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    Featured AI, fragmentation, uncertainty: what communicators need to factor in Trust and Relevance Together Unlock Brand Growth in an Insular World How can brands grow in an increasingly divided world? Discover 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Growth in an Insular World insights on trust, relevance, consumer behavior, and brand growth. KEEP READING Obama Presidential Center Reflections from the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, featuring Barack and Michelle Obama, world leaders, celebrities, and a vision for civic engagement, leadership, and community impact. KEEP READING Explore All Insights
    Insights

    Edelman Political Bulletin: What Happens Next?

    With feverish speculation about the imminent calling of a General Election – perhaps as early as 6pm this evening – the Edelman Public Affairs team assesses the likely outcomes ahead and their impact on businesses.

    While just three ultimate end states remain the same - no deal, deal, no Brexit – the former is becoming increasingly likely, and the routes to achieve them are also crystallising.

    This week will see rebel Conservatives join forces with other parties to seek to extend the Brexit deadline, while Team Johnson has vowed to eject and deselect any Tory MPs seeking to undermine his no deal position.

    It is hard to see any outcome being reached without an election being called to give the Prime Minister the majority he craves. The question is whether Labour would vote in favour of an election (which could fall in November), having spent the last three years calling for one, or whether they follow Tony Blair’s advice not to “fall into the trap” of enabling an accidental no deal.

    Buckle in for the biggest week in politics since the last. But this time we may well see the real splitting of the Conservative Party and without doubt a test of nerve on all sides.

    Click here to read the full analysis.

    Insights

    Who Shapes Health Decisions Now? Trust, AI, and Credibility in Healthcare

    Carolyn Paul, European Health Practice Chair /

    The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health shows a healthcare environment that is both familiar and newly complex. People still trust doctors and healthcare professionals. But those trusted experts now sit within a much broader information ecosystem, where AI, creators, peers, online communities, and personal experience all play a role in shaping health decisions.

    This was the focus of our recent Edelman EMEA panel, Who Shapes Health Decisions Now? Trust, Influence, and Credibility in an AI- and Creator-Driven Healthcare Ecosystem. The discussion brought together voices from across the health landscape: Alex Ruani, University College London researcher in health misinformation; Mazar Masud, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at M42; Dr Ahmed Ezzat, surgeon, creator and founder of Health Creator Leaders; and Dr Lewis Arthurton, Head of Policy and Communications at Alzheimer’s Disease International.

    One of the most striking findings in this year’s report is that the problem is not simply that people lack information. In many cases, they have too much of it. They are searching more, reading more, comparing more and turning to more sources than ever before. Yet this does not always make them feel more confident.

    As Alex Ruani said during the discussion, “We often assume that more information leads to better decisions, but the data suggests the opposite is happening right now.” She described the challenge as “less as an information deficit problem” and more of a question of information quality and navigation.

    That is an important point for health communicators. For many years, we have worked on the basis that the right information, clearly explained, will help people make better choices. That remains true, but it is no longer sufficient. People need help to work out which sources to trust, which claims to question and what a piece of information means for them personally.

    The report also challenges the idea that divisive health beliefs sit at the margins. They are more mainstream, more widespread and less predictable than many might expect. They cut across age, education and political identity. Often, they are held by people who are highly engaged with health information, not disengaged from it.

    Lewis Arthurton reflected on the long shadow of contested health information, referencing the MMR debate in the UK and its lasting consequences. “If we’re needing to now go back a quarter of a century and revisit what should be established scientific fact and understanding, how do we as a community tackle the evolving evidence landscape around dementia?”

    This is the reality facing health organisations. Trust can be lost quickly, but it is rebuilt slowly. It is also not rebuilt by assertion alone. It requires consistency, humility and a clear understanding of what people are hearing elsewhere.

    AI adds a further layer. More than a third of people in the report say they are already using AI to manage their health. Mazar Masud described this as being driven by “the need for immediate answers to questions, to interpret medical test results, to not have to wait.” This is understandable. In stretched health systems, people will look for fast, accessible guidance.

    But AI also brings questions of accuracy, privacy, safety and accountability. As Mazar said, “The trust needs to be built in this space.” Health organisations cannot afford to treat AI as a future issue. It is already part of the way many people are forming views about their health.

