Thoughts on how not to outsource yourself out of a job in 2026.
I’m no clairvoyant, but one prediction I can make with confidence is that in 2026, AI will continue to dominate conversations in PR and business. Another is that much of that talk will be hot air.
Consider the numbers. While 99% of PR agencies say they are using AI in some form, less than half have drawn up a proper policy on how to use it. In the broader business world, just 1% of CEOs seem to have defined an AI strategy.
This highlights the PR professional’s predicament. You know AI is unavoidable and can be useful, but you’re still some way off using it intentionally or deriving value from it. There is also an element of fear attached to it. Don’t use it enough and you will lose your job for failing to adapt; use it too much and you could make yourself redundant.
Given that few CEOs have figured out AI for themselves, it can be hard for them to judge whether the employee who claims to be all over AI really is or is simply practicing good old-fashioned self-preservation.
In 2026, we need to strike a decisive balance between a) using AI intelligently to liberate our potential and b) applying the skills, experience and, yes, intelligence, that only we as humans can bring to bear.
Quality matters more than optimization
This should be self-evident. But time constraints combined with management mania to adopt AI are leading to missteps in business.
In October, a court in Australia ruled that Deloitte had to refund the government for a report which it admitted it had used AI to create. The A$440,000 report was found to contain hallucinations and inaccuracies. A senator commented, “Perhaps instead of hiring a big consulting firm, procurers would be better off signing up for a ChatGPT subscription.”
This is not the direction any consultants should be moving in — including, obviously, PR consultants.
At the same time, brands like Coca-Cola are proudly using AI to create big advertising campaigns. For the past two years, Coke’s Christmas advertising has been AI-generated. As the FT notes, this has drawn outrage from reviewers and advertising creatives for its lack of craft, but the person on the street doesn’t seem to mind. The FT contrasted the work against a strikingly human advertisement by John Lewis and found that both have fared well in consumer testing.
This tells us there is a place for both AI and for human craft in creative fields. More will certainly follow Coke in experimenting with AI as an alternative to often expensive and time-consuming work by agencies. Meta has promised advertisers its own AI solutions.
The results of all this will be mixed, but whether using AI or not, the goal for big advertisers should stay the same: to create great work that resonates with people, strengthens the brand and sells products. Not simply to drive down time and costs.
Recognizing self-sabotage
PR will remain a people business to a greater degree than advertising. But it too needs to clarify when to use AI and when not to use it. This is a big issue for an industry that is always moaning about a talent shortage. If the new generation of PR professionals turns to AI for everything from writing a press release to forming a campaign strategy, they risk not developing core skills, not being able to connect the dots or distinguish good from bad and ultimately eroding the profession’s value.
In PR and comms, AI itself will be unlikely to make up for a skills gap. To be effective, it still requires people with experience, powers of judgement and skills including but not limited to writing good prompts. For experienced PR professionals, turning too heavily to AI carries the real risk of “brain rot”, or at the very least, disconnection from the work and its content. If your specialist expertise atrophies, good luck articulating your value. This applies to both agency and in-house professionals.
In the AI era, we must remain hyper-connected to the work that brings us satisfaction and is the reason we got into the business in the first place. We can use AI to help us with routine tasks, overcome obstacles and act as a tireless sparring partner — not a servant to do our thinking and campaigns for us.
No one wants the AI era to become the era of unmitigated spam. Not PR professionals, not brands, and certainly not audiences. Yet this is what will happen if we outsource our thinking in terms of strategy and content development to AI. A gimmicky AI-generated advertising campaign might be forgivable. A deluge of mindless PR pitches and thought-leadership content without human opinion is not.
Honoring the basics
There has always been good and bad thought leadership. One has a clear perspective and makes a strong argument. The other lacks actual thought and offers up a sales pitch. We already see companies issuing unattributed, most likely AI-generated “corporate thought pieces”, which by nature lack humanity. This could easily get worse, but I have faith that it won’t.
Experimentation with AI will — and absolutely should — continue. But there’s only so much inhuman content that humans can take. And the focus shouldn’t be on doing things cheaper or faster, but better. I see the pendulum swinging back towards work of greater substance and personality.
Picture this: business leaders standing proudly behind their thoughts and speaking with their authentic voice, offering insight and opinion backed by facts and data. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? It’s a simple ask, and in the age of AI, it’s likely to be a powerful differentiator.
In May, the inaugural Enhanced Games will take place in Las Vegas. Wherever you stand on athletes taking performance-enhancing substances, one thing is obvious: they are still going to have to work hard to win. The drugs alone won’t do it for them. The same is true of AI in comms. Used well, it can be a huge asset without overshadowing human uniqueness, expertise and ingenuity. We remain craftspeople with (hopefully still well-functioning) brains. We can’t afford to disown strategic thinking, execution and opinion. In 2026, let’s use AI wisely and intentionally to help us stay ahead in a ‘polycrisis’ world, while returning focus to the foundational qualities that make for excellent communications. Let’s not make it the year of content for the sake of content, volume for the sake of volume — but the year of depth, individuality and quality enhanced by technology.
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