The PR landscape is changing faster than ever. So what will define success in 2026? Onclusive’s ground-breaking 2025 study, “PR, Comms, & Marketing: the 2026 Outlook,“ reveals the PR trends for 2026 — and what these mean for the communications industry.
Drawing on survey data from more than 300 experts and insights from over 50 industry leaders, the research reveals the five biggest PR trends for 2026.
From proving ROI and rebuilding trust in a shrinking media landscape to balancing AI integration with human creativity, these trends highlight the skills, strategies, and measurement approaches that will separate high-performing teams from the rest. Here’s what the data and expert voices tell us about the future of PR and communications in 2026.
In summary: The biggest PR trends for 2026 center on proving business impact, redefining brand building, adapting to fewer journalists, using AI as a stabilizing force, and defending budgets with credible ROI.
- Measurement will make or break teams — proving ROI is now essential for credibility and survival.
- Brand building becomes a commercial discipline — linking reputation work directly to sales, trust, and loyalty.
- The press corps continues to shrink — meaning smarter, data-led pitches and deeper journalist relationships.
- AI settles into a supportive role — enhancing productivity while humans lead on creativity and strategy.
- Budgets tighten for teams without proof of value — those who can’t demonstrate measurable impact risk being cut.
These five forces will define how PR and communications professionals thrive in 2026 and beyond.
5 Key PR Trends 2026
Trend #1: ROI Measurement Will Define PR Success in 2026
Among the PR & Communications Trends for 2026, one challenge stands out above all others. Most practitioners still cannot connect PR efforts to revenue, and nearly half struggle to prove ROI beyond vanity metrics. As a result, the ability to communicate impact has become the defining test of credibility for communications teams.
To address this, the solution lies in building correlation models that link media coverage directly to the sales pipeline and conversion rates. In addition, communications professionals must translate their work into executive language that resonates with leadership. Otherwise, they risk being viewed as expendable cost centers rather than growth drivers.
In short: Proving ROI is the most critical of all PR and communications trends for 2026 — teams that show business impact will be the ones that thrive.
Trend #2: Brand Building Becomes a Core Business Growth Driver
Brand building will be a top priority for both agencies and in-house teams in 2026. However, success now depends on defining brand value in commercial terms that leadership understands. To achieve this, teams should agree on a few measurable outcomes — such as sales lift, share of voice, and stakeholder trust — before launching any campaign. Otherwise, even the strongest brand work will struggle to secure ongoing investment.
In short: Among the top public relations trends for 2026, brand building stands out. Success will depend on proving its direct link to growth and trust.
Trend #3: Fewer Journalists, More AI—How PR Teams Will Adapt
A significant portion of communications professionals expect fewer journalists covering industry news in 2026. Meanwhile, the remaining journalists face a flood of AI-generated pitches that make breakthrough coverage even harder to secure. As a result, volume tactics will backfire spectacularly. Instead, it’s essential to focus on building deep relationships with a core group of tier-one journalists and pitching fewer but stronger stories supported by exclusive data and insights.
In short: With fewer journalists and more AI noise, PR success in 2026 will depend on quality storytelling, credible relationships, and data-led pitching.
Trend #4: AI as a Steady Partner, Not a Disruptive Force
Despite the hype, many practitioners expect their roles to remain largely unchanged, with AI serving as a complement rather than a replacement. Even so, a substantial number of agencies anticipate shifting toward more strategic advisory work as AI takes over content execution. In this context, the key lies in using AI to accelerate analysis and production while focusing human effort on strategic counsel and relationship building. Ultimately, success will depend on how effectively teams balance automation with creativity and judgment.
In short: One of the most pragmatic PR trends for 2026 is AI adoption — used not to replace people, but to enhance strategy, creativity, and impact.
Trend #5: Budget Cuts Ahead for Teams Without Proven Impact
Nearly half of agency professionals expect communications budgets to shrink in 2026. One key reason is that many practitioners still struggle to measure PR ROI with confidence. Consequently, this measurement gap has become existential rather than academic. Without clear evidence of impact, teams risk significant budget cuts or restructuring. Therefore, it’s critical to prove value by linking reputation work to revenue well before budget reviews begin.
In short: In 2026, communications teams that clearly prove ROI will be the ones best positioned to protect their budgets and influence.
