Pathos Communications Plc (LSE:NEWS) this week floated in London, and CEO Omar Hamdi joined the Proactive studio to talk about the exciting AI-powered PR business.
Hamdi highlighted that Pathos is targeting the global SME market with AI-driven public relations tools.
The company said it has developed proprietary technology to help small and medium-sized businesses gain media coverage at scale — an issue it believes traditional PR agencies have been unable to solve. It curr
“We’ve got a proprietary AI — it’s not just some guy in the corner with a GPT Pro account," Hamdi said.
The company’s two main AI tools are PathosMind, an AI agent stack designed for use by PR agencies, and Pressella, a virtual publicist able to interact with clients through email, Zoom and WhatsApp.
Here, we take a closer look at what was said.
Proactive: Omar, very good to meet you. For investors new to this story, what does Pathos Communications do, and what problems are you solving in the PR and communications markets?
Omar Hamdi: Good to meet you too, Stephen. It solves a problem that has never been solved before — getting small and medium-sized businesses in the news. A good sign of this problem is if you pick your favourite newspaper or business news website and look at who is being written about. It's usually billion-pound revenue businesses.
We've realised there are 400 million small and medium-sized businesses in the world. They're interesting and newsworthy. If they get media coverage, they can use it entrepreneurially to create business value. Thanks to the technology we've developed, we can do this at scale — unlike traditional PR agencies, which are limited by human capacity.
Proactive: In fact, you are the fastest growing communications firm in the UK according to the Financial Times, and one of the fastest growing tech businesses in the UK, according to Deloitte. What's driving that growth and how sustainable is the model?
Omar Hamdi: We've got a great team and a strong entrepreneurial culture. Many on the team are former business owners who’ve had successful exits and now drive Pathos forward. The big difference is the size of the market — 400 million SMEs — and our proprietary AI.
It's not just someone using GPT. We've built this technology ourselves. It allows us to reach that audience at scale. When you have that many potential clients, it's easier to sustain fast growth. To me, the past few years have been a proof of concept. We’ve shown the model works. We currently have 6,000 clients. That’s just a fraction of the opportunity.
Proactive: Omar, why list in London now? What does joining the London Stock Exchange enable for the business and your clients?
Omar Hamdi: Being public early has advantages. Our clients, employees, and partners — including news publishers — know they're dealing with a London-listed company. That signals quality in governance and professionalism.
What’s noteworthy in our IPO is the support from big institutional investors, including Venture Capital Trusts. London enables this unique mix of venture capital and public listing. We looked at all the global markets and decided London is the right place for us.
Proactive: How will the funds raised accelerate your strategy? Where will you invest for the most immediate impact?
Omar Hamdi: First, more of the same — investing into a machine we've already built. It's a well-oiled machine, and additional capital will help it scale faster. Most of our 6,000 clients are in North America, where there are 33 million SMEs.
Next, global growth. We already have clients in over 80 countries, but today we operate only in English. We’re confident that hiring Chinese and Spanish speakers will help us reach more entrepreneurial markets, including mainland China and Latin America.
The biggest opportunity is in our technology. We have two proprietary AI tools: PathosMind, an AI agent stack — essentially a PR brain — and Pressella, our virtual publicist. PathosMind is designed to support PR agencies globally, while Pressella acts like a full-time publicist for SMEs. She can join Zoom meetings, reply to emails, and chat via WhatsApp.
We want to get both to production grade and into users’ hands. Every business should have a publicist — and now they won’t have to spend $150,000 for one. That’s our vision.
Proactive: What should new shareholders look out for over the next 12 to 18 months as key milestones?
Omar Hamdi: More sales. Announcements about the technology going to market. We’ve had conversations with 324,000 businesses. When we can say, “Merry Christmas — here’s Pressella, your full-time publicist,” that will be transformational. We plan to make that happen in the next 12 months.
Proactive: Omar, congratulations on your IPO. Thank you for joining us.