Executive Summary: top PR trends & strategies for 2026
PR isn’t struggling because teams aren’t working hard. It’s struggling because the old playbook no longer delivers reach, trust or discoverability. Media fragmentation, in-platform engagement, AI search and creator-led influence have split what used to come from a single press hit into many different channels. The companies getting impact from PR in 2026 are the ones coordinating those channels into a single, clear narrative.
The 2026 PR landscape
In Cision’s Inside PR 2026 report, PR pros named "the changing media landscape" their top challenge. It confirms what many of us have been feeling this past year:
Media has fragmented. Reach and influence decoupled. Attention scattered. Discovery changed.
Traditional media still matters — but it no longer does all the work on its own. PR in 2026 requires a different way of thinking about visibility, influence and impact.
We see awareness of this in the conversations we are having with clients and prospects — and recurring questions that show companies are rethinking what strategies and channels matter today.
THE questions we KEEP hearing
Can the PR team help with our executives’ LinkedIn pages?
What’s driving this question: LinkedIn has become a creator platform — and a highly effective direct PR channel — with individual voices outperforming company pages for reach, engagement and trust.
What we’re advising:
- Activate people as brand storytellers, preserving candid voices, and shift company pages into a clarity and credibility role
- Anchor executives to 3-4 repeatable conversation themes linked to the company story
- Build storytelling hooks and series that scale, then level up with novel, personality-rich creative formats (especially video)
- Treat engagement as a strategy vs. afterthought
- Develop a bulletproof process/dedicated support team to keep things on track
Can PR help with our GEO/AEO? How does AI search growth impact PR?
Why it is coming up: AI search is collapsing the buyer journey, with AI answer visibility becoming the new “seat at the table” for deals. PR plays a key role in if/how brands surface in LLMs.
What we’re advising:
- Highest priority: ID high-intent buyer prompts and map the sources AI systems cite in answers for your “share of answer” map
- Optimize content for LLM digestion and trust with structure/schema/markup/signals for added visibility via content citations
- Treat AI visibility as a parallel PR track, not a replacement for buyer-facing storytelling
- Ideally: Collaborate with your PR, marketing, content and revenue teams to create a 3-dimensional GEO initiative that builds repeated, corroborated omnichannel brand positioning
Does your team do new media? When should it show up in a PR program?
What this question is signaling: Some still assume new media is optional. It isn’t. It is now a core (not second tier) earned channel for both startups and mature companies.
What we’re advising:
- Continue pursuing big press/traditional outlets to build credibility
- Turn to new, community-focused media to reach real (and really engaged) buyers
- Target niche category coverage and comparisons to support AI visibility and leads
- Practice 1:1 media relations — building, pitching and delivering on a story as well as proving interviewee credibility varies widely by outlet/creator and requires nuance
What PR channels actually work in 2026?
What has changed: Buyers move in loops, not linear paths, with attention spread across platforms, press, creators and communities. Meanwhile, getting press is harder with shrinking newsrooms, the political/economic landscape and AI impacting what gets covered.
What we’re advising:
- Make omnichannel your de facto, turning every story/idea into many entry points
- Pair big narrative moments with frequent, smaller shared POVs to sustain momentum
- Amplify aggressively – distribution matters as much as the story
- Find the best-fit channel for each story: consider sponsored editorial for strategic but non-newsworthy messages; earned media for truly unique angles reporters and their viewers cannot find elsewhere (i.e., exclusives, owned data, human-interest stories), social for personal reflections
- Make sure you are doing at least one channel exceptionally well
How should PR be measured now?
Why it’s being asked: Boards and executives want proof of contribution, not activity, especially with marketing budgets under pressure.
What we’re advising:
- Get access to and get adept in digital analytics tools to show how PR influences demand, pipeline and sales
- Track AI visibility and category positioning — AI is a real performance channel for PR
- Partner with marketing and revenue teams for a fuller picture on PR impact
PR takeaways for 2026
Ten, maybe even five years ago, consistent press coverage counted as a PR strategy. And it was fairly effective.
But PR no longer succeeds through single channels or one-off wins. The strongest programs reinforce a clear narrative across the many places buyers spend their time.
A recent Worldcom Public Relations Group email said it perfectly: “When audiences are scattered and attention is scarce, cohesion is what cuts through.”
When we look back at some of our strongest PR programs and campaigns in 2025, they did this — amplified a narrative cohesively, creating multiple points of entry. For example:
- McDonald’s Buffalo Bills sponsorship: digital experiences and physical assets created storytelling moments for the sponsorship narrative, brought to our audience through a unified motion of earned, shared and paid promotion.
- Talkdesk category positioning: internal and agency teams’ 360° coordination of earned media, analyst relations, Times Square billboards, B2B influencer partnerships, data storytelling, multi-channel executive thought leadership, awards and events jointly amplified Talkdesk’s Customer Experience Automation (CXA) category creation and narrative.
- Butterfly Network narrative: earned media in national, trade and specialty medicine outlets, press releases, awards and organic product placement across TV (HBO’s The Pitt), medical institution programs and in an initiative to advance maternal health in Africa (via a Gates Foundation partnership) all reinforced an industry transformation and greater purpose narrative.
This is the line of thinking we believe every PR program needs in 2026.
As a PR agency that leads with outcome-based strategies and integrated thinking, we would love to help you adjust to these new PR realities.
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