When some people hear the term public relations (PR), they automatically think of social media, press releases or just communicating with the public. These actions can be a part of public relations, but they don’t fully represent what the profession is really about.

Biola University Professor Carolyn Mae Kim explains, in a lecture posted to YouTube, that PR is much broader than simply promoting something, someone or an organization. She states that PR is centered on maintaining and building relationships between organizations and the people who matter to their success.

Textbook definition of PR

The textbook definition of public relations, as she describes it: “Public relations is the management of communication between an organization and its publics.”

This definition highlights several important concepts. First, it states that PR is a management function, meaning that it is involved in leadership and decision-making. PR professionals do not simply communicate messages. They help organizations make strategic decisions about how to interact with their audiences based on demographics, including age, gender, income, education and ethnicity.

Second, PR focuses on relationship-building rather than one-way communication. PR professionals want to continuously work to maintain the loop of communication.

Professor Kim emphasized the concept of publics. Publics are groups of people who are connected to an organization in some way. These groups may include media members, employees, customers, community members and investors, and the list can go on. Each public has different interests and concerns, and effective public relations requires professionals to understand these groups and respond to their needs.

Communication is listening and speaking

Professor Kim also stressed that PR is about a two-way relationship rather than just sending a message to an audience. This means that organizations have to listen to the public (or their target audience), understand their concerns and respond appropriately. The goal is not just to persuade people but to develop a lasting relationship.

She pointed to Disney as an example: Disney communicates with guests, media representatives, employees, investors and local communities. Each one of these groups has different expectations and concerns. PR helps organizations navigate these different relationships, and it ensures that communication remains effective and meaningful.

Another theme she raised throughout the lecture was the importance of trust, credibility and reputation. Trust is definitely essential because strong relationships cannot exist without it. Organizations that communicate consistently, honestly and responsibly are more likely to earn the confidence of their publics.

Credibility is earned when organizations provide accurate information and follow through on their word and commitments over time. Trust and accountability both contribute to building a positive reputation over time.

Trust, credibility and third-party validation

Sometimes people confuse PR with advertising or marketing. While there are similarities and overlaps, there are stark differences as well. PR involves research, strategic planning, relationship-building, time management, ethics, and consistency to build trust and credibility.

That trust and credibility are earned over time. It cannot be purchased, so one of the defining characteristics that makes PR different is third-party validation.  This idea is summarized in a quote that has stuck with me: “Nothing that you say about yourself will have as much impact as someone else saying it on your behalf.”

This perfectly represents PR because it is a profession built on earning trust. When others speak positively about an organization, without incentive, that message carries far more value than any advertisement ever could.

Professor Kim’s lecture shows that successful PR professionals are strategic communicators who help organizations make informed decisions to build and maintain trust.

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 Alex Austin Vollor is a recent communication graduate from Mississippi State University with a concentration in Public Relations. She is the first-ever participant of the Graduate Jump Start Program (GJSP) by Sword and the Script Media, LLC. Find her online portfolio here.

GJSP is an intensive, yet part-time, paid learning program for new graduates. The program is designed to help new college graduates develop real-world PR and business skills, build a portfolio and provide access to mentoring, while they seek a full-time position.

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Regular readers know I spend a lot of effort on these pages sorting through studies in surveys. Now that we are halfway through 2026, I’ve taken some time to go back through all of the surveys I’ve covered here and on my Substack newsletter.

There are a few themes that stand out from a B2B perspective:

• Despite the hype AI has shown lackluster results;
• The media landscape continues to fracture meriting a strategic review;
• Businesses underinvest in trust and reputation but are slowly coming around;
• Marketing and communications are seeking human connection through events; and
• Longer sales cycles ought to refocus budget spending on efficiency and CX.

That’s my assessment after curating the statistics below from my work, stepping back and trying to think through what it all points to overall. Of course, you can and should draw your own conclusions by perusing the statistics below.

These are all neatly categorized into three sections:

• PR statistics;
• Content marketing (brand journalism) statistics; and
• B2B marketing statistics.

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PR statistics halfway through 2026

1. The top priorities for PR in 2026. 561 PR professionals surveyed said their top priorities for this year are a) 73% brand awareness; b) 55% driving sales/revenue; and c) 49% improving PR measurement (source).

2. A good business reputation drives growth. Businesses that prioritize their reputation can deliver an extra 4.78% in annual shareholder value, according to a study by the global PR firm Burson. The firm assessed 66 publicly traded U.S. companies and calculated that the global value of business reputation is $7 trillion (source).

3. Event budgets grow for engagement and coverage. 93% of B2B event marketers expected their event budgets to grow in 2026, according to a survey by Event Marketer. Marketers have realized that in-person events drive customer engagement and earned media coverage (source).

4. AI citations boost PR budgets. “By 2027, mass adoption of public LLMs as a replacement for traditional search will drive a 2x increase in PR and earned media budgets,” according to Gartner (source).

5. Reporters rarely responded to pitches. More than half (54%) of reporters surveyed said they rarely responded to pitches. Why? Most pitches are not relevant. Nearly nine in 10 reporters (88%) delete pitches because they’re irrelevant to their coverage. That’s not the only reason why they might disregard a pitch (source).

