"Because K18 didn't immediately give away its involvement, people were able to encounter it, document it and speculate about it on their own, generating organic UGC without being explicitly asked to create it," she says. "It has almost a pre-influencer-oversaturation quality to it, where the spectacle itself was interesting enough that people wanted to share it before they even knew what they were sharing an ad for."
Castillo says curiosity can be more powerful than immediate attribution.
"The lack of branding created an information gap people wanted to solve," she notes. "This allowed the public to do some of the storytelling. Organic documentation feels very different than 'post this with #K18Hairball!'"
Her advice to brands looking for this type of virality? Resist the urge to over-brand the discovery moment.
"Sometimes the smartest thing a brand can do is create the conditions for curiosity and then get out of the audience's way," she says.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.