Inside the Data: Realities Behind the 2026 PR Trends
Reality #1: Demonstrating ROI Remains the Central Challenge
The data behind the PR & Communications Trends for 2026 shows that over half of agencies (52%) and in-house teams (51%) identify linking PR to revenue and business growth as their top challenge. Furthermore, an additional 44% of agencies and 53% of in-house teams cite proving ROI beyond vanity metrics as one of their biggest hurdles. Taken together, these findings suggest that while many teams can demonstrate reach or sentiment, the real challenge lies in making the leap from activity-based reporting to measurable business outcomes.
What the Experts said:
Matthew Hare-Scott, Corporate Affairs Director at Teneo UK, observes that communications professionals have had to get used to doing more with less, but now they must think about how they evolve their role and skills to provide the most value in the future. He acknowledges that the next few years will likely be uncomfortable as teams continue to experiment, but emphasizes that those who embrace the chaos and find a way to adapt will likely reap the benefits.
Stephen Waddington, Professional Advisor and PhD Researcher at Wadds Inc., argues that the challenge and opportunity is to operate as a management discipline, aligning communication to organizational strategy and demonstrating impact beyond vanity metrics. This requires practitioners to step up as advisors to management teams, not simply technicians executing campaigns. When practitioners demonstrate value in organizational terms, they earn influence.
Mike Robb, Co-CEO at Boldspace, notes that comms is under more scrutiny than ever, particularly given the economic climate and budget pressure, with senior leadership demanding evidence of impact on growth. Vanity metrics don’t cut it anymore.
Cathy Toft, Global Head of Corporate Communications at HMD Global, observes that gone are the days when senior leadership was satisfied with coverage volume or sentiment alone. In 2026, every function, including communications, is expected to demonstrate a clear line of sight to business outcomes.
Key Takeaway
The path forward requires fundamentally rethinking measurement and reporting. To begin with, teams should build commercial correlation models that connect media coverage to tangible business metrics such as sales pipeline development and website conversions. In addition, a powerful approach involves tracking whether positive sentiment shifts precede revenue improvements by 30 to 90 days — effectively positioning communications as a leading business indicator.
Beyond that, teams must show how PR drives performance across the entire marketing mix, while also benchmarking against competitors to provide valuable context. Most importantly, practitioners need to translate data into executive language — replacing “we achieved 85% positive sentiment” with “communications activity correlates with 15% higher conversion rates.
Want the complete picture on PR & Comms trends 2026? Download the full 2026 Outlook Report for survey data from 300+ practitioners and insights from 50+ industry leaders.
Reality #2: Brand Building as the Unifying Strategic Priority
A clear strategic consensus is emerging. About 58% of agencies and 50% of in-house teams say brand building and awareness are their top priorities for 2026. But the focus differs. Nearly half of agency professionals (47%) prioritize earned media coverage, while the same share of in-house practitioners (47%) emphasize reputation management.
Will Martin, Head of Marketing Broadcasting at News UK, argues that the biggest challenge and opportunity will be building coherent brand stories that travel seamlessly from linear broadcast to on-demand and social platforms. Creativity will remain the differentiator in cutting through the noise.
Gabriela Weiss Clarke, Head of Communications at PRCA, expects communications to be reshaped by AI, accountability, and inclusion over the next year. This requires PR and communications professionals to step up as ethical strategists, reputation guardians, and business partners, moving beyond their traditional role as storytellers.
Before launching any brand awareness campaign, communications teams should align with leadership on three to five measurable outcomes. These should include:
- Commercial KPIs such as sales lift, lead quality, or customer acquisition costs
- Reputation KPIs like share of voice, sentiment, or crisis resilience
- Relationship KPIs covering stakeholder trust, employee advocacy, and partner confidence
Key Takeaway:
Progress should be reported quarterly using consistent language that links brand health directly to business performance. In addition, avoid reports that focus on reach and impressions without showing the outcomes leadership actually values.
Reality #3: Diverging Threat Perceptions Between In-House and Agency Teams
A clear divide is emerging in how practitioners view threats. Nearly half of agency professionals (44%) identify misinformation and fake news as their primary concern. By contrast, almost half of in-house teams (47%) point to political and government actions affecting their industries. This divergence underscores the fundamentally different environments in which each group operates.
Specifically, agencies tend to focus on the media ecosystem and the flow of information. Whereas in-house teams are more concerned with regulation, compliance, and policy shifts. However, there is one notable area of alignment: customer experience. Roughly one-third of both groups cite negative reviews or poor customer interactions as likely crisis triggers — a reminder that reputation risk often starts close to home.