6. Fewer reporters want follow-up pitches. 50% of reporters say one follow-up is ideal; 51% say follow-ups should happen between a few days after the initial pitch and up to a week later. This contrasts with findings seven years earlier, where 73% of reporters were open to follow-ups (source).

7. Challenges of a changing media landscape. 60% of PR teams surveyed “cite the rapidly shifting media landscape as their biggest challenge,” according to a Cision survey (source).

8. AI use in PR needs no prompting. More than “90% of PR teams have already integrated generative AI into their workflows,” according to a survey by Meltwater (source).

9. People don’t trust people who say, “no comment.” “When news consumers see or hear the phrase in a news story, 60% will question the story in some way, with 39% believing the person or organization is hiding something, and 35% saying it makes them trust the official less” (source).

Brand journalism and content marketing statistics halfway through 2026

10. Trust in thought leadership. 75% of decision-makers say that thought leadership is more trustworthy than many other types of content (source).

11. The unfortunate AI rule of thirds. 44% of AI citations come from the first 30% of the text in an article or blog post (source).

12. Invisible to AI. 96% of B2B companies are invisible in AI discovery (source).

13. Traditional search is still viable. 57% of B2B decision-makers use search engines during early research (source).

14. Bot traffic surpasses humans. Bots account for 57.3% of traffic compared with 42.7% for humans (source).

15. Prospects read downloaded content a week later. People who download content don’t read it until about a week later. The time between download and consumption grew from 38.5 hours in 2024 to 47.7 hours in 2025. That works out to 5.96 days, or about a week later (source).

16. Naming yourself in ‘top’ listicles depresses visibility. Websites with dozens of these self-aggrandizing ‘top’ listicles and found that search traffic has dropped noticeably: “In multiple cases, organic visibility dropped 30% to 50% within weeks. The losses were not domain-wide. They were concentrated in blog, guide, and tutorial subfolders” (source).

17. AI-generated content performs poorly. An experiment using generative AI to produce a whopping 2,000 articles and evaluating the results over 16 months found that all that AI content generated a measly 1,062 clicks (source).

B2B marketing statistics halfway through 2026

18. B2B marketing budgets are 7.8% of revenue. As a percentage of revenue, those surveyed saw a 1/10th of a percent in marketing budget increase, from 7.7% in 2025 to 7.8% in 2026. That’s “18% lower than the mean budget allocation just four years ago,” according to the firm (source).

19. It takes 62-plus touches to close a deal. The average B2B tech buyer required 62.4 touches on average, across 3.5 different marketing channels – from first touch to deal closed (source).

20. Hidden buyers influence B2B deals. Finance, Legal, and Procurement are hidden buyers that rarely show up in your sales or marketing funnel; however, they hold roughly 50% of total decision-making influence (source).

21. The prospective B2B buyer’s math. B2B buyers surveyed said they look at 7.6 vendors and whittle that down to 3.5 who make the short list. Those 3.5 who make the short list are likely to receive an RFP. In this survey, “buyers say the RFP response is the most critical factor in their final decision” (source).

22. Doubling down on customer marketing. 60% of businesses that took the 2026 CMO Survey are investing their budgets to sell more to existing customers. “This inward orientation is a consistent theme across the 2026 findings” (source).

23. No return on AI skills? 82% of B2B marketers say AI skills haven’t helped their paychecks (source).

24. Most buyers distrust sales prospecting. 61% of respondents say B2B buyers are less trusting of prospecting (source).

25. Peers are more trustworthy. 73% of B2B decision makers trust what their peers say about a company or product compared to 55% who trust vendor websites (source).

26. Where’s the return? 98% of CMOs invest in AI; just 1 in 3 see results (source)

27. Brands that improve CX grow. Brands that improve their customer experience (CX) are 2.5x more likely to grow (source).

28. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Nearly 50% of businesses fail to respond to a lead within 24 hours (source).

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CMOs are accustomed to doing more with less, but now they’ve got another ‘more’ on their to-do list, according to Gartner.

Businesses have always wanted more results from marketing with less budget, but now they also want more results, with less budget while implementing AI.

That was one of the key findings coming from the analyst firm’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey (PDF). Gartner polled 401 senior marketers in the U.S. and Europe, who work for businesses with more than $1 billion in revenue.

As a percentage of revenue, those surveyed saw a 1/10^th of a percent in marketing budget increase, from 7.7% in 2025 to 7.8% in 2026. That’s “18% lower than the mean budget allocation just four years ago,” according to the firm.

Those figures broadly match the findings from another recent survey of CMOs from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University (PDF – see page 53).

In other words, businesses want better marketing results with the same budget – that much is old news – only now add in a directive to use AI:

“CMOs must simultaneously manage constrained budgets, rising growth expectations and pressure to deliver AI-driven transformation, with limited ability to optimize all three.”

Trading marketing headcount for AI

Gartner coined a cutesy term to go with it: trilemma. They define it as “delivering more with limited resources, meeting higher expectations and addressing an urgent mandate for AI transformation.”

That’s going to be a difficult task to complete, according to the survey:

• 70% of CMOs say their “marketing processes are not yet mature enough” to implement AI; and

• CMOs invest an average of 15.3% of their marketing budget in AI.

