The Biggest Challenge for Public Relations in 2026
Tue, Jan. 13, 2026
By Stefan Pollack
If 2025 was the year PR learned to coexist with machines, 2026 will be the year we must learn to outrun them.
| Category: Artificial intelligence | Return to Latest News |
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.
Artificial intelligence changed the world in 2025. Unfortunately, not all that change was for the better.
From emerging technologies to shifting global dynamics, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of meaningful change.
Two-thirds of employees (66 percent) think that AI will have a positive effect on their jobs, according to a new report from Ruder Finn.
Nearly one in every 10 newspaper articles now relies on text generated by AI, according to a new study. Worse, the practice is rarely disclosed.
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| On the “PR’s Top Pros Talk…” podcast, Jon Harris, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications & Networking Officer for Conagra Brands, talks to Doug Simon, CEO of D S Simon Media, about how organizations can adopt AI responsibly. |
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.
Investors have made big bets on artificial intelligence this year, driving the financial markets to all-time highs. But several signs are showing that the runaway AI bull might be losing steam.
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.
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| On the PR’s Top Pros Talk podcast, Moon Kim, Executive Vice President and Corporate Practice Lead at M Booth, joined host Doug Simon, CEO of D S Simon Media, to share how her team approaches AI while maximizing its value for clients. |
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