Koray Camgöz, CEO of Taylor Bennett Foundation, predicts that the year ahead will test communications leaders like never before as they navigate deepening societal division. Nationalist rhetoric may play well in politics, but it risks leaving employees and customers feeling excluded and unsafe. Every message a business leader sends either builds trust and belonging or deepens division.
Shayoni Lynn, Founder and CEO at Lynn, notes that declining trust in institutions, media, and politics is creating a more volatile environment. Communicators need deeper integration of behavioral science to understand why people believe what they believe and to craft more persuasive stories that speak to audiences’ identities and worldviews.
Key Takeaway
Crisis readiness in 2026 demands proactive monitoring.
- For political and regulatory risks, teams should track policy announcements and consultations to spot early signs of change. Misinformation monitoring means setting up alerts for false claims before they reach mainstream attention.
- Customer experience tracking involves watching review sentiment and social media mentions for early warning signals. With Onclusive Social, teams can monitor all these indicators in real time — enabling proactive response instead of reactive damage control.
Reality #4: Shrinking Press Corps and the Rise of AI Pitch Overload
More than half of agency professionals (52%) and a substantial proportion of in-house teams (42%) anticipate fewer journalists covering industry news in 2026. As a result, this erosion of newsroom capacity represents a fundamental challenge to traditional PR approaches.
To make matters worse, 44% of agencies and 30% of in-house teams anticipate a shrinking pool of journalists willing to build relationships with brands, At the same time, practitioners commonly expect journalists to be receiving too many AI-generated pitches.
Reyes Justribó Ferrer, Director General at IAB Spain, argues that the debate about who has more impact, journalists or influencers, is a false dilemma. Journalists provide rigor, analysis, and credibility, while influencers provide closeness, empathy, and connection with specific communities. Both play important but different roles.
Lisa Vecchio, B2B Marketing Director at VEED, observes that visits to publisher websites are dropping fast, with some outlets seeing traffic fall by 40%, while audiences increasingly get their news on social platforms where video dominates. Social media has just overtaken TV and news sites as the top source of news, with 65% of people now consuming via social video.
Key Takeaway
As newsroom capacity shrinks and inbox noise grows, mass-pitching tactics will backfire. The solution is fewer, stronger pitches built around data-driven insights, credible spokespeople, and clear proof of impact.
Teams should:
- Identify about 20 tier-one journalists who regularly cover their sector and invest time in understanding their beats and story preferences.
- Use predictive pitching to find seasonal story gaps and upcoming regulatory deadlines.
- Build an asset bank of evergreen expert commentary and visuals that journalists can access anytime.
- Finally, make the process seamless by hosting all materials in an easily accessible online newsroom — removing barriers when reporters are racing deadlines.
Reality #5: AI Provides Stability, Not Radical Transformation
Contrary to the hype around AI revolutionizing every profession, communications practitioners are showing remarkable pragmatism. A substantial 42% of in-house professionals and 40% of agency counterparts expect their roles to remain largely unchanged, with AI serving to complement rather than transform their work. In essence, most view AI as a supportive tool rather than a disruptive force.
However, where transformation is expected, it points toward strategic evolution. Specifically, 41% of agencies anticipate a shift toward advisory and consultancy roles as AI takes on more content execution, compared to just 26% of in-house teams. This indicates that agencies are positioning themselves to move up the value chain while AI manages tactical production tasks.
Davide Ciliberti, Founder and CEO at Purple & Noise PR, warns that almost half of communicators admit to using AI for writing press releases, which produces output that is little more than scholastic. He finds this a degenerative way of using the technology. Thinking of delegating strategic approach, ideation, creativity, and writing to a machine means abdicating as a professional.
Stuart Bruce, Co-Founder at The PR Futurist, uses a memorable metaphor: communications and marketing teams must achieve AI literacy before they can help clients navigate AI challenges. Giving people access to powerful AI tools is like giving them a sports car when they don’t know how to drive.
Key Takeaway
The research suggests that AI is bedding in as a co-pilot that accelerates analysis and production but doesn’t redefine professional roles overnight. In practice, success depends on formalizing where AI adds the most value, while at the same time introducing clear guardrails to ensure accuracy and ethical use. Ultimately, teams must focus on upskilling for strategic counsel and creative judgment — the areas where human expertise remains irreplaceable.