The survey didn’t appear to ask about data readiness, which is one of the biggest obstacles to scaling AI. Its veracity is also a long-standing issue in marketing.

So what?

“This imbalance is already impacting performance, with fewer CMOs reporting that they are exceeding their targets and more falling short across acquisition, retention and ROI.”

Yet balancing the imbalance has been the superpower CMOs have developed for years. Why does that matter now in an age of AI?

“As pressure intensifies, many organizations are slipping into a defensive posture at precisely the moment when bold action is required.”

Without more marketing budget, that bold action is going to be trading AI for headcount. That’s not bold; it’s irrational because marketing shops have been running lean on staff for the last 3-4 years.

There isn’t more headcount to give up. The data isn’t ready. The processes aren’t ready. We don’t even have a solid and impartial case study – a marketing transformation – for AI at this point.

In fact, we have the opposite. There are dozens of anecdotes now describing how business functions that have laid off staff for AI – development, quality assurance and customer support – are now hiring people again because the AI fell far short of the hype.

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Use AI to scale customer connections rather than cut costs

One of the findings in the Garter survey that I think is pointed in the wrong direction is this one:

• 70% of CMOs say becoming an AI leader is a critical goal for 2026.

Being an “AI leader” isn’t a good marketing goal – that’s just ego.

People don’t buy products or stay loyal to customers because you are good at AI, they buy products because they solve problems. They don’t care if it works because of AI or pixie dust, so long as it does what the sales team promised.

They do care – and a whole lot – when they ask a question and no one responds. Or they fill out a form and wait a week to get a response. Or they call support and can’t get a human being. Or when they fill out a form and nobody responds.

The bold move here is to do the opposite of what every other business is trying to do with AI. Most businesses are trying to bluntly cut costs with AI. A better objective is to determine how to scale customer connections and margins, with modest ticks in budget growth.  

If AI improves SME productivity by 25%, the question should be ‘where can that SME apply that 25% of time to add value to customers?,’ rather than ‘where do we cut to recoup the investment?’

AI ready marketing teams get more budget

The Gartner survey didn’t ask whether or not CMOs are seeing a return from their investment in AI. It’s probably too soon for that, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

However, it does provide some hope for CMOs. Those who get their marketing processes in order seem to receive a bigger budget for AI experiments:

• 30% of CMOs say they have “developed AI readiness capabilities”;

• This cohort invests 21.3% of their marketing budgets – about 6% more than peers – to AI initiatives; and

• They “also report average marketing budgets of 8.9% of company revenue” – that’s about 1% more budget.

Keep in mind, Gartner surveyed only businesses with a billion or more in sales, so that 1% more budget is a very large number.

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B2B marketers instinctively target their marketing at decision-makers. This sounds logical and necessary. However, the over-intense focus neglects “hidden buyers” who, for reasons this study describes, can stall the sales cycle and tank deals. Those hidden buyers are buying committee participants from finance, legal and procurement.

That’s according to a “buyability” survey by the research firm NewtonX and commissioned by Bain & Company and LinkedIn. The survey polled 750 “buyers” in February 2026. To the best of my knowledge, a report wasn’t published; rather, LinkedIn and Bain each wrote about the survey separately.

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LinkedIn sets up the buyability findings this way [emphasis added]:

• Hidden buyers influence B2B deals. “Finance, Legal, and Procurement, hidden buyers, rarely show up in your funnel. But they hold roughly 50% of total decision-making influence.”

• Brand awareness and familiarity count a lot in the beginning. Further, “81% of purchases were made from vendors that ‘almost everyone’ in the buyer group already knew.”

• Trust and reputation help things along. “Vendors are 20 times more likely to be chosen when the entire buyer group knows and trusts the brand at the start of the process.”

• The track record beats performance and price. “Buyers are 3 times more likely to choose a vendor heavily recommended by peers or customers over one that promises a better product or lower price.”

• Past experience with a solution provider is gold. Buyers “are 4 times more likely to choose a vendor they have had direct success with before, because past experience is, in effect, a recommendation from themselves.”

• Fear of a mistake trumps FOMO. “40% of deals stall because the buyer group cannot agree, not because a competitor won. Buyers would rather do nothing than risk a decision that damages their career.”

The most significant factor in choosing a solution, according to LinkedIn, was this:

“I felt I could defend the decision even if it went wrong.”

In other words, the group of people who collaborate to procure a solution “are not just buying a solution. They are buying a decision they can defend.”

Among the final points LinkedIn makes about this study has nothing to do with product features or benefits:

“Buyers want to work with vendors who feel like them: same working style, same priorities, same understanding of their world.”

It’s not just the “decision-makers” who need to feel this way. It’s also the hidden buyers from other departments who will not be end users but can float or sink a deal.

And they tend to be an afterthought.

(click image for higher resolution)

B2B “loses” the deal in the beginning, not the end

Bain is more pointed in its interpretation of the survey:

“Most sales, marketing, and product executives at B2B companies think they lose deals in the final mile during evaluation, pricing, or negotiation. In reality, they often lose much earlier.”

