AI is a double-edged sword that has shifted PR and comms forever
When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, much of the conversation centered on productivity. It could draft content in seconds, summarize meetings, generate images, and write emails faster than any human.
But the real shift was happening behind the scenes. AI wasn’t just changing how PR and comms teams were creating content – it was beginning to change how people search and discover information.
For years, media coverage, thought leadership, and press releases focused on building brand reputation, showing authority, and influencing key prospective buyers.
Today, those same activities are influencing something else as well – large language models.
We’re delving into the latest Gartner report “Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies” to see what the biggest opportunities and disruptions are for PR and comms teams in the next four years.
The message is clear: communications is entering its biggest period of transformation in decades, driven by artificial intelligence, changing employee expectations, and declining trust. The report doesn’t just predict where communications is heading, it confirms that AI is fundamentally changing how organizations earn visibility, instill trust, and influence.
- Building on brand reputation – for the public and for AI
As more people turn to AI assistants instead of traditional search engines, organizations will need to rethink how they build visibility.
The role of PR and comms pros must now extend beyond shaping public perception, but also include determining what AI knows about your organization.
Large language models don’t consume in the same way people do. They build responses using trusted sources across the open web – news coverage, subject matter expert comments and interviews, thought leadership, and credible third-party references.
The report found that “When looking across their entire Communications budget in late 2024, CCOs were already most likely to consider increases to PR and earned media budgets. The areas with the highest likelihood for budget increases in 2025 were public relations (36% of CCOs anticipating an increase), corporate brand (34%), public website (26%), and external social media (23%).”
- Earned media’s purpose is finally recognized
PR is becoming a critical part of AEO.
Generative engines don’t treat all content equally, and earned media has structural advantages that branded content simply doesn’t. Historically, earned media was measured through awareness, reach, and credibility, but today it also contributes to discoverability.
The report argues that “AI search engines favor citing earned, shared, and organic owned content over paid. According to a recent vendor study, more than 95% of links cited are nonpaid mentions and coverage, with 27% originating directly from earned media.”
This aligns closely with what we’ve been seeing since the rise of AI search. Back in March, we wrote “Marketing experts and PR pros now have the golden opportunity to capitalize on earned media strategies in the rush towards AI search. Because earned media is what AI search is beginning to eat for breakfast.”
And it seems that comms professionals are recognizing this! Gartner predicts that by 2027, mass adoption of public LLMs as a replacement for traditional search will drive a twofold increase in PR and earned media budgets.
Why? Because 95% of links cited are nonpaid mentions and coverage, with 27% originating directly from earned media.
Does power to the press release still hold true?
Interestingly, the report found that the trusty press release was cited least! “Press releases tend to get the fewest number of citations, [which] reinforces the need for proactive earned media efforts that facilitate ongoing earned coverage of your desired narratives.”
It’s all part of the content stack. Releases provide a good framework of what you do (product announcements) and who you sell to (order announcements). But as we know, organizations can’t rely simply on company announcements – it’s where credible, earned thought leadership and commentary will rule the roost against AI-generated answers.
- Narrative intelligence: AI becomes an accelerator and detector for misinformation
For the second year in a row, misinformation and disinformation ranked as the top global risk over the next two years by the World Economic Forum. The challenge for communications teams is that false narratives now spread faster, further, and with greater sophistication than ever before. Whether it’s fake news, misleading statistics, manipulated content or AI-generated misinformation, reputational damage can escalate within hours.
The phenomenon isn’t new. The term “fake news” actually has a long history, dating as far back as 1985 when the New York Sun newspaper announced the discovery of life on the moon (news flash, it was all a hoax).
So what’s changed?
It comes down to the scale. Today, #FakeNews and misinformation have made brands increasingly more vulnerable in both the B2B and B2C sectors. With countless digital platforms, social networks, and AI-generated content flooding the information streams, organizations face an unprecedented challenge in understanding, tracking, and responding to new and emerging narratives.
It’s been an ongoing challenge for years, and brands are ready to take a stand. The report found that by 2029, 45% of CCOs will adopt narrative intelligence technologies to support reputation monitoring amid an intensifying disinformation landscape.
Of course, traditional media monitoring still has a role to play, but it was never designed for today’s information environment. AI serves as both an accelerator to disinformation, making sophisticated technology accessible to an increasingly wide range of bad actors, but also a CCO’s best hope in detecting, quantifying, and combating its negative impacts. It’s a double-edged sword!
Communications is in its AI era
As AI becomes a relied-on gateway to information, PR and comms teams will play an increasingly important role in shaping how organizations are represented, discovered, and trusted.
The real credible PR activity is earned, not paid for – and AI knows it!
Georgia Harris is PR Lead Themes at IBA International.
