NEWS

These days, the first reader of a corporate text is often a machine. Anyone who wants to be featured in AI responses must cater to two audiences at once: people and the models that now act as intermediaries between communications teams and their stakeholders.

In many communications departments, one phrase is heard more often than before: “That’s much faster now.” They’re referring to generative AI: It creates texts, translations, and visuals at the push of a button in a matter of minutes. Operational workflows are being accelerated—massively.

This acceleration is taking place in an environment that is already becoming increasingly difficult to manage: faster, more dense, more complex, and more confusing. As a result, it is not only expectations for efficiency that are growing. Another sentiment is also on the rise, currently discussed under the acronym FOLA: Fear of Losing Agency—that is, the concern about losing human control and decision-making capacity to automated systems.

“We had 42 press clippings, a reach of 1.2 million, and a very positive response.” Statements like these are still common in many communications departments. They’re meant to sound solid and professional. But strategically, they’re often worthless.

Communications departments are producing more content today than ever before. They use countless channels, deliver real-time reports, measure reach, clicks and engagement rates down to the second decimal place.

Topics rarely appear suddenly. They have usually existed for a very long time in some cultural or professional echo chamber, develop, change their meaning and only gain impact when they emerge from their original echo chamber and become connectable to larger narratives or grow into such narratives themselves.

Communications teams have never had as much data as they do today and at the same time rarely have the feeling that they are really making decisions based on it. LinkedIn Insights, media monitoring, web analytics and newsletter reports have long been established. The problem rarely lies in access.

Agentic AI is not the next AI feature. It is the question of who will still be shaping communication in five years’ time – and who will only be executing it. In a sprint group with 14 experts, the CommTech working group analyzed where the technology stands, what it means for teams – and where the real pitfalls lie.

Generative Engine Optimization is not an SEO update – but an economic stimulus package for PR. Why communicators now have the strongest cards.

The current survey in the “Strategy and impact measurement” cluster shows an exciting yet contradictory picture. The 19 participants set clear priorities: KPI frameworks, ROI calculation, AI tools for impact measurement and dashboards in particular are at the top of their agenda. These areas are seen as key levers for demonstrating the impact and value contribution of communication more convincingly in future.

Reputation is increasingly being created in AI responses. Language models bundle public discourse, categorize it and return it as seemingly objective knowledge. For communication managers, this means that they not only have to observe what is said about a company – but also what AI makes of it.

More and more people are no longer using traditional search engines to find information, but are instead relying on the answers provided by AI language models (LLMs). However, these work in a fundamentally different way to Google & Co.: they do not link to individual websites, but summarize information from numerous sources and provide an interpreted answer. This means that an AI answer is not just information, but always also an interpretation, and it is precisely this that is increasingly shaping the perception of companies, brands and topics.