This is the catch, too. Because B2B marketing and sales think they lose deals in the late stages:

“Companies often overinvest in late-stage sales motions but underinvest in the moments that determine whether they get a real shot at winning.”

Where’s the opportunity?

It’s much earlier in the process:

“Research continues to show that around 90% of buyers purchase from their Day 1 list, and the recent analysis by LinkedIn and Bain found that hidden buyers have half of the influence over that decision.”

(click image for higher resolution)

Practical implications for B2B marketing

“Vendors don’t need to fix everything,” according to Bain. “Rather, they need to identify and amplify the few strengths that tip decisions and ensure those strengths are visible where it counts.”

In fact, Bain provides a handy graphic that breaks out exactly what marketing needs to do [emphasis added]:

• Build buyer “confidence in functionality and meeting current and future needs”;

• Establish buyer “confidence in value relative to total cost”;

• Ensure your product is “defendable internally” among prospects;

• Demonstrate a track record of “successful execution and implementation; and

• Be “collaborative” and “responsive” in nature during the sales cycle.

These findings seem to me to substantiate conclusions drawn in other studies I’ve covered on these pages. For example, a sizable study by Dentsu found “I feel safe signing a contract with them” was the top-ranked “decision driver.”

Other studies also suggest marketing can check off many of the requirements put forth in this study by Bain and LinkedIn with a genuine focus on thought leadership.

Why?

Because when a company illustrates in thought leadership that it understands an industry – its strengths, weaknesses, problems and opportunities – buyers stand to reason their products are probably pretty good too.

The keys to effective thought leadership are well documented:

• Develop well-sourced material that informs rather than sells;

• Distinguishes your thinking and view of the world from your competition’s perspective;

• Demonstrates that your business understands your prospect’s market, business, challenges and opportunities; and

• Provides tangible examples and case studies that convey a track record.

In light of the study by Bain and LinkedIn, some of this content has to address the concerns and interests of legal and financial professionals, who work in your target market, but are not the typical decision maker or product end user.

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Two distinct trends have unfolded in the last few years that have created increased demand for PR and communications professionals: the desire for citations in generative AI and audience polarization.

That’s giving skilled communicators new opportunities to climb the corporate ladder, as a recent story in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests: The Revenge of the Publicists: How Comms Execs Stormed the C-Suite:

“After decades of feeling like the forgotten stepsisters of marketers, some CCOs [chief communications officers] are even moving up and into bigger roles that companies have long filled with finance and operations executives.”

The article describes data and anecdotes that show reporting structures and career paths have changed in several ways:

• More communication types are reporting directly to the CEO;
• More comms types are being promoted into CMO-style jobs; and
• More comms types have a chance to land the CEO role.

According to the story:

“Nearly half of chief communications officers surveyed in 2025 said they report directly to their company’s CEO, up from 40% in 2023 and 37% in 2015, according to research from executive recruiter and consulting firm Korn Ferry.”

I’ve seen other credible surveys in recent years that substantiate the general direction of this finding. The WSJ summarizes it this way:

“Communications professionals, previously relegated to the periphery, are now front and center in the C-suite, partly emboldened by CEOs’ fears that even the smallest misstep can swiftly balloon into a corporate disaster.”

That article has been on my mind for a week or so. It validates much of my thinking about the evolution of the comms role, especially in B2B technology circles.

1. Communications is a higher-level function than marketing

In B2B technology circles, PR or comms tends to report to the CMO. That’s especially true for high-growth companies that are reliant on private capital. These organizations have finite resources and runway to make a business profitable and self-reliant. They need every resource they have focused on attracting, converting and retaining customers.

Yet marketing largely speaks to two audiences: the audience they want to become customers and the audience of existing customers they’d like to keep as customers. Communications are bigger than that – there are all sorts of stakeholders that can impact a business.

That point is crystal clear in the NIMBY battles heating up over AI data centers. Companies with communications functions focused on marketing are behind on these issues. It’s certainly a problem for marketing, but it’s not a problem marketing has a lot of experience addressing.

This is what communicators are trained to address. Changing the reporting structure to the CEO, or at least a dotted line to the CEO, is essential for competently addressing such existential debates like these.

Separately, I’d add that it’s unfortunate that the WSJ uses the word “publicist” because that insinuates that the only function of PR and comms is publicity. Publicity can be a part of media relations, which is part of public relations, but “publicity” is not “PR.”  The term publicist views PR through a narrow lens that excludes many benefits the function can bring.

2. Communicators who can take on marketing duties are rare

I love to see communicators rise to the chief marketing role, for the reason just given. CMOs that grow up in comms have a wider aperture.

The problem with this role is that it takes someone special to fill these duties. Why? It’s literally a math problem. Many PR and comms professionals went this career route to avoid math, probability, statistics, and net present value. That’s one of the reasons PR measurement is such a vexing issue: people in these roles don’t have the skills or tools to measure.

Now, communications people can acquire these skills if they keep up with their own professional development. But not a lot do. A PRSA survey published last year found less than 1 in 100 PR professionals invest in professional development consistently.

So, the people who can wear a combined marketing and communications hat are rare. If you find one that can, then make an offer quickly and work to retain those people.