    Creators are now part of that same trust equation. Dr Ahmed Ezzat argued that healthcare professionals cannot be absent from the places where people are seeking information. “Doctors really should not be complacent,” he said. “We need to move the popular mass of healthcare professionals into responsible content creation.”

    His point is not that expertise should be replaced by popularity. Quite the opposite. Credible expertise needs to travel better. As Ahmed put it, “The concept of my doctor isn’t just within the four walls of a clinic room.” Trusted voices need to be present where people are already listening.

    This also means being thoughtful about who carries health messages. Reach is not the same as credibility. A large audience does not make someone the right partner. Equally, a scientific qualification alone does not guarantee that someone can communicate in a way that feels relevant and human.

    Perhaps the clearest conclusion from the panel was that health organisations need to move from being only sources of authority to becoming trusted guides. That does not mean weakening the role of expertise. It means making expertise more useful.

    Lewis made the case for grounding communication in lived experience: “Communication needs to be grounded in the reality of what people are experiencing every day.” Without that, he warned, “we lose that trust.”

    Alex captured the same point from another angle: “People are not looking to be dictated to; they are looking for guidance.”

    That is the challenge for health communicators now. We must understand who our audiences trust, where they go for information, and what assumptions they bring with them. We must work with a wider group of credible voices, including healthcare professionals, patient communities, creators, and people with lived experience. And we must communicate with clarity, empathy, and regularity.

    The answer is not to speak louder. It is to be more useful, more present and more trusted in the moments when people are trying to make decisions that matter.

    Watch the full recording of the Edelman EMEA panel to hear the complete discussion with Alex Ruani, Mazar Masud, Dr Ahmed Ezzat and Lewis Arthurton.

    Insights

    Trust and Relevance Together Unlock Brand Growth in an Insular World

    Richard Edelman /

    The new dynamic of insularity is confronting brand marketers selling to consumers unsettled by inflation, geopolitics, AI, and misinformation. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Growth in an Insular World, covering 15 nations and 17,688 respondents, finds two thirds of consumers are hesitant or unwilling to trust those with different core values, information sources, cultural backgrounds, and solutions to societal problems. These insular consumers are twice as likely to be unwilling to use brands that are associated with people who are different from them, compared to consumers with open trust mindsets.

    Growth requires attracting and retaining customers, but insularity threatens it in ways that marketers are not currently addressing. That’s because brands are being judged on the identity of who uses them, not just what they do. Brands have taken on greater social significance: over half of our respondents (54%) say that they feel a connection to people who use the same brands that they do, up eight points in the past five years. Because of that, 4 in 10 Gen Z and Millennial consumers are using brands in secret in order to avoid social stigma. Nationalism is a further extension of this tribalism, with two thirds of respondents saying that a brand being domestically headquartered is an important or critical purchase deal breaker.

    In this new context, relevance is broadened beyond utility and presence in pop culture, to include community connection, emotional resonance, and identity. In fact, our data reveals that pop culture fluency is the least effective way to achieve relevance, and yet it is often a brand’s go-to relevance ploy. Brands are failing to achieve relevance among those with an insular mindset, with a 26-point gap between performance and effectiveness on identity reflection and 21-point gap on community connection. Brands must incorporate these dimensions into their relevance strategies in ways that address consumers’ needs for security, belonging, and peace of mind.

    The combination of trust and relevance effectively doubles a brand’s growth potential in a way that neither can alone. When consumers don’t trust brands and don’t find them relevant, only 36% say they are willing to continue to use a brand that decides to start selling to people who are different from themselves. With trust alone, that number goes up to 48%. With relevance alone, that number goes up to 53%. But when consumers both trust brands and find them relevant, acceptance of selling to those who differ from them goes up to 71%.

    An earned approach is the best way to leverage an integrated trust and relevance strategy. Unpaid voices are 5x more powerful than paid brand voices for the insular when it comes to driving trust. Nearly half of the insular (46%) say that unpaid voices have the biggest impact on their willingness to trust a brand. Conversations must start within narrow trust circles. When it comes to sharing brand information, the insular trust friends and family (82%) and Someone Like Me (76%), but distrust celebrities (42%). In an insular world, brands don’t have the license to declare they are relevant and trustworthy: it must be proven out by experience.