Reality #6: Budget Vulnerability Will Test Agency Resilience
Economic uncertainty continues to cast a long shadow. As a result, nearly half of agency professionals (45%) expect communications budgets to shrink in 2026. Meanwhile, the measurement credibility gap remains a major issue: 35% of in-house practitioners and 26% of agency teams admit they still can’t reliably measure PR ROI.
In addition, 30% of in-house teams report that short-term wins still drive decision-making, despite continued emphasis on long-term reputation. Taken together, weak measurement, budget stress, and short-term thinking create a perfect storm for communications teams that fail to demonstrate clear business impact.
PR & Marketing Converge: How Communications Strategies Will Evolve by 2026
While communications and marketing have traditionally operated in separate silos, the research reveals significant convergence. Both disciplines approach AI pragmatically, expecting it to enhance rather than replace human judgment.
AI Implementation
Andrea Moreno, Senior Campaign Marketing Manager at TeamViewer, observes that AI helps teams move faster and analyze smarter, but it’s a tool, not the strategy—the heart of marketing is still building relationships.
Brand Building
Both disciplines recognize brand building as a primary focus, creating opportunities to align efforts around shared objectives. Damien Douani, Head of Educational Innovation at Narratiiv School, notes that in communications, radicalism and nuance can coexist through deep-rooted brand DNA and long-term consistency.
Customer experience
Customer experience emerges as a shared crisis risk. Jérôme Monange, Retail and Luxury Marketing Specialist, emphasizes that while AI enhances experiences, the customer experience that creates emotion and brand preference comes from putting the human being at the center.
Data complexity
Data complexity overwhelms both fields. Fabrice Frossard, Consultant and Founder at Faber Content, points out that only five to ten percent of marketing tasks can be fully automated, and the lack of quality data costs businesses three billion dollars per year.
In-House vs. Agency Perspectives on PR Trends 2026
| Aspect | In-House Teams | Agencies | Convergence |
| Primary Challenge: Proving ROI | 51% cite connecting efforts to revenue/business growth as the top challenge. 53% struggle to prove ROI beyond vanity metrics, reflecting internal pressure to justify budgets to leadership. | 52% identify linking PR to revenue as the primary challenge, with 44% noting difficulties moving beyond vanity metrics, driven by client expectations for measurable impact. | Both groups struggle to translate communications into business outcomes, facing pressure to move beyond reach/impressions to hard metrics like sales or lead quality. Shared need for commercial correlation models and executive-friendly reporting. |
| Strategic Priority: Brand Building | 50% prioritize brand building, with a strong focus on reputation management (47%), emphasizing a defensive approach to protect organizational perceptions. | 58% prioritize brand building, with 47% focusing on securing earned media coverage, reflecting their role in driving external visibility for clients. | Both see brand building as a top priority, converging on long-term reputation over tactical campaigns. Opportunity for unified KPIs (commercial, reputation, relationship) to align efforts. |
| Threat Perceptions | 47% view political/regulatory risks as the top crisis trigger, reflecting their focus on industry-specific disruptions and internal business risks. 34% cite negative customer experiences. | 44% identify misinformation/fake news as the primary crisis concern, focusing on the broader media ecosystem and narrative control. 30% cite negative customer experiences. | Both recognize negative customer experiences (30–34%) as a shared crisis risk, highlighting the need for integrated monitoring of customer sentiment and reputation to prevent escalation. |
| Media Relations Challenges | 42% expect fewer journalists covering industry news, with 30% noting a shrinking pool open to brand relationships and 30% anticipating issues with AI-generated pitches. Focus on internal storytelling. | 52% anticipate fewer journalists, with 44% citing reduced journalist-brand relationships and 24% noting AI pitch overload. Emphasis on external media outreach. | Both face a shrinking press corps and increased noise from AI pitches, necessitating high-quality, data-led pitches and deeper relationships with key journalists. |
| AI Expectations | 42% expect AI to complement roles, with only 26% anticipating a shift to strategic advisory work, reflecting a more cautious approach to AI integration. | 40% expect AI stability, but 41% foresee a shift to strategic advisory roles as AI handles tactical tasks like content creation, aiming to move up the value chain. | Both view AI as a co-pilot, not a disruptor, enhancing efficiency in tasks like content generation and measurement. Shared need to upskill for strategic roles and ensure ethical AI use. |
| Budget Vulnerability | 35% admit challenges measuring ROI, and 30% note short-term wins drive decisions, making it harder to justify long-term reputation investments. | 45% expect budget cuts due to economic uncertainty, with 26% struggling to measure ROI, increasing vulnerability to client cost-cutting. | Both face budget pressures tied to measurement credibility gaps, requiring unified frameworks to demonstrate value and counter short-termism. |
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Looking Ahead: What the 2026 PR Trends Mean for You
The Current Reality: A Profession at a Crossroads
The Onclusive study shows that the year ahead won’t be defined by revolutionary AI change, but rather by a reckoning with long-standing structural challenges. In fact, nearly half of agencies expect budget cuts. More than half still can’t connect their work to revenue. And a third admit they can’t reliably measure ROI. This creates a crisis of legitimacy for the profession.