3. There’s a good case for having both a marketing and a comms leader

Even if you find someone with the talent to lead both marketing and communications teams, there’s still a case to keep these teams under separate leaders. Why? Both roles have added new responsibilities every year.

For example, a 2020 survey by Deloitte and the CMO Club found, “More than 50 percent of CMOs indicate they are responsible for 11 or more distinct marketing activities.” Marketing today encompasses duties – digital, CX, technology management, channel marketing – and so many more tasks on top of all the traditional duties that fall under the classic 4Ps of marketing.

It’s similar for communications professionals. The fracturing of audiences on the internet has completely upended mass communications principles taught in schools. The level of polarization is new – and tricky to navigate. Generative AI is but four years old, and many haven’t been tuned as closely since November 2022.

So, there’s a case to have both a CMO and a chief communications officer (CCO) on staff. The key, as has long been the case with sales and marketing teams, is getting these two functions, if you choose to keep them separate, to play well together in the proverbial sandbox.

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More organizations are responding to questions from reporters they don’t like with a phrase such as “no comment.” “Source refusal is now the norm, not the exception,” according to a new study by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, with help from SmithGeiger, a research firm.

The researchers polled “1,021 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who consume news at least once per week on any platform” for one perspective. They also polled “201 current and former journalism professionals” for the second part.

How often does “no comment” happen?

The Reynolds report indicated is happening with increased frequency. Some “76% of journalism professionals report having experienced a refusal to speak from a politician, government official, or organization in the past three years.”

Further, the findings are more pronounced among respondents who are still doing reporting day-to-day. “Among current reporters specifically, that number rises to nine in ten.”

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“No comment” adversely impacts trust in sources

The study, news and commentators frame this study as a threat to journalism and trust. The key concern is that readers might perceive “no comment” as a sign that a reporter didn’t put enough effort into eliciting a response.

That’s a valid concern for sure. Several previous surveys, including by Gallup and Pew, all point to years of declining trust. This survey had a similar finding on that point. More than three-quarters (77%) of adults say trust in news has waned – and 96% of journalists surveyed said the same.

However, it also has a direct impact on the sources that refuse to comment:

“When news consumers see or hear the phrase in a news story, 60% will question the story in some way with 39% believing the person or organization is hiding something, and 35% saying it makes them trust the official less.”

The report offers some verbatim comments from the adults that add context:

• “It usually means they’re avoiding the question, hiding information, or unwilling to provide answers.”

• “It means they feel pressure from the question, more to lose than gain from answering.”

• “That the press wanted the truth and the politician chose not to give it.”

• “That [no comment] means the reporter did a good job when an official says no comment. They know they are in the wrong.”

“No comment” adversely impacts trust in reporters

The lack of comment does seem to affect the perceived credibility of journalism, which is the primary point the report is trying to make:

• “Most importantly 20% of consumers will trust a story less if it has ‘no comment’ featured.”

Again, open-ended comments tell us why:

• “I feel like I’m not getting the whole story.”

• “Everyone spins the news to fit their nerve so it’s not always the full truth.”

• “They’re not telling the full truth about anything. The things we should know about are being withheld.”

The study recommends reporters include an indication of the actions they took to obtain a comment, such as the following:

• “A list of the questions the journalist would have asked if the source had responded.”

• “A link to a verifiable record of outreach attempts, including times, methods, and contact information.”

• “And a link to a pattern of past refusals by the source, documenting a history of non-cooperation.”

“No comment” lets someone else shape the news

The biggest takeaway for PR, especially for B2B organizations, is that “no comment” allows someone else to frame the story. If you don’t comment, someone else will.

This has always been the case, but it seems now the case for commenting is stronger because:

a) the public thinks you are hiding something, and

b) news organizations are going to make it abundantly clear they gave you a chance to comment, which reinforces the perception formed by the first point.

While B2B organizations don’t have rancor or political reporting, nor the same accusations of media bias, they are increasingly facing issues that intersect with the general public. Privacy, security, tax incentives for moving business, and, of course, the growing resistance to the data center build-out that’s essential to AI are prime examples.

The phrase “no comment” isn’t going to stand up in coverage of a local council meeting where residents decry plans for a new data center. The public simply won’t trust you and will feel threatened. They are going to write letters to elected officials and eventually vote in line with their perceptions.

Valid exceptions exist, but are rare

There are some valid exceptions that can’t be avoided. Ongoing litigation is one good reason, and sources and methods in the case of national security are another. In those cases, “no comment” should be followed by a clear and honest explanation.

There are also times in my career when I’ve advised avoiding a specific reporter, based on their coverage history, where a reporter didn’t give one side of the story a fair shake. Yet in B2B, these are exceptional cases, and you have to be prepared to manage the second order of effects. In other words, you really need a strong case for this to hold up in public opinion.

Most B2B businesses don’t have these types of concerns. There simply isn’t a good reason to avoid the media. Don’t miss your chance to frame issues that are directly related to your business.

The full report is a good read for PR people if you want to understand the media environment. Getting their view will enable you to be better at your job. It’s freely available here: No Comment: The Importance of Transparency in American Journalism.

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A Pew Research study published in March 2026 found “50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life.” Another 38% are equally excited and concerned. Just 10% are more excited than concerned.