    The central paradox of growth in 2026 is that consumers increasingly want brands to feel more personal, while brands need to become more broadly accepted and global. The answer is not micro-targeting through advertising, it is to have enough trust and relevance that consumers see the brand as a reflection of themselves while being open to sharing it with other people who are not. It is done through leveraging an earned strategy, acting as a polynational, and making an outstanding product. Brands that solve this paradox will turn insularity from a barrier of growth into a source of competitive advantage.

    Richard Edelman is CEO.

     

     

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    Insights

    Five Trends Redefining Brand Storytelling

    Alice Tchernookova /

    Across sectors, brands are facing a far more crowded environment than ever before: audiences are overwhelmed by information, sceptical of automation, and increasingly selective about where they place their trust.

    At the same time, AI tools are changing how people find, consume and share content.

    Together, these shifts are redefining what strong brand storytelling looks like. Our Editorial team in EMEA has identified five major societal trends reshaping the way we help brands tell their stories.

    Understanding them will not only help companies communicate more effectively in an increasingly fragmented landscape – it will help them stay visible, trusted and relevant as media consumption continues to evolve.

    1. Living in the Age of Insularity

    Audiences are increasingly retreating into smaller, more trusted networks. According to the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, seven in 10 people globally are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone different from themselves. Exposure to opposing viewpoints has continually declined across most markets, while trust consolidates around employers, peers and close communities.

    At the same time, expectations of business are evolving. People increasingly look to brands to play a steadier role in increasingly divided environments – not by amplifying conflict, but by encouraging cooperation and shared understanding.

    This modifies the role of storytelling. Instead of reinforcing a single viewpoint, brands should recognise different perspectives and help build trust between them. This means creating balanced thought leadership, cross-perspective features and multi-stakeholder narratives that bring different viewpoints into the same conversation. The strongest brand content creates space for nuance and common ground, recognising that in a fragmented world, trust is increasingly built through balanced perspectives rather than absolute truths.

    2. Prioritising Depth over Breadth

    Contrary to popular belief, audiences are not necessarily disengaging from content – they are simply becoming far more selective about what deserves their attention.

    Younger audiences, in particular, are increasingly overwhelmed by constant feeds and the pressure of perpetual online presence. Many Gen Z users are now posting less and are on the lookout for useful content that feels relevant to them.

    At the same time, people increasingly value expertise and insight online. Learning, expertise and curiosity are increasingly perceived as ‘status’ signals – particularly across social platforms that audiences turn to for skills, ideas and analysis rather than passive entertainment.

    For brands, this marks a significant shift in editorial strategy. Audiences are rewarding content that is focused, useful and relevant, but also content that teaches them something new, amplifies their knowledge and helps them better understand the world around them. Formats such as insight series, concise explainers, data-led storytelling and specialist analysis are gaining traction.

    In overstimulated environments, expertise often cuts through more effectively than volume.

    3. Giving a Human Edge

    As AI-generated content proliferates, audiences are becoming more sceptical about what – and who – they are engaging with. Consumers increasingly want transparency around AI use, stronger accountability and clearer signs of human judgement.

    As a result, identifiable human voices are becoming far more valuable. Authority increasingly comes from content that is attributable, accountable and grounded in real experience – from executive commentary and expert interviews to thought leadership and op-eds.

    Rather than removing humans from communications workflows, the brands building trust most effectively are leaning into expertise, recognising that in a market flooded with AI-generated content, identifiable voices are a competitive advantage.

    4. The Reign of a New Media Order

    People no longer encounter news and information through a single source. Audiences increasingly find information through feeds, recommendations, newsletters, creators and personal networks rather than centralised platforms.

    Emerging platforms such as Substack are creating new opportunities for experts, journalists and brands to build direct relationships with highly engaged audiences. These platforms reward depth, consistency and specialist knowledge.

    This means content can no longer be built for just one platform or audience: it must move effectively across various ecosystems without losing clarity or relevance.