The uncomfortable truth — that 30% of practitioners say short-term wins still outweigh long-term reputation — exposes a dangerous gap between what communications teams claim to deliver and what organizations truly value.
The Five Forces Reshaping the 2026 Communications Outlook
- The measurement imperative has become non-negotiable. Leadership teams demand clear lines of sight from communications activity to business outcomes. Therefore, success is no longer about adopting new tools—it’s about fundamentally reimagining how communications articulates its value.
- The media ecosystem continues its structural transformation. With 65% of people now consuming news via social video and traditional publisher traffic dropping by 40%, the earned media playbook that defined PR for decades requires wholesale reinvention. As a result, the future belongs to those who can navigate a fragmented ecosystem where journalists, influencers, algorithms, and direct channels all play critical roles.
- AI is settling into its role as amplifier rather than disruptor. While AI will complement rather than transform roles, this stability masks a subtle shift: AI will dramatically raise baseline expectations for what professionals can deliver. When AI handles first drafts and real-time analysis, humans must move up the value chain to strategic counsel, creative direction, and relationship building that machines cannot replicate.
- The convergence of communications and marketing accelerates. Traditional boundaries are dissolving as both face identical challenges around brand building, customer experience, and proving business impact. Consequently, organizations maintaining rigid silos will find themselves at significant disadvantage.
- Trust emerges as the defining battleground. In an era of deepfakes, misinformation, and polarization, the ability to build and maintain trust becomes the ultimate competitive advantage. Ultimately, communications professionals who can help organizations prove credibility through actions and manage reputation across complex stakeholder ecosystems will be indispensable.
The Path Forward: From Survival to Strategic Leadership
Immediate Priorities
Among the PR trends for 2026, survival and credibility stand out as immediate priorities. To begin with, communications teams must tackle the measurement challenge with urgency. This means proving clear links between communications activity and business outcomes before budget reviews begin. Therefore, teams should invest in platforms that track reputation impact and connect those insights directly to commercial performance. In addition, communicators need to build fluency in executive language and financial metrics — and have the courage to stop reporting activities leadership no longer values.
At the same time, teams must adapt to the new media reality. Abandon mass-pitching tactics in favor of strategic relationship building with journalists who matter most. Invest in predictive pitching tools and develop hybrid strategies that treat influencers as credible partners in reputation and brand storytelling.
Medium-term success
Through 2027 and 2028, will depend on strategic repositioning. As AI takes over more tactical work, communications professionals need to evolve into strategic advisors. That means building deeper expertise in organizational culture, navigating ethical challenges, strengthening stakeholder relationships, and offering counsel on high-stakes decisions.
During this period, the integration of communications and marketing will accelerate. Progressive organizations will develop unified brand frameworks that connect reputation management with commercial outcomes. Teams should also formalize their use of AI — moving from ad hoc experimentation to structured systems that define where AI adds value and where human judgment remains essential.
Long-term transformation
Through 2030 and beyond, positions communications as a core strategic function. The profession has a unique opportunity to move beyond its traditional support role and become a critical business capability. One that drives competitive advantage through reputation management, stakeholder engagement, and narrative leadership.
To achieve this, communications leaders must redefine their role within the organization. They need to participate in strategy development, not just execution; have a voice in major business decisions with reputational impact; and take full ownership of reputation as an intangible asset that fuels enterprise value.
The Broader Context: Navigating Unprecedented Complexity
Organizations are operating in an era of unprecedented complexity — marked by geopolitical instability, rapid technological change, shifting social expectations, and ongoing regulatory uncertainty. In this environment, reputation and trust are more valuable — and more vulnerable — than ever.