Another survey by NBC News found “a majority of registered voters, 57%, said they believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits.” Just 34% said the opposite.

A third survey, this time by Quinnipiac, found 62% of Americans are either “not so excited” or “not excited at all.” In contrast, 35% of Americans are “very excited” (6%) or “somewhat excited” (29%) about AI.

These are credible surveys. It’s clear that public sentiment is turning on artificial intelligence (AI). Those numbers will grow without active engagement. That will weigh on every aspect of AI, from building data centers to selling customers on the value, to convincing workers to actually use this stuff productivity.

Some might say AI companies have lost control of the public narrative; I assess it’s a narrative of their own creation. Why? Executives at these companies have been telling the public AI is going to take their jobs and that’s not a feature people get excited about.

The AI-will-take-your-job narrative was established years ago

This isn’t a result of a misstep or public gaffe. It’s been the primary message AI companies have focused on saying for years.

Sam Altman, who allegedly co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit for the good of humanity but later changed his mind, said in 2019, “entire classes of jobs will go away and not come back.” He has since backpedaled by saying his prediction probably isn’t going to happen.

Yet that neural pathway in the collective consciousness has been paved for six years. It’s going to be really hard to change minds. You might be able to amend an answer in a court of law, as Altman did in recent testimony in response to a question about his truthfulness by a hostile lawyer, but the court of public opinion is rarely so permissive.

Add to it the fact that other AI executives continue to repeat the notion that AI is going to take everyone’s job over and over and over. Be careful what you tell people because they just might believe you.

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Issue after issue piles on that narrative

The technology community has reinforced this notion with tens of thousands of layoffs they attribute to AI. Some pundits say these layoffs are just a convenient excuse for poor business decisions and overstaffing. Either way, a public that generally reacts to headlines isn’t going to deliberate such nuance.

A laundry list of public concerns has followed: trust in the integrity of AI answers, privacy and surveillance issues, energy consumption driving up costs, water consumption to cool data centers, and, I’d contend, a constant drumbeat of hype that’s manifesting as “AI fatigue.”

Some of the AI projects put in place have failed. For example, AI was going to replace customer service, yet one study found 74% of enterprises have rolled back these initiatives because they aren’t working.

Even the Pope has weighed in with moral concerns. About one in five Americans is Catholic. That rural town where AI companies would like to put their next data center? There’s a good chance their only regional hospital is run by a Catholic charity. About 70% of citizens of that faith voted in the last Presidential election.

Skynet is an economic hitman

Alex Kantrowitz summarized some of the problems for a piece in CMSwire: AI has a public relations emergency – and it’s getting worse. He produced the nearby chart, which does a nice job of segmenting a partial list of AI issues by audience.

In his piece, he cites Marc Andreessen’s discharge of many of these issues in his recent podcast interview with Joe Rogan. I listened to that podcast, too. Andreessen is a genius and I want to understand his perspective but was surprised by his dismissiveness.

Energy costs? No problem. Data centers will bring mini-nuke plants. That sounds good. I think nuclear power is the way to go, too. Even as an advocate with a major nuclear facility about an hour away from my residence today, I’m not sure I’d want a miniature one in my backyard. Would he?

Water usage? Not true, he said. The Brookings Institution, which leans left, has a different view:

“A typical data center uses 300,000 gallons of water each day (equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households), but large data centers can use an estimated 5 million gallons of water each day, equivalent to the needs of a town of up to 50,000 residents.”

Maybe the former Netscape co-founder is right. Maybe Brookings is right. In either case, the number of news stories about water rights battles – outside of cooling AI data centers – has grown in recent years. So, it’s an issue that comes with existing baggage. It’s already a hot-button issue.

Moreover, AI advocates are going to have to make that case, in this context, to a public that has already made up its mind about the benefits and drawbacks of AI. And he and others seem to think those objections can just be easily brushed aside; NIMBY is a formidable opponent.

The fact remains, from a public perception perspective, these AI companies are asking Americans to adjust to higher energy and water costs for tech innovation they’ve been told will take their job. That message is infinitely easier to understand and far more likely to land. It has landed.

Brush concerns aside at your own peril. That’s what people think: the real-life version of Skynet isn’t coming with guns blazing; it’s an economic hitman.

(click image for higher resolution) 

Pragmatic messaging changes

Technology providers have long shifted between two primary messages dictated by economic conditions. When times are good, the benefits espoused center on revenue growth and market share. When economic times are weak, the focus shifts to cost-savings and efficiency.

Much of the messaging AI companies have broadcast has been focused on the latter with the intention of soliciting investors and securing early corporate customers. It’s clearly done well to achieve that goal, but it’s created second- and third-order effects they have to deal with now.

“Now” is a strange time – a seemingly perpetual state of uncertainty for years. Uncertainty seems to call for a message that focuses on cost-cutting. If businesses were the only stakeholders, that would be the logical choice, but they aren’t and the messaging needs to reflect that.

Reinvest the time saved by AI

Some might say, but what if it’s true? AI really is going to take jobs, and we shouldn’t dance around that fact.