    To meet these changing behaviours, brands are increasingly investing in short-form social content, visual storytelling and shareable commentary. At the same time, credibility is becoming more distributed, with executives, experts and employees increasingly driving reach and trust beyond corporate channels.

    In a fragmented media environment, the most effective storytelling is designed to work across multiple formats and touchpoints.

    5. Finding Needles in the (AI) Haystack

    The rise of generative AI is fundamentally changing how people find information online. Audiences are no longer just searching – they are asking AI platforms to interpret, recommend and synthesise it for them.

    This represents a paradigm shift for brands' online visibility: content now needs to be suited to both human audiences and AI platforms, which prioritise clarity, structure, authority and easy-to-reference insights.

    While earned media remains a major driver of AI visibility, senior leadership quotes and hard data significantly increase the likelihood of being surfaced in AI-generated responses. For brands, the challenge extends beyond traditional SEO to creating content that is easy to discover, reference and trust.

    In an information environment increasingly shaped by AI, visibility belongs to brands with distinctive and authoritative viewpoints.

    The Future of Brand Storytelling

    Taken together, these trends reflect a wider shift in how brands communicate. Content has now moved closer to the core of reputation building, shaping how organisations earn attention, build trust and stay relevant in an overcrowded media environment.

    The strongest editorial strategies today are grounded in credibility, clarity and originality. They prioritise human perspective over volume, substance over visibility tactics, and useful insight over corporate messaging.

    • Human-led and accountable
    • Relevant and genuinely useful
    • Designed for different platforms and formats
    • Built to travel across social and AI-driven environments
    • Rooted in expertise and clear points of view

    As algorithms continue to gain traction and audiences become more selective, the future belongs to the most trusted brands, rather than the loudest ones.

    Alice Tchernookova is Associate Director, Editorial.

    Insights

    AI is rewiring creator marketing, and most brands aren’t keeping up

    AI in marketing isn’t theoretical anymore, it’s operational. That reality was front and centre at DigiMarCon Toronto, where leaders focused on how AI is driving measurable business impact. In creator marketing, the implications are immediate and structural. The gap between organizations using AI with rigor and those using it superficially is becoming impossible to ignore.

    Let’s be clear: AI is not just making creator marketing more efficient; it’s redefining how the entire discipline operates.

    The playbook is being rewritten

    From how creators are discovered to how partnerships are structured to how performance is predicted and measured; the playbook is being rewritten in real time. Leaders who treat this as incremental change will fall behind those who recognize it as an operating shift.

    Creator discovery illustrates this point. What once relied heavily on manual identification and vetting is now powered by systems that can analyze audience quality, content patterns and brand alignment in seconds. That does more than just save time, it raises the baseline for decision-making. If your process still looks the same as it did two years ago, you’re not just behind, you’re making weaker decisions with less information.

    From instinct to accountability

    The same shift is underway across creative and performance. AI can now forecast which content is likely to resonate before it goes live and optimize campaigns as they run. This shifts the role of the marketer from subjective selection to accountable decision-making. The expectation is no longer instinct alone, but informed judgement backed by data and tied to outcomes.

    The discipline gap

    Yet many organizations remain misaligned with this reality.

    There is no shortage of AI tools in the market. There is a shortage of discipline in how they are applied. Too many teams are experimenting at the edges instead of integrating AI into the core of how Creator Marketing drives revenue and customer experience. If AI is not directly influencing who you partner with, briefing, how you optimization and measurement, it’s not a strategy. It’s a side project.

    The highest-value applications are clear and tied to business outcomes. Better creator selection. Smarter content decisions. More efficient spend. Stronger conversion. Anything else is noise.

    Scale without losing trust

    At the same time, scaling AI without clear guardrails is a mistake. Creator Marketing is built on relationships, credibility and audience trust. Creators are not interchangeable media units. They are partners whose values depends on authenticity. Applying AI without thoughtful governance risks optimizing for short-term performance while eroding long-term trust.

    That’s why governance cannot be an afterthought. It should define how AI is used, what decisions it informs and where human judgment is non-negotiable. The goal is not to replace intuition, but to sharpen it and ensure it’s applied in the right places.

