Brett Farmiloe

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35% of Journalists Opt Out of AI pitches: Featured CEO Brett Farmiloe on Comms Confidential

Comms Confidential

Brett Farmiloe, founder and CEO of Featured, joined the season finale of Comms Confidential: The Podcast to share what AI detection on every HARO pitch revealed (21% score as fully AI-generated) and why a PR professional's working day now begins inside an AI assistant rather than on a website.

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Takeaways

  • 21% of all pitches submitted on HARO score as 100% AI-generated . Featured runs AI detection, powered by Pangram, on every single pitch that goes through the HARO platform, not on a sample.
  • 35% of journalists check the "Don't send me AI pitches" box when they submit a HARO request . The box is unchecked by default, and HARO withholds every pitch detected as 100% AI-generated from journalists who check it.
  • HARO bans an account every 23 minutes . Bans come from community reporting, where a journalist marks a pitch as not helpful, plus internal review. A 100% AI score is treated as one signal of many, and there are no permanent bans on that signal alone.
  • Featured screened 5 million podcasts down to 814,000 active shows , defined as having released an episode in roughly the last 60 days. Alongside them sit about 75,000 journalists with HARO profiles and 7,000 to 8,000 publishers that accept op-eds and contributed content.

“Today's business day for a PR professional doesn't start where it used to be. It starts on Claude.”

— Brett Farmiloe, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Featured

Companies discussed: Featured, Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Episode notes and full transcript: featured.com/press/podcast/comms-confidential-brett-farmiloe-ai-pitches

Cite as: Brett Farmiloe on Comms Confidential, “35% of Journalists Opt Out of AI Pitches,” September 8, 2026.

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