For sure, change is coming. Some jobs will go away. But it’s more akin to arbitrage than dissolution. Every technological innovation since the Industrial Revolution has ended some jobs and created many more new ones. The evidence suggests that’s going to be the case with AI.

Case in point? Software developers’ jobs, which were one of the prime functions AI would allegedly eliminate, have surged this year:

“Data from TrueUp, a tech hiring analytics firm, shows more than 67,000 software engineering job openings, the highest level in over three years. Listings have roughly doubled since a trough in mid-2023.”

The previous messaging has been unduly alarmist, and it needs to shift to pragmatism. Put the cup of Kool-Aid down and slowly back away. The focus has to shift to productivity, value creation and the new jobs AI is going to create.

During a recent keynote presentation by Jay Baer, which I had the chance to watch, he said AI could save customer service agents 25% of their time; rather than seeing that as a chance to cut staff and save money, that time should be reinvested in the customer.

At the moment, that’s a competitive opportunity that completely flips the message. Such a message stands out because it’s different, not because it’s shouted louder.

Imagine the realized gains in loyalty and customer marketing potential if those customer-facing AI projects had been rolled out this way instead. Good customer service is great marketing.

It turns out that AI does have a finite runway

The mess AI companies have made with their misguided messaging couldn’t be unfolding at a more inconvenient time. Corporate America is rationing AI usage over spiking costs and questionable ROI. Investors are going to follow suit.

It’s an incredibly expensive market to compete in and much of the market traction has been made on investment dollars rather than retained earnings. Maybe some of these companies can hold out by following the Amazon strategy – delaying profitability for years in pursuit of market share – but it’s not going to be all of them.

We couldn’t see the end of the runway when this all started in November of 2022, but four years later, it’s becoming quite evident there is a finite amount of tarmac. I’m not saying it’s a bubble, but the parallels to dot-com, as many have observed, are strikingly similar.

While every new technology that brings change will have detractors, this particular problem, I assess, is one of the AI companies’ own creation.

The fix starts with a listening tour, not a messaging exercise

I think it’s fixable, but it’s going to take more than words. And patience. And time.

The instinct from AI companies is to counter with facts and stats championing the benefits. They need to resist that urge; it will only feed resistance because it contradicts what these same companies have been saying, repeatedly, over a long period of time. Small-town American resistance works like lighter fluid to a media flame; everyone loves to root for the underdog.

My PR instincts would be to tap into the wave of populism, especially in rural America, which is foreign to the leanings of Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. Like the space race, it’s exceedingly important that the U.S. win the AI race. But you can’t run on instincts; it has to be researched, refined and, most importantly, pressure-tested. This isn’t a marketing effort or a PR initiative; it’s a grass-roots political campaign.

The starting point isn’t a messaging exercise; it’s a listening tour. AI leaders need to talk to ordinary people in rural America where they want to build their data centers. They must be willing to listen and be receptive to criticisms that they are unaccustomed to hearing.

And they need to do it with grace and humility and action.

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The central benefit of public relations (PR) comes from the credibility of a message shared through a third-party. As I’ve long quipped, nothing you say about yourself has the credibility of someone else saying it about you. Why? Because at the most basic level, a third-party has less incentive to say nice things unless they are actually warranted,

Many of my peers will argue that third-party validation is limited to specific PR duties, like media relations or analyst relations, where the effort produces favorable mentions in news or market research reports. PR is a bigger category than just media relations.

I agree with the latter but have a different perspective on the former. I believe community relations, investor relations, social media and content marketing, which may be better described as “brand journalism,” all rely on third-party validation.

When PR efforts facilitate community interaction – that’s word-of-mouth – arguably the most valuable form of third-party validations. Ditto for investor relations or the content that gets shared, or better still cited with links, mentions and search results. Those are all signals of third-party validation, both for humans and the algorithms that decide what content to show you are factoring. People might say retweets are not endorsements, but such disclaimers can’t override Kahneman’s System 1.

So, in my mind, third-party validation is what sets PR apart from any other marketing or communications activity. It’s essential to the definition. It’s also what makes measurement so vexing: linking the influence of a third-party output to a behavior change is hard, because it’s virtually impossible to isolate that influence from other factors. And, collectively, these things are what make PR so valuable; third-party validation, by definition, has to be earned and cannot be purchased.

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Do AI mentions offer third-party validation?

AI visibility is giving PR a moment. Many big industry thinkers predicted last December that generative AI would make PR a priority this year. That’s largely come true. Just like Google supplanted newspapers as the new front page, so too are LLMs becoming the new-new front page. Even Gartner, the technology analyst firm, chimed in on PR’s opportunity in the AI era.

Certainly, citations in AI searches are similar to mentions in media and analyst reports, which is becoming the de facto measurement practice. Yet there’s something else that’s happening that hints at a more profound behavior change: the AI audio interface is being used to win friendly arguments.

People have friendly arguments all the time. The old way of resolving a disagreement or establishing facts was a Google search. Today, it’s increasingly becoming the voice AI interface. For example, a disagreement over who was POTUS in 1982 is easily solved, with “Hey, Grok, who was President in 1982?”

