Your CEO wants more coverage. Your team wants to know whether AI will take their jobs. Your audience wants to know whether anything your company says is true.

This is the uncomfortable position PR finds itself in. We have extraordinary new tools for producing messages, just as the authority of the people delivering them is being questioned.

The trust problem is real, although it needs describing accurately. Business remains the most trusted of the four institutions in Edelman's 2026 survey. Yet its 2025 report found 68% worried that business leaders deliberately mislead people, up 12 percentage points since 2021. Trust in business does not mean automatic belief in its spokesperson.

Younger audiences sharpen the challenge. A 2026 survey of 2,000 Americans aged 18–28 found 72% trusted customer reviews when judging a brand's credibility. Only 46% trusted PR campaigns, stunts and branded activities. This is one US survey, but the warning is clear: the official message competes with people who have used the product, worked inside the company or checked the claim.

Meanwhile, inside communications teams, there is what I call "Anx-AI-ety". Will my skills still matter? Is another agency doing this faster? Am I falling behind? The symptom is FOLO: fear of losing out.

The temptation is to demonstrate progress through production. More posts. Faster releases. Cheaper reports. Another AI subscription. Everyone looks busier and more modern. Whether anyone believes us remains unclear.

That is why the measurement debate has become urgent. If AI helps us produce ten times more, we need to explain what became ten times more valuable.

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