If you work in PR or marketing, you can probably feel it already: the ground is shifting. AI is everywhere, attention is harder to earn and audiences are more discerning than ever.
With those changes in mind, I asked the Luminous team to share their pr predictions for the year ahead – what’s changing, what’s emerging and what leaders need to prepare for now. Here’s what they had to say…
AI-driven search behaviour will force brands to rethink visibility
If there’s one shift that will define 2026, it’s the maturing of generative search. In Kirsty’s recent article about Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), she explored how tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are already changing the way people discover brands. That shift is only going to accelerate.
AI search engines will increasingly summarise, interpret and recommend – becoming the first point of research for customers, investors and journalists. And that means the brands that win visibility won’t be the ones who gamed an algorithm, but the ones who’ve built a strong, consistent body of written authority.
In 2026, expect GEO to move from “emerging concept” to a core strategic consideration. Founders will need clearer viewpoints. Companies will need sharper messaging. And PR will sit at the centre of it – ensuring that when generative engines pull answers from across the web, your brand’s story is the one that surfaces.
Learn more about using PR for AI search (GEO).
2026: the year of strategic focus for agencies
Let’s not beat around the bush… agency life was somewhat testing in 2025. Competition has been fierce, purse strings have tightened and standing out has never been more challenging.
It’s impossible not to notice how the agency landscape is evolving. And as the person responsible for lead generation at Luminous PR, I can only describe this as feeling like I’m running on a hamster wheel without stopping. (It’s a good job I completed my first 5k race in 2025, then!)
However… I believe in 2026, the agencies that will thrive will not be the ones taking on more, but the ones doubling down on what they do best.
Sustainable growth will come from focus. From working with clients who are the right fit for your agency. And from resisting the temptation of additional revenue that may not align fully with your team’s strengths, values or expertise.
In a crowded market, clarity will become an agency’s competitive advantage. Agencies that know who they are – and more importantly, who they are not – will stand out. Why? They have the results to prove their impact.
This isn’t about playing small or avoiding ambition. Ambition is essential. But the smarter agencies will weigh every opportunity against its true cost: the time, the energy, the distraction and the impact on team focus.
In 2026, success won’t come from saying yes to everything, it will come from having the confidence to focus and the discipline to choose wisely.
Editors will crack down on AI-written thought leadership
We’ve already seen more editors quietly tightening their standards when it comes to thought leadership contributions, and Jen, our Head of Content, sees these rules getting much stricter in 2026.
As well as more and more publications explicitly stating that contributed articles must not be generated by AI, we can expect far more editors to run submissions through AI-detection tools.
This has nothing to do with curiosity, but is because recent AI failures have made them wary of anything that could damage credibility, introduce risk or waste time.
Take the recent Deloitte AI fallout, where the firm was ordered to repay fees to the Albanese Government after “hallucinations” were found in a $440,000 report that Deloitte admitted had been partially generated using AI.
Not only did Deloitte issue a partial refund, but the Australian Government also said it was considering stricter AI clauses in consultancy contracts.
While that example centres on public-sector consultancy, it sends a clear message to the media: if AI struggles with factual accuracy when all it needs to do is report, why would an editor trust it with original thinking?
Of course, publications clearly don’t want to publish something that’s inaccurate, copied or unverifiable. But besides the extra verification work they’d need to put in to catch any hallucinated stats, misquoted sources or invented examples, they also don’t want copy that reads the same as everyone else’s. AI-written thought leadership tends to flatten tone, remove nuance and produce generic “expertise” that adds nothing and lacks lived experience.
Journalists can immediately spot pieces with no genuine perspective, no story and no human insight, but they can also make use of increasingly sophisticated AI-detection tools.
The end result of this shift will see AI-written copy increasingly rejected before it ever reaches publication – which doesn’t just waste time, but damages those precious and hard-to-build journalist-PR-client relationships.
In short, 2026 will be the year the media draws a firmer line. Editors want authentic, human perspective and they’re increasingly ready to test for it.
The overdue rise of AI governance
Almost every business in the UK is now using artificial intelligence in some capacity, but staggering research from Trustmarque suggests that only 8% have fully embedded AI governance. Just over half (54%) admit to having no AI risk policies at all.
A reckoning is coming, says Head of Digital Marketing David Biggins. It’s no longer just developers and marketing teams using AI; its use is spreading into every department, from customer service all the way up to the boardroom.
But the speed of take-up isn’t matching the speed of education, so not everyone using the technology knows about the downsides, whether that’s producing robotic copywriting or work that has mistakes.
And this is precisely why not having any AI governance is so incredibly dangerous. There are just so many risks that come from the uncontrolled use of AI, particularly with generative AI chatbots, which just about anyone can access.
Think of this uncontrolled use of AI throughout your whole organisation: customer service emails, job descriptions, LinkedIn posts, quotes for press releases, internal emails, new business pitches, performance reviews, training manuals… all entirely written by AI chatbots. It’s not a world many of us want to live in, and, more importantly, it’s unlikely to boost business productivity.
In short, 2026 could be the year of even more uncontrolled AI experimentation, with a lot of messy fallout. However, David thinks it’s more likely that the result will be that businesses start putting proper policies and training in place. Because no one wants to find themselves in a situation where, even within the walls of their own building, a company isn’t sure what’s AI and what’s human.
Increased personalisation
Marketing consultant Lucy Mowatt predicts that 2026 will see AI become part of almost everything marketing teams do. As a result, personalisation will keep getting sharper as brands learn to use data more intelligently and integrate it with AI in order to deliver personal experiences that keep customers and prospects engaged with tailored content.
At the same time, we’ll see a reaction to the sheer volume of “AI slop” that’s populating the web. Brands that want to stand out will invest in original thinking – unique research, lived experience, real insight and bold creative ideas – rather than using collateral that’s been scraped together by an LLM.
That reaction will also mean authenticity and personal branding will be more important than ever, especially on social media. Expect more video, more faces and more unpolished moments designed to feel real.
The brands that cut through next year won’t be the ones churning out the most content; they’ll be the ones pairing the efficiency of AI with genuinely human messaging.
Get in touch
Want 2026 to be the year you achieve your goals? Drop me a line to discuss your PR and marketing for the year ahead. Simply drop us a line to arrange a call today.
By Amanda Bunn
Amanda is a strategic communications leader with over two decades’ of experience delivering award-winning PR campaigns for global consumer brands to helping ambitious startups build brand awareness, authority and momentum.
Meet Amanda
