The rules of communications and marketing are rewriting themselves in real-time. GEO will replace SEO. Trust will beat reach. And brand building will be everyone's top priority. This isn't speculation—it's what 350+ practitioners revealed about the year ahead.
of PR & Comms pros say proving ROI beyond vanity metrics will be a top challenge
Brand Building will be the #1 priority across PR, Comms, & Marketing
of agency marketers are concerned about algorithms that impact visibility and engagement
"The biggest challenge - and opportunity - will be building coherent brand stories that travel seamlessly from linear broadcast to on-demand and social. Creativity will remain the differentiator in cutting through the noise."
Understanding the realities for 2026 means confronting uncomfortable truths while identifying clear opportunities. This report delivers both:
Teams shift from experimenting to implementing. Human oversight stays essential.
False narratives spread faster than truth. Build rapid response protocols or watch brand trust erode.
Shrinking newsrooms. AI-generated pitch overload. Relationship quality beats quantity.
More content creates less engagement. Storytelling and video cut through when everyone uses the same AI tools.
Zero-click search changes everything. Brand mentions now outweigh backlinks for AI-powered discovery.
"Current AI-driven tools are opaque, and ‘share of model’ isn’t meaningful when context windows and personalisation vary so widely. In many ways we are moving back to reputation and media output measures as a proxy for visibility in AI environments."
