The Rundown Studio, a communications expertise firm co-founded by former NCS anchor Zain Verjee, has launched an AI-powered prompt library designed to assist communications groups in rising markets lower the price of conventional public relations companies.
The platform offers customers direct entry to newsroom-tested frameworks with out counting on costly company retainers. It consists of 12 specialised instruments for company communications groups, newsrooms, and buyers. These instruments cowl Tier 1 media pitches, newsroom customary press releases, full 30-minute tv scripts, and finest follow frameworks for communications groups working throughout Africa. The platform launched with free and paid tiers.
The launch comes at a time when conventional PR companies stay pricey and out of attain for a lot of organisations throughout Africa. In a number of African markets, small companies spend as much as $1,500 monthly on basic media retainers, whereas extra established corporations pay between $5,000 and $15,000 month-to-month. Larger worldwide campaigns can price upwards of $20,000 month-to-month.
These excessive costs, mixed with staffing and structural challenges inside many businesses, imply startups, nonprofits, and rising corporations are usually unable to entry skilled communications help. The Rundown Studio says its system is designed to shut this hole by providing cheaper, structured alternate options powered by AI.
“This addresses a fundamental market failure,” Verjee stated. “Communications teams in Nairobi, Lagos, and Accra have the same deadline pressures as teams in New York or London, but they do not have the same access to world-class expertise. Traditional agencies charge enterprise rates for work that can now be systematised through frameworks that keep humans in control.”
She added that the instruments are not designed to interchange professionals however to help them. “These are not generic AI prompts. They are workflows built from 20 years of combined newsroom and corporate communications experience, designed specifically for the resource constraints and cultural contexts of emerging markets,” Verjee stated.
Cofounder and product strategist, Thomas Brasington, stated the product challenges the normal billable-hours mannequin utilized by many PR businesses. “We are testing whether you can deliver the strategic thinking of a senior communications consultant through structured frameworks, with the professional still making every final decision,” he stated.
The instruments had been developed by former journalists from organisations together with NCS, BBC, and Sky News. The firm stated the system analyses supply materials towards present information cycles and generates newsroom-calibrated outputs.
The launch follows The Rundown Studio’s earlier release of The Newsroom Blueprint, an AI verification handbook developed with safety and intelligence researcher Candyce Kelshall and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, in addition to its Embedded podcast series that includes LinkedIn govt Aneesh Raman and Mastercard AI counsel Rashida Richardson.