It’s possible that navigating the future, at least in the short-term, for many industries is getting easier given the availability of increasingly sophisticated technology and real-time data. What about our own industry? Which trends impacting PR will stick? How will we secure and keep our seats at the top table? What will keep funding for PR intact? For answers, I talked with Arun Sudhaman, CEO of the PRomise Foundation, founding editor of Earned First and, overall, a guy with a long history working in, watching and writing about PR and Comms.
First off, and of no surprise, we agreed that a significant driver for growth within the PR industry now and in the future will come from AI. Indeed, many of us are already using predictive analytics to anticipate stakeholder behavior, optimise our campaigns and personalise interactions. But differentiating with new AI offerings won’t be enough. Instead, the internal teams and agencies that win will offer value propositions that couple the most advanced data tools and capabilities with their human abilities to unlock what’s most germane about the information to the business, and then communicate this to leaders in a way they can immediately see as impactful.
“There are a lot of products out there. Anyone can sell these and probably use them. The difference is the insights we bring to predictive data, our ability to weight findings appropriately, identify and leverage their relevance and share it in compelling business language,” said Arun.
Broadly, we both believe PR is now, and ideally will always be, a business-critical function. Equally, the uncertainties of the world–political, societal or economic–, or shifting stakeholder expectations and demands, require us to stay abreast, if not ahead, of the important trends that help us know when to pivot, transition or even reinvent in order to contribute unequivocal value. Here are a few considerations:
The world is becoming more local. The one-size, fit-for-purpose model doesn’t work anymore. While there are commonalities in certain areas among stakeholders living in different geographies, cultural contexts and sensibilities matter. Further, and along these lines, the future of PR will not necessarily be driven from the West. “Practitioners from Asia, the Middle East and Africa are increasingly playing a leading role vs. following the Western playbook,” said Arun.
The shift to the individual creator is happening in the B2B world, reflecting the ongoing evolution of the media model. ‘This is really quite attractive,” said Arun, “opening up a whole different approach to content, publication, frequency and platform.”
It will be up to PR practitioners to demonstrate value as a ‘must have’ function that contributes directly to business objectives. Arun used as a reference point the rise to prominence of the PR function during COVID. “It seems that could have been transient, which I find quite worrying as it subjects PR to being perceived as a cost-center potentially subject to reduction or disbanding at any given time. It comes down to the age-old question of how we continue to demonstrate value and business impact.” It is up to us to reframe (if necessary) why what we do matters and then to remind leaders of this again and again, apart from crisis or issues management, through counsel and deliverables that could only come from strategic comms.
A new PR vocabulary is key. Arun points out that PR doesn’t have a shared vocabulary that enable us to uniformly demonstrate our worth to the boardroom, though he hastens to add that those that have landed on a bespoke language and measurable business outcomes have been and will likely continue to be most successful. In my own work in the healthcare space, we’ve increasingly come to the table with ideas presented in the language our stakeholders recognise. For example, I have never used the words ‘low funnel’ more than in the first half of 2025.
(NOTE: A report by United Minds discussed at the World Economic Forum in 2025 called for CCOs to be business experts first, communications experts second. Readers can find more in an interview with Preeti Binoy, Head Corporate Communications & Government Affairs at Kimberly-Clark featured in another Shifting Sands column here)
Simple metrics are best. At this moment, comms doesn’t offer simple metrics, according to Arun, who explained that we tend to measure in ‘signals and indicators.’ Most efforts to quantify ‘reputation’ are a good example. Now and looking ahead, we’ll need to be able to better process these signals and link them to business outcomes.
Things are moving fast, but the future belongs to PR practitioners who keep pace and spot the trends, the needs as well as the untapped market opportunities. They’re there. Regarding AI, much as we are entranced by it and the ability to sell related products and services, our ‘special sauce’ will always be what we make of the data and predictions AI enable us to see faster and more precisely and then use the information in a way that underscores our value to leaders using a vocabulary that resonates.
In the words of the inimitable Dolly Parton, “The magic is inside us, there ain’t no crystal ball.”
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