Communications professionals who can help organizations navigate these challenges will become essential strategic partners. That means anticipating how external forces could affect reputation, building resilience against crises, maintaining stakeholder trust, and crafting coherent narratives even amid uncertainty. The question is whether the profession can build the capabilities — and demonstrate the value — needed to earn this elevated role.
The alternative is continued marginalization. If communications teams can’t evolve, the expected budget cuts will be only the beginning. In that scenario, communications risks being viewed as optional — reduced to minimal teams managing basic functions while organizations turn to other channels to build relationships and reputation.
A Call to Action: Embracing the Public Relations Trends Shaping 2026
For individual practitioners: Build the skills that make you indispensable in an AI-augmented world. Develop fluency in data analytics and business metrics. Strengthen your strategic thinking so you can link communications directly to business goals. Focus on relationship-building and the human connections AI can’t replicate. And stay curious about how your organization truly creates value.
For communications leaders: Redefine your function and how it delivers impact. Stop defending outdated practices or reporting metrics that leadership doesn’t value. Instead, build modern measurement frameworks, expand analytical capabilities, and position communications as a strategic driver of business success.
For organizations: Treat communications as a core competitive capability. Invest in measurement infrastructure, align communications and marketing around brand growth, and empower communications leaders to shape business strategy. Companies that do this will gain a lasting edge in building and protecting reputation..
The Future is Being Written Now
The trends revealed in this research aren’t distant predictions. They’re forces already reshaping communications today. Those who act now — solving measurement challenges, adapting to the new media landscape, integrating AI with purpose, and breaking down silos with marketing — will thrive. They’ll earn larger budgets, greater influence, and stronger recognition as strategic leaders.
Those who resist change will face the opposite. Teams that cling to outdated practices, rely on vanity metrics, or fail to show business impact will become marginalized, under-resourced, and eventually irrelevant.
The future of communications isn’t predetermined. It will be shaped by the choices practitioners make today. The profession stands at a crossroads. The path chosen in 2026 will decide whether communications becomes an indispensable strategic function — or fades into a support role of the past. The stakes have never been higher. The only question is: will the profession rise to meet the moment?
Frequently Asked Questions about PR Trends 2026
Q. What are the biggest PR trends for 2026?
The biggest PR Trends for 2026 include a sharper focus on ROI measurement, brand building, adapting to fewer journalists, integrating AI as a supportive tool, and protecting budgets through proven impact. These trends reflect a profession under pressure to demonstrate measurable business value while navigating technological and media transformation.
Q. What is the biggest challenge facing PR professionals in 2026?
Demonstrating ROI and connecting communications to revenue. Over half of practitioners (51-52%) can’t link their work to business outcomes, and nearly half struggle beyond vanity metrics. The solution: build correlation models linking media activity to sales pipeline and conversions, then translate results into executive language leadership values.
Q. How will AI impact PR roles in 2026?
AI will complement, not transform. 40-42% expect roles largely unchanged. Where change occurs, agencies shift toward strategic advisory as AI handles execution. Use AI for analysis and production; focus human effort on strategy, relationships, and creativity that machines can’t replicate.
Q. Why are agencies expecting budget cuts?
45% anticipate cuts because communications is seen as discretionary spending. 26-35% can’t measure ROI reliably, and economic pressure intensifies scrutiny. Prove business value with concrete metrics before budget reviews or face elimination.
Q. How should teams adapt to fewer journalists?
With 52% expecting fewer journalists, abandon volume tactics. Build deep relationships with 20 tier-one journalists. Use predictive pitching for story gaps, create accessible asset repositories, and provide frictionless digital newsrooms. Quality and data-driven exclusives break through AI pitch overload.
Q. Should communications and marketing align more closely?
Yes. Both prioritize brand building, struggle with ROI, and face shared challenges. Organizations keeping silos will lag behind. Develop unified frameworks combining reputation and awareness metrics, create shared KPIs, and build integrated systems for compounding effects neither achieves alone.
Q. Will AI replace PR jobs by 2026?
No — AI is reshaping workflows but not replacing the strategic and creative aspects of PR. According to our PR Trends 2026 insights, most professionals expect AI to complement their work, helping with research and analysis while humans continue to lead on judgment, storytelling, and stakeholder relationships.