AI is Seemingly Everywhere But How Far Does PR Need to Adopt It?
Wed., Jul. 15, 2026
Andrew Blum
There is still reason to be skeptical of AI, and its overall use and accuracy.
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There is still reason to be skeptical of AI, and its overall use and accuracy.
AI-driven Metrics, algorithms, and data optimisation have become the latest obsession for many, and the true fundamentals of B2B marketing have been forgotten.
There is a key distinction between research built from predicting likely answers based on known data and research that measures real human thoughts and feelings.
The inaugural list maps the figures — most of whom are not in the PR profession — whose decisions now influence whether the work the profession produces gets surfaced when AI engines answer questions about a category.
The expertise-driven content that earns media coverage is increasingly shaping how AI search engines discover and recommend brands.
The holding company model is in structural decline. Here's what comes next.
Today’s digital media landscape has reshaped influence and information discovery, which requires PR programs to adapt by changing their approach to perception and brand visibility.
Your buyers are asking AI about you. And what AI says about your brand depends on what you’ve earned.
The traditional press had already lost much of its status as a gatekeeper of information before AI came on the scene—and now its position is even more tenuous. In this brave new world, brands and communicators increasingly need to tell their own stories.
If the work that once built foundational skills—creating content—is automated, where does the next generation of communicators develop judgment about what effective content looks like?
There’s no established playbook for AI in communications yet, but expectations are already changing, and the biggest shift isn’t the tools, it’s what counts as value.
See how earned media is shaping nonprofit authority in an AI-driven world, and why third-party validation, consistent coverage, and strategic storytelling are critical to building trust, increasing visibility, and driving long-term growth.
AI will change most industries, but given the uniquely human nature of comms, it will affect our field a little differently than others.
Newsrooms and TV producers are increasingly incorporating AI into their work. Unfortunately, most brands haven’t caught up.
In communications, where trust is earned and lost in moments, human judgment, experience and responsibility will define the future far more than artificial intelligence ever can.
For decades, visibility has been a game the largest brands have won by default. Today, as AI search increasingly serves as the Internet’s front door, those rules of discovery are being rewritten, presenting a rare and significant opportunity for communications professionals.
Why trusted and experienced public relations counselors can never be replaced by artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence, combined with experienced human judgement, has severed the link between time spent and value delivered.
When it comes to AI-generated search responses, many of the sources that produce significant visibility aren’t the traditional “top-tier” outlets PR teams prioritize. Instead, they’re blogs, community forums and smaller publications, highlighting the need for communicators to adapt their media visibility strategies.
The way some are creating AI-optimized content farms feels quite Moneyball-esque. The difference is the basic principles of baseball don't change between seasons.
When striving to be seen as subject-matter experts, the improper use of AI can inadvertently cause clients to foil their own efforts.
The opportunity in front of our industry is not whether to use AI. It is how to integrate it in ways that strengthen and enhance strategy rather than shortcut it.
AI models are built to agree with you. That makes them useful for catching typos and restructuring sentences, but dangerous when the real advice you need is that a draft isn't working.
What our industry needs now is an immediate reexamination of structure, upskilling of talent, and re-assessment of how work is designed, executed, and delivered to clients.
After several years of extraordinary euphoria, litigation against AI tech companies is now growing.
Artificial intelligence is playing an increased role in the communication and marketing sectors. This technology will strengthen agencies’ performances, but it will never replace the creativity and ingenuity that only people provide.
As markets begin to stabilize and borrowing costs continue to come down, companies are preparing to make bolder decisions in 2026.
I challenge Sir Martin Sorrell to a debate for charity on the death of PR. Sorrell brings obituary… I’ll bring the living facts.
If 2025 was the year PR learned to coexist with machines, 2026 will be the year we must learn to outrun them.
Increasingly, the first “reader” of your press release isn’t a journalist—it’s an AI system deciding whether your content is credible enough to reference. That shift changes what visibility really means.
From emerging technologies to shifting global dynamics, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of meaningful change.
Brands still operating on pre-2024 instincts are heading straight into a wall … and any organization treating a hashtag as a north star should buy helmets for the team.
The flood of AI-generated synthetic and manipulated content makes it more important than ever for the communications industry to give audiences a way of knowing what they are seeing is authentic, stressed PAGE Society CEO Rochelle Ford at a Davis+Gilbert roundtable discussion.
Why AI visibility matters for B2B technology companies.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping PR’s business model and client experience. The future will belong to communications agencies that can use these tools to create new ways of working as well as provide greater value for clients.
AI could be earned media’s unlikely savior—but only if it’s fed the right information… The kind of information that’s best provided by seasoned PR practitioners.
Used well, AI can act as a supercharged thesaurus, a nimble fact-checker, and a tireless sparring partner. With the right prompts, AI can generate alternatives in seconds that might take a human hours. But if you simply ask it to “write something” without bringing your own perspective, the results will be shallow, inaccurate and sometimes absurd.
With the arrival of GenAI summaries, the journey from headline to homepage has been rerouted. PR is no longer about crafting the right story, it’s about ensuring the story is seen, surfaced and accurately represented by systems most people don’t control.
AI has become an invaluable tool for streamlining behind-the-scenes tasks, but you must deploy it carefully and remember that the human touch is still essential.
AI engines are the new intermediaries between brands and consumers. Yet most brands who monitor their coverage and pay for brand reputation management have no idea what LLMs are saying about them.
AI, like electricity, is not intrinsically good or bad. It’s what we do with it that matters. As communicators, we have agency. We decide which choices will shape the future of the industry. We are not powerless.
With the rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the rules of visibility have changed, and PR now sits at the center of it all.
Today, the question facing our industry is: If a consumer, enterprise buyer or journalist asks AI about your company, will the return be in your favor? Or will your brand be lost in a sea of bland generics?