The machine will read back the answer and it’s accepted as fact. That’s an amazing behavior change when you pause to think about what’s happening. One side of the argument knew the answer, but no matter how deft an orator – the other side wouldn’t accept it as fact from that source – but it would accept it if from AI.

Examples of third-party validation don’t get clearer than that one; there are a gazillion conversations like that happening every day. I find it to be simultaneously an unnerving idea and a business opportunity. Similarly, the capabilities of AI are way overhyped, but at the same time, it’s also having a gradual, yet profound, influence on human behavior.

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This is an age-old question in media relations: Should you take an interview with a publication that has a small audience?

While there could be valid strategic reasons for declining, my answer is usually a resounding “yes,” for most companies.

Sarah Evans recently dusted the question off for the AI visibility era in a LinkedIn post. The post suggests you should take an interview if AI searches pull content from those outlets.

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More specifically, she recommends accepting an interview if any two of the four following conditions apply:

• The outlet’s audience is related to your target market;
• The outlet is cited by an LLM;
• The outlet produces a transcript; and
• The interview request is recent.

She goes on, in the post, to show why one little interview can have second- and third-order effects for visibility.

The first condition – if the outlet is related to your target market – is enough for me. I’d offer several reasons why.

1. A mention in a small publication is still social proof

Media relations is harder than they’ve ever been. There are fewer reporters inundated with pitches. You’ve got to get started somewhere, or if you’re started, keep the momentum going. A placement in a small audience publication suggests your ideas are worth covering.

This applies beyond traditional media, too. The same consideration should be given to podcasts, blogs and other sites managed by independent reporters, influencers and content creators.

That can lead to additional coverage, and I encourage organizations to actively build on those successes and amplify earned coverage: what you do with a media mention after earning it counts for as much as getting it in the first place.

2. Relationships – reporters at small pubs move on to big pubs

Too many in PR overplay the strength of relationships they have with reporters – but this is a genuine opportunity. Reporters who work for small publications, especially those just starting in their careers, tend to go on to work for larger publications later.

This is a golden opportunity to foster a bona fide relationship.

3. Influence the influencers

If the outlet is in your target market, chances are other reporters and influencers interested in that same market read those smaller publications. It’s a chance to reach a segment of potential customers – and influence the influencers – to get on their radar.

4. Every interview is good practice

Media interviews don’t come along every day. It takes practice to get good at delivering messages and answering questions. Every interview is a chance to get practice in – but only if you take it seriously and prepare.

The number one task to do before an interview is to take a few minutes to clear your mind and focus on the topic of the interview. The modern office worker is jumping from meeting-to-meeting and from task-to-task, so it’s crucial to hit the pause button and collect your thoughts.

The risks of refusing a small audience interview

Sarah closes her post with the “cost” of refusal. Refusing an interview, regardless of size, is effectively like opting out of the potential for AI visibility: “The AI systems will remember when you said nothing.”

The bigger risk in my book is the human element: “The editors will remember when you said no.” And so too will the independent influencers and creators.

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The average B2B technology buyer required 62.4 touches, across an average of 3.5 different channels, to close a deal.

That’s according to benchmarking data analyzed by Dreamdata. The company provides marketing attribution software that analyzes marketing and sales data to provide view into the time and effort it takes to persuade a B2B buyer to purchase a given technology.

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It’s important to note this is not survey data, but behavioral data based on an analysis of 414 B2B companies using the Dreamdata platform.

I’ve previously summarized findings from five different reports on the same topic and these benchmarks seem to be comparable. You can find that piece here: How many touches or interactions does it take to attract and close B2B prospects?

1. First touch to conversion

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 34 days from the first touch to convert a potential buyer into a potential prospect.

2. First touch to sales opportunity

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 84 days from first touch to turn a prospect into a real sales opportunity.

3. First touch to deal-closed

It takes B2B organizations, on average, 192 days from first touch to close a deal.

4. Large organizations move more slowly

Large companies, defined as those with 250 or more employees, require an average of 242 days from first touch to deal-closed. Smaller companies, defined as those with 50 or fewer employees, require an average of 147 days. In other words, the marketing-to-sales progression moves about 61% more slowly in large organizations.

5. European companies move more slowly than U.S.

A similar effect can be seen when looking at the data by geography. European companies take an average of 199 days from first touch to deal-closed – compared to an average of 177 days for U.S.-based companies.

6. Marketing-to-sales progression by channel

The report also offers a look at this cycle based on the channel that first touched a potential buyer.

• First touch: review sites. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider on a review site went from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 70 days.

• First touch: paid media. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider from paid media, when from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 87 days.

• First touch: social media. Buyers who first engaged with information about a solution provider from social media, when from converting to a prospect, to deal-closed, on average in 222 days.

This is a correlation, and correlation may not be causation. For example, buyers looking for solutions on a review site are likely well into their research phase, so while the average cycle time seems lower, chances are the solution provider was unaware of until the inquiry came in from a review site.

7. Size of the buying committee

B2B organizations have committees that review potential technologies for procurement, and the average buying committee has 6.3 people on it.

About the Dreamdata report

At just eight pages long, full report is a quick read and contains several other useful benchmarks. It’s available for download here: 10 B2B benchmarks you must know.

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Image credit: Google Gemini and respective study

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