Since Featured relaunched HARO in April 2025, the service has sent over 100 million emails connecting journalists with sources, according to new data released today. The statistics offer a revealing look at how artificial intelligence, spam, and increasingly crowded inboxes are reshaping the relationship between journalists and PR professionals.
One of the most striking findings: 21% of pitches submitted through HARO are entirely AI-generated. In response, more than one-third of journalists now choose to block AI-generated responses when submitting a request. This filtering extends to the platform itself, which bans a user every 23 minutes for spam or terms of service violations, and rejects nearly one-third of journalist requests during the approval process.
“Human-written pitches are about 3x more likely to get featured than AI-written ones,” said Brett Farmiloe, CEO of HARO. “The sources who stand out typically come from fully human teams who can provide credible information, respond to what the journalist actually asked for, and make the journalist’s job easier. As inboxes get more crowded, being helpful becomes the differentiator.”
Every pitch submitted through HARO is analyzed using AI detection technology provided by Pangram. Journalists can also report unhelpful pitches, which triggers a manual review by the HARO team. The data points to a growing challenge for PR professionals: as access to journalists increases, earning their attention is becoming harder. In increasingly crowded inboxes, relevance, credibility, and expertise are becoming critical ways for sources to stand out.
HARO, which stands for Help a Reporter Out, is a free newsletter that connects journalists with expert sources. Founded in 2008, HARO was shut down by its previous owner in December 2024 and relaunched by Featured in April 2025. The service delivers journalist requests directly to subscribers, giving subject matter experts, publicists, and PR professionals opportunities to respond to relevant media inquiries and earn coverage.
Featured is an AI co-pilot for public relations that helps communications professionals and subject matter experts find earned media opportunities, draft responses, and secure coverage. The company owns and operates HARO and Connectively, which connect journalists and publishers with subject matter experts. Featured supports more than 100,000 users and helps 2,500 publishers fill content gaps with expert insights.
