Honeyjar builds AI tools to automate PR and comms work for non-experts

Honeyjar is a startup attending this week's TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200. It wants to use AI to make the expertise and judgment of the best PR professionals available to everyone, including founders who have no idea where to start.

The founders are CEO Michelle Masek and CCO Nadia Jamshidi. Both have spent decades in communications, working in-house and at agencies. Masek recently served as senior vice president of marketing and communications for Ev Williams' venture firm, Obvious Ventures. She says the idea came from helping with the why and when of comms and marketing for 110 portfolio companies, and from asking whether senior-level expertise could be scaled into AI in a way that helps users do the work of comms proactively and skilfully.

Honeyjar is her answer. According to the article, it automates processes such as writing announcements, finding the best journalists to pitch, and identifying the most promising speaking opportunities. Jamshidi told the article's author in a follow-up email that the vision goes beyond press coverage and beyond specific AI tools. She said Honeyjar can find reporters, build media lists, scan news and social, track coverage and surface opportunities, but that these are just one piece of the product. The bigger idea, she said, is bringing the whole communications workflow together: signals, context, strategy, judgment, timing and execution.

The founders pitch it beyond founders, too. Masek says there are millions and millions of unassigned communicators responsible for the work of comms: marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents and sports team leaders who lack the comms title. Honeyjar is not meant to replace PR professionals, she says. She and Jamshidi built the tool they wanted to use themselves, and Masek argues it can make PR firms and in-house comms teams more effective and let an individual practitioner take on a third client without any scaling cost.

On demand, Masek says that 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 article's author, a TechCrunch reporter, says this could be a nightmare for journalists, who already receive more pitches than they can answer, many written by AI chatbots. Masek replied that Honeyjar can draft a pitch email or social media post in the customer's voice, but the customer has to hit send or publish. She added that they never want a world where the human is removed from the loop.

Judgment is the other theme. Masek says she and Jamshidi tried to infuse and encode Honeyjar with their wisdom, and through a broader initiative called the Comms Lab they are now training the product on the judgment of other PR pros as well. Jamshidi defines judgment as knowing what to do, what not to do, when to act and how to adapt, which comes from understanding a company's goals and priorities and what is happening inside and outside the organisation. Masek says Honeyjar might even tell a founder that they are simply not ready for coverage. She also says reporters tell her they want better pitches and to hear from experts directly, and that she sees a future with more credible pitches in journalists' inboxes from sources they actually want to hear from.

Key facts

Honeyjar, from CEO Michelle Masek and CCO Nadia Jamshidi, is in the Startup Battlefield 200 at this week's TechCrunch Disrupt.
It automates writing announcements, finding journalists to pitch and identifying speaking opportunities; Jamshidi says it also finds reporters, builds media lists, scans news and social, and tracks coverage.
Masek says the waitlist drew 10,000 signups in its first 24 hours; named beta testers are Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, Bloomberg Beta, Mission North and Full Picture.
The product can draft a pitch email or social post in the customer's voice, but the customer has to hit send or publish.
The article's author warns it could add to the flood of AI-written pitches that journalists already receive.

Why it matters

Honeyjar is one example of AI moving into communications work, pitched as a way to put senior PR judgment in the hands of people who have never done PR. The founders frame comms as an incredibly horizontal need that is always passed around and often not solved, and say the target is the many people who do comms work without the title. The tension the article itself raises is the other side of the same coin: more help for senders can mean more pitches for reporters to wade through.

Who it affects

The founders name founders with no idea where to start, marketers, investors, authors, creators, school superintendents and sports team leaders, as well as PR firms, in-house comms teams and individual practitioners. Journalists are affected on the receiving end: the article's author says reporters already get more pitches than they can answer, many written by AI chatbots. Masek counters that reporters want better pitches and expert voices directly.

How to use it

According to the article, Honeyjar drafts announcements, suggests journalists to pitch and flags speaking opportunities, and can write a pitch email or social post in the customer's voice. The user then decides whether to send or publish. The product has a waitlist; the article gives no pricing, business model or launch or availability date. The Comms Lab initiative is how the founders are adding other PR professionals' judgment to the product.

How solid is it

This is a founder-led profile, and its claims come mostly from the founders themselves. The 10,000 waitlist signups are Masek's own figure, and signups are not users. Beta testers are named, but no results or measured outcomes, such as coverage obtained or time saved, are reported. No AI model, vendor or technical mechanism behind Honeyjar is named, and the Startup Battlefield result is not reported.

Risks and caveats

The article's author raises the main concern: a tool that makes pitching easier could bring even more PR slop to journalists' inboxes. The founders' safeguards are that the customer has to hit send or publish and that Honeyjar might tell a founder they are not ready for coverage. Both are statements of intent rather than evidence. The claim that the product encodes the founders' judgment, and that of other PR pros through the Comms Lab, has no reported evaluation behind it.

“We never want a world where the human is removed from the loop”

— Michelle Masek, CEO of Honeyjar