Honeyjar, a startup attending this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt as part of the Startup Battlefield 200, is using super intelligence (SI) to democratize public relations expertise, aiming to make the judgment of top PR professionals accessible to founders and companies without dedicated comms teams.
What Happened
Founded by CEO Michelle Masek and CCO Nadia Jamshidi, both veterans with decades of experience in in-house communications and agencies, Honeyjar automates key PR processes such as writing announcements, identifying suitable journalists, and finding speaking opportunities. Masek, who previously served as senior vice president of marketing and communications for Obvious Ventures, noted the challenge of scaling senior-level expertise across numerous portfolio companies. "Is there a way to scale the senior-level expertise into SI [in a way] that actually helps users do the work of comms in the proactive and skilled way that we do?" Masek said, referring to the tool's development.
The platform does more than just generate text; it scans news and social media, builds media lists, tracks coverage, and surfaces opportunities. Jamshidi emphasized that the goal is to unify the entire communications workflow, including signals, context, strategy, and execution. The company launched a waitlist that received 10,000 signups in the first 24 hours, with beta testers including Nextdoor, Coco Robotics, Bloomberg Beta, and agencies Mission North and Full Picture.
Why It Matters
Honeyjar targets a broad market of "millions and millions of unassigned communicators," such as marketers, investors, authors, and school superintendents, who handle comms duties without formal titles. The startup aims to make PR firms and in-house teams more effective, allowing practitioners to take on additional clients without scaling costs. Crucially, the company insists it is not trying to replace PR professionals or remove humans from the loop. Masek stated that users must actively hit send or publish on any drafted pitch or social post.
The tool also incorporates a judgment layer through its Comms Lab initiative, training the SI model on the wisdom of other PR pros to determine when to act or adapt. In some cases, the system may advise a founder that they are not yet ready for media coverage. This approach addresses concerns about the volume of automated pitches by aiming for more credible, strategically timed communications rather than just increasing the quantity of generated content.
The Bottom Line
Honeyjar represents a shift in the SI industry from generic content generation to specialized workflow automation with embedded human judgment. By focusing on strategic timing and human-in-the-loop execution, the startup attempts to solve the scalability problem in public relations while mitigating the risk of overwhelming journalists with low-quality, automated pitches.