How to Write a Press Release With AI (Without It Reading Like a Template)
A press release has a fixed skeleton and two slots that have to sound human. Here's which parts of a release you should template, which you never should, and a copy-paste prompt that produces an executive quote a journalist might actually print.
"Press release writer" is usually searched by someone who has real news, a deadline today, and no house style to fall back on. The format is intimidating for about ten minutes and then turns out to be the easy part: a press release is one of the most rigidly conventional documents in business writing, and the convention is public.
The hard part is what happens when an AI tool fills every slot in that convention from the same mold. You get a technically correct release that opens "Acme is pleased to announce," quotes a CEO saying the funding "validates our vision," and reads exactly like the four other releases in an editor's inbox that morning. Here's how to split a release into the parts that should be templated and the two that never should.
What does a press release writer actually have to produce?
Seven parts, in a fixed order, most of which are pure convention. The release structure that US PR practice has standardised on has barely changed in decades, and that stability is a gift — it means you only have to make real decisions about two of the seven.
| Part | What it is | Should you template it? |
|---|---|---|
| Headline | The news in one line, in the present tense | No. This is the entire pitch |
| Dateline | CITY, State — Month Day, Year before the first sentence | Yes, fully — it's a pure AP Stylebook convention |
| Lead paragraph | Who, what, when, where, why, in 25–40 words | Structure yes, framing no |
| Body | Supporting detail and numbers, most important first | Structure yes |
| Quote | One or two, from a named person with an exact title | Never |
| Boilerplate | The standing paragraph describing your company | Yes — write it once, reuse it forever |
| Media contact + ### | Name, email, phone, then the end-of-release marker | Yes, fully |
Five of the seven are genuinely mechanical. The headline and the quote are the release — which is why our press release writer holds those five fixed and spends its effort on the two that aren't.
Why do AI press releases all read like the same release?
Because most AI writing tools are template engines, and a template has to fill the voice slots with something — so it fills them with the genre's average. DoppelWriter's own comparison with Copy.ai states the split plainly: Copy.ai generates marketing copy from pre-built templates; DoppelWriter clones a personal writing voice from samples. Applied to a release, that difference lands almost entirely in the headline and the quote. The mechanical distinction is in the input: a template takes a brief, a voice profile takes writing (how it works walks through building one; pricing lists the plans).
The fingerprints are consistent enough to spot from the subject line:
- "Is pleased to announce" / "is thrilled to announce." Nobody is thrilled. The announcement is the thrill; saying so wastes the first four words of the most-read sentence.
- "A leading provider of…" in the first clause, which delays the news by eight words and asserts something the writer can't prove.
- Quotes made of adjectives. "This is a game-changer for our industry and a testament to our team's dedication." No information, no person.
- Boilerplate that describes a mission instead of a company. An editor needs to know what you sell and where you are.
- No numbers, or soft ones. "Significant growth," "hundreds of customers," "dramatically faster."
The structural problem with a templated press release isn't grammar, it's collision. A release is read in a pile of releases about the same kind of news in the same week. A polished draft that shares its opening verb, its framing, and its quote structure with every other draft in the inbox is worse for you than a plainer one containing a sentence nobody else could have written — because the plainer one is the only one that contains news.
How do you make the executive quote sound like an actual executive?
Record what the person actually said, then have the tool write in that voice instead of inventing one. The quote is the only place in a release where a human is speaking, and it's the part journalists lift verbatim, so it's worth more attention than the rest combined.
Template output, $10M Series A:
"We are thrilled to announce this next chapter in our journey," said Jane Okonkwo, CEO of Acme. "This funding validates our vision and will allow us to accelerate growth as we continue delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers."
Same news, same facts, voice matched from how she actually writes:
"We took the money because we ran out of engineers before we ran out of customers," said Jane Okonkwo, CEO of Acme. "Eleven of the last thirty deals asked for the same integration and we could only build it for two of them. That's what the hiring is for."
The second version invents nothing. It supplies a number the first one hides, explains what the money is for, and sounds like one specific person. Do the same to the headline and the gap widens:
- Template: Acme Announces Successful Completion of $10 Million Series A Funding Round to Accelerate Growth and Innovation
- Voice-matched: Acme raises $10M to build the integration 11 customers asked for
That's the practical argument for a voice-matching draft over a template fill: you spend the editing pass on facts rather than on removing "thrilled" from every paragraph. The same split runs through the business documents that surround an announcement — the executive summary, the launch email, the product description each have a fixed skeleton and one or two slots where a specific person has to sound like themselves.
