Crafting the right message to reach core audiences has always been a foundational pillar of strategic public relations and marketing. But a communications strategy driven by intentional, human storytellers must now prevail in a landscape that has changed so much, it makes Windows 95 seem like it was just last year.
Today, business leaders are facing a dual challenge: navigating tight economic conditions and managing the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into daily communications.
When corporate belts tighten, marketing and advertising budgets are historically the first to take a hit. But today, generative AI platforms are fundamentally changing how brands are discovered while simultaneously mucking up the marketplace with automated content. It takes a highly strategic eye to rise above this colossal volume of noise and ensure your content is actually showing up where people are looking, so your brand is not only trusted but discovered.
How Can Brands Improve Their Influence?
We decided to check the global pulse. Ghidotti is a proud member of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN), a group of 50+ public relations agencies around the globe well versed in reputation management. PRGN recently completed its 2026 Influence Insights Survey, gathering data from more than 1,800 business, marketing and communications professionals across 48 countries.
The findings confirm a reality we lean into every day at Ghidotti: brand influence remains universally mission-critical. In fact, 90% of global respondents rate it as extremely or very important to organizational success, and 70% expect its importance to increase over the next three to five years.
Yet, the data also reveals a glaring execution gap: only 17% say their organization’s approach to brand influence exceeds expectations, while 41% report that it needs improvement.
This disconnect represents a massive opportunity for forward-thinking brands to close this performance gap and lead with intention.
Navigating the Economics of Influence
Strategic brand management does not happen in a vacuum. When economic anxiety ripples through a company, the pressure to deliver immediate, short-term survival metrics can easily derail your long-term vision:
- Justifying the Investment: Long-term brand investments are much harder to justify for 30% of professionals.
- Budget Constraints: Reduced marketing and advertising budgets are actively limiting reach and visibility for 26% of organizations.
- The Pivot to Retention and ROI: To adapt, 23% of companies are prioritizing customer retention, while 21% are shifting to lower-cost tactics and emphasizing ROI in their messaging.
Tough economic times can tempt leadership teams to pull back on visibility, but savvy brands know that market anxiety also shifts customer behavior. Buyers lean almost exclusively on brands they know they can trust. When budgets are tight, 22% of organizations benefit from this behavioral shift, and they do it by making their human presence and message count.
The AI White Noise and the Earned Media Solution
Artificial intelligence has turned everyone with a laptop into a high-volume publisher and undeniably accelerated the speed of communications, with 48% of survey respondents noting content creation efficiency.
Unfortunately, Newton’s third law kicked in hard, and AI-generated content has flooded digital spaces, prompting 32% of brand leaders to flag its negative impact on standing out from competitors. At the same time, 30% of leaders cite the dark side of AI as a major concern, with deepfakes and the spread of misinformation directly threatening audience trust.
When anyone can generate a polished article in seconds, the premium shifts away from automated output and straight toward independent, human validation. To break through the noise, forward-thinking brands need to lean on their two most powerful credibility assets:
- Reputable Earned Media
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- At 68%, earned media comfortably outpaces paid media, owned media and influencer partnerships as a high-impact channel for building brand influence, providing the objective proof automated content lacks.
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Independent data from the Generative Pulse report confirms that earned media drives a staggering 84% of all AI citations across platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, while paid content accounts for just 0.3%.
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- In the age of generative search engines, consistent third-party coverage is actually what feeds the algorithms, directly informing how AI platforms summarize, categorize and recommend your brand to potential customers.
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- Executive Voices and the Workforce
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- While 68% of professionals view employees as their most trusted messengers, employee advocacy accounts for just 44% of actual channel impact. That’s a lot of organic trust to leave untapped. Audiences are hungry for peer-to-peer validation and executive authenticity.
- If your C-Suite members aren’t leading the conversation externally and internal teams aren’t equipped to share the brand story, your communication strategy will not carry the weight it should.
Key Takeaways
Shiny new tools are great to a certain extent, but they haven’t rewritten human nature. Even with shifting platforms, the foundational drivers of brand influence have not changed, and communicators are pointing back to the core fundamentals:
- The Top Drivers: Trust (60%) and reputation (57%) are still the clear priorities when it comes to what actually shapes influence.
- The Authenticity Premium: At 47%, authenticity follows closely behind, outpacing digital presence and emotional connection.
- The Accountability Metric: Customer loyalty remains the leading indicator organizations use to gauge influence at 28%.
The instinct for a lot of brands is to chase a trending topic or rely on a marketing stunt to spike the numbers, but real influence is a reflection of consistent behavior and long-term transparency.
The Bottom Line
As strategic communications partners, our job is to help organizations move past the automated noise, lead with transparency and anchor their message in real-world proof. By prioritizing human judgment, executive thought leadership and reputable earned media, you can bridge the strategy gap, amplify your brand’s voice where it will be heard and turn influence into your greatest long-term strength.