Two veteran comms consultants have teamed up for a new shingle that they’re hoping can carve out an AI niche in the Beltway public affairs market.
Nu Wexler, who’s held comms jobs on the Hill and with several Big Tech companies, and Caitlin Legacki, a Precision Strategies-vet who recently left an advisor role at the Commerce Department, have launched Four Corners Public Affairs, which already boasts an AI policy org and a semiconductor chip supplier as its clients.
“These are really complicated issues,” Legacki said about AI policy regulation and chip manufacturing.
“When I was at Commerce, the policy conversations we were having were very thorny and multifaceted. With issues like AI, but also with chips or privacy or content moderation, they’re becoming increasingly central and increasingly intertwined because AI could affect our healthcare system, it could affect our education system, it could affect our electoral system.
“It’s a much broader issue than a lot of people realize.”
Despite looking to stake a claim to business in such a bleeding edge policy area, Legacki said her shop’s strategy won’t be driven by technology alone.
“The strategy is really driven by the policy and what we’re trying to, what is the outcome we’re trying to reach,” she said, “rather than focusing on what are the tactics, we’re really outcome focused. We believe that our expertise and our backgrounds enable us to be better advisors and decision makers about which levers to pull and when [in order] to achieve the outcome that our clients are trying to get to.”
Legacki said the timing of the launch had more to do with the alignment between her career and Wexler’s, with whom she’s been friends for a decade.
“When I left [Commerce] in June I knew that I wanted to stay in this space, but it wasn’t really until [Wexler] and I started talking about the possibility of working together that it really came into focus. … Our powers combined, we have a unique set of expertise and relationships with reporters that we can offer.”
It’s rare to see a pure-play comms shop launch in today’s media environment, but Legacki believes that her shingle can still thrive given the background of the principals.
“I don’t think there will ever be a lack of need for smart strategy messaging that resonates with the audiences you’re trying to reach,” she said. “For better or worse, Washington is a town that’s really only getting older.
“So if you’re trying to influence Capitol Hill or opinion elites, they’re still reading their newsletters every morning. They’re still getting the hard copies, probably. It really depends on the specifics of what each company or client is trying to achieve.”
That said, Legacki said her firm isn’t married to, say, an earned media strategy for clients to achieve their objectives and could also take on work related to industrial and trade policy issues more broadly.
“There’s no pride of ownership for ideas,” she said. “But it’s still essential to have somebody who understands the landscape, understands the issues, and can really keep you focused on that North Star.”