What prompt should you use to get a usable press release draft?
This one — and the part that makes it work is what it forbids and what it feeds in, not the format instructions. Paste it into any capable AI tool; the bracketed lines are the whole difference between a release and a form letter.
Draft a press release, about 450 words. Use standard AP-style structure:
headline, optional subhead, dateline, lead paragraph, 2-3 body paragraphs,
one quote, boilerplate, media contact, ### to close.
Use ONLY the facts below. Do not invent metrics, customer counts, awards,
analyst opinions, or quotes. If something is missing, write
[GAP: what's needed] instead of filling it in.
- The news in one plain sentence: [...]
- City + date of the announcement: [...]
- Why it matters to someone outside the company: [...]
- Hard numbers I can stand behind: [...]
- Who is quoted (exact name + exact title): [...]
- What that person actually said to me, verbatim and unpolished: [...]
- Boilerplate: [paste our existing one — do not rewrite it]
- Media contact: [name, email, phone]
Banned phrases: "pleased to announce", "thrilled to", "next chapter",
"leading provider", "game-changer", "best-in-class", "revolutionary",
"seamlessly", "poised to". No quote made only of adjectives.
Write the quote in this person's voice. Here is how they actually write —
match the rhythm and vocabulary:
[paste 2-3 paragraphs of their Slack posts, internal memos, or emails]
The [GAP] line is the most valuable instruction in that prompt. A model's worst habit in a press release is smoothing over a missing number with a plausible one. Forcing it to flag the hole turns invention into a checklist of things only you can confirm. (How DoppelWriter handles gaps.)
Does AP style still matter for a press release?
It matters for friction, not for quality. If you're pitching US newsrooms, copy that already matches AP style is copy an editor can run with fewer changes — and AP style governs mechanics only: the dateline, numerals, titles before and after names, state abbreviations, times and dates. It has no opinion about whether your lead is any good.
Which is the useful division of labour. Style is rules, so hand it to the tool. Framing and the quote are judgment, so keep them.
What should you never let an AI press release writer do?
Never let it supply a fact. Every serious failure mode is a version of that one rule, and a release is worse than a personal document here because it's a public, dated, quotable record.
- Invented metrics. Growth percentages, revenue, user counts, uptime. A number in a release will be repeated by anyone who covers it.
- Invented quotes. A quote is an attribution to a real named human. If they didn't say it and didn't approve it, it doesn't go in.
- Invented third parties. Analyst commentary, a partner's endorsement, a customer testimonial, a publication that "called it" anything.
- Rewritten boilerplate. Your boilerplate is legally and factually checked. Paste it; don't regenerate it.
- Superlatives you can't defend. "First," "only," "fastest," "leading" are claims, not colour — and they're the ones a competitor will challenge.
Everything on that list is easy to avoid and expensive to fix after distribution. Draft freely, then check every number and every quoted sentence against something you actually have before it leaves your outbox.
FAQ
What is a press release writer? A tool or person that turns your news into the standard release format — headline, dateline, lead, body, quote, boilerplate. The format is public convention, so the framing and the quote are the only parts that distinguish one release from another.
Can AI write a press release? Yes, and the skeleton is the part AI handles best, because it's a fixed convention. What it can't do alone is decide which fact is the news or produce a quote that sounds like a real named executive.
Why do AI press releases all sound the same? Most AI writing tools generate from marketing templates, and a template fills the voice-carrying slots with the same stock phrases every time — hence "pleased to announce" and quotes made entirely of adjectives.
How long should a press release be? About one page, 400–600 words, with the news in the headline and first sentence. Editors read top-down and stop early, so everything below paragraph three should be cuttable detail.
What should never go in an AI-drafted press release? An invented number, quote, or endorsement. A fabricated metric gets repeated by anyone who covers you, and an AI-written quote attributed to a named person is a quote that person never said.
Do I still need AP style? If you're pitching US newsrooms, yes — matching AP style means an editor can run your copy with fewer edits. It covers mechanics like datelines, numerals, and titles, not your framing.