Given the flurry of platforms, services and standards now emerging in the technology industry, it's not hard to feel overwhelmed by what feels like a firehose stream of new technologies being driven at us by AI innovators. This is an important time to pause for breath and think about how fast things have happened in order to understand how users and businesses can make the most of these new tools for the coming year ahead.
Speaking as what I like to call a brand narrative storyteller inside the tech industry, I have absorbed several bellwether trends and methodologies that I believe can help steer the lay person, the data scientist or the business manager through the sometimes murky waters of the swelling AI whirlpool.
In my role as a communications leader, I've attended several flagship tech events over the last couple of months. Between the customers, the software engineers and even the people who stopped me in the hotel elevator to ask me what event I was at, it seems clear that everyone feels they are about to be impacted by AI.
Powerful AI for business progress
Before the event, I'd been working with my team on our executives' predictions, but thanks to the conversations at the show, I thought about how I would distill these ideas and what my own personal predictions would be. What is going to happen in the world of AI in 2026, especially where I sit in communications? How will my role evolve? What will the content coming out of a press centre look like in five years? Plus of course, what jobs are going to disappear or diminish and - and I insist on being upbeat here - what new roles will now emerge for humans to perform more valuable work?
In our line of business at the moment, the topic of AI-generated content is a much-discussed subject; most communications professionals can now spot an article or a social post that's been written by AI extremely fast (it's like a red-light and alarm going off), and this is a skill we've had to perfect at speed in over the last year, sharing new insights between us.
It's been well-documented in the media recently that Google's new 'AI Overview' (look for it at the top of every search) works via a large language model that pulls content from 'a wide range of public, high-quality sources on the web and from Google's own databases' to form its results.
There are discussions that up to 80% of that content is pulled from quality media articles, as well as a huge range of other sources. One journalist recently told me that he'd searched Google on a (slightly obscure) topic he was going to write about, and nothing relevant appeared. However, after his article went live, he searched again and the actual words from his article were pulled in. So, perhaps we're not about to lose our jobs and quality media coverage is more important than ever, right?
Narrative, natural nuances
One thing I am going to stress, though, especially in this era of sometimes-plasticised AI content: It's all about the human words we use and the narrative that we present ourselves with - this is what sets us apart and it's what makes a difference to organisations looking to set themselves apart in the post-AI apocalypse.
If your company has one clear narrative, then spokespeople, bloggers, social media enthusiasts and every employee who feels empowered enough to speak out (which I hope is everyone) should be using a mixture of the same keywords in their content/media interviews. That, in conjunction with quality public relations for press interaction, is where I believe the Nirvana is. Right now and in 2026.
More than ever, now, we need to get this right.
Companies that try to be everything to everyone are surely going to fail here. To win in this environment, businesses need to be clear, concise, have a very clear and compelling narrative… and then roll it out globally.
That's not to say that one size fits all. The messaging has to be clear enough that everyone understands it and can replicate it in their work, but equally malleable and composable so that it doesn't matter what industry, country or language content and sales pitches are for i.e. they resonate with their target audience and make an impression.
What's next for comms AI?
I've been talking to a lot of communications peers all over the globe recently about where they use AI and where they stay well away from it. I haven't found any comms professional yet who uses AI to create articles from scratch (and perhaps that's a good thing, bearing in mind my earlier points here in this discussion). It is, however, used widely for editing, suggesting improved titles and shortening long-form content. One of my favourite AI tools right now is Gemini for professionalising slightly average images.
I have two children, 14 (boy), 12 (girl). Both consume the majority of their content via YouTube. It's not my go-to, it's not even in my top five, but it's almost the only place they'll go to for finding out the information they want on a specific topic. Their friends largely seem to think the same way.
And yes, enterprise organisations obviously create video content alongside written, but perhaps as this generation of AI-digital-native children grow up and come into the workforce there will be even more demand for their snackable, content consuming platforms. I am sure every enterprise company has a multi-channel strategy for content, but what will those channels look like in future? I don't think they'll look quite the same as they do now as more and more digital natives hit the workforce. And while we're on it, what will be the best measurement tool for GEO? I'm currently testing out a few, but this is surely going to be an interesting wave to ride and see where we end up.
Finally, I honestly believe every customer will demand their own personalised version of the information they seek. The drive seen in generative AI certainly suggests that this is possible and agentic services can dovetail with these requests to go and "fetch" the stuff we want, when we want it. But as this happens, every story should be told consistently across the formats and media so that it centralises on the one single unified structure and message set, told in a way that gets to the heart of that buyer (and GEO platform). And creating content that wins over a customer emotionally to me is the 'creme de la creme' of content, whatever the format.