    Closing the gap

    Closing the gap between experimentation and impact requires deliberate operating changes. Leaders should prioritize four actions:

    1. Integrate AI into core workflows: Apply it to creator selection, briefing, optimization and measurement. If it doesn’t shape these decisions, it’s not driving business value.
    2. Pressure-test decisions before launch: Use AI to evaluate creator fit and campaign strategy before committing.
    3. Redesign role and workflows around AI: If AI is just an extra step, it won’t stick.
    4. Invest in capability, not just tools: Platforms don’t create impact without training, standards and internal expertise.

    AI’s value comes down to execution. Insights have limited impact unless they translate into stronger briefs, more strategic partnerships and measurable results. Organizations that fail to operationalize AI will add complexity without improving performance.

    The critical divide in Creator Marketing is no longer access to AI; It’s a willingness to rethink the operating model.

    Leaders who act now will move faster, spend smarter, and win more consistently. Those who don’t will continue to frame incremental change as innovation while losing ground where it matters most.

    Gabe Mederos, Vice President of Creator Marketing.

     

    Insights

    Trust Is Turning Inward in Africa and Fracturing Along Income Lines: How Business Leaders Can Act as Brokers

    Karena Crerar /

    There is a long-standing idea across many African societies that a person does not exist in isolation, that identity is not self-contained but shaped, continuously, through others. It sits within the philosophy of Ubuntu, often expressed in the Zulu phrase ‘Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, the idea that a person is a person through other people.

    What makes this idea enduring is that it assumes a degree of openness, resting on the belief that people are, by nature, connected, and that those connections extend beyond immediate or familiar circles. There is, embedded within it, an expectation that engagement across difference is not only possible, but necessary to how societies function and how individuals come to be recognised within them.

    It is becoming more relevant to consider this now, because Africa, like much of the world, is beginning to move in a very different direction, as economic anxiety rises, geopolitical tensions become more pronounced, and technological disruption changes how people engage with information and with each other, resulting in a growing tendency towards a more insular mindset.

    The recently released 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual survey spanning 28 countries and more than 30,000 respondents, finds that globally, on average, around 70% of people are either unwilling or hesitant to trust someone whose values, information sources, problem-solving approaches, or backgrounds differ from their own, pointing to a more insular mindset taking hold. Across Africa’s major economies, similar patterns are emerging. In South Africa, 68% of people on average say they are either unwilling or hesitant to trust someone who is different from them. In Kenya, the figure stands at 66%, and in Nigeria, just over half of the population, at 51%, expresses the same reluctance.

    The issue is that those who are more inward-looking consistently express lower levels of trust in institutions, particularly where leadership does not reflect their own values or backgrounds. The Trust Barometer measures trust across business, government, media and NGOs, and what it shows is that people in the same country are not experiencing these institutions in the same way, arriving at very different conclusions about whether they are competent, whether they act fairly, and whether they can be relied on, with income, in particular, becoming a defining line in how those judgements are formed.

    In Nigeria, high-income respondents report an overall Trust Index (average percent trust in business, government, media, NGOs) of 85, firmly in the “trust” category, while low-income respondents sit at 59, at the upper end of “neutral”, leaving a 26-point gap, the highest on record for the country. This points to a growing separation in how institutions are perceived and experienced, with higher-income groups continuing to find reliability where others do not. In South Africa and Kenya, the pattern is less pronounced, but still evident. In South Africa, high-income respondents report a Trust Index of 61, compared to 53 among lower-income groups, an eight-point gap that has narrowed from earlier peaks, and in Kenya, both groups fall within the “trust” category, at 73 and 66 respectively.

    Across all three markets, higher-income respondents tend to assign stronger ratings to institutions across both competence and ethics, while lower-income groups are more cautious, and in some cases more critical. When trust is not held consistently across society, institutions lose their ability to function as shared points of reference, making it harder to build consensus and move forward on issues that require collective alignment.

    There is a way around this, however, and it is through a novel concept called trust brokering. A trust broker helps to create a path for progress and cooperation despite insularity by surfacing common interests and translating their needs, goals, and realities for one another.

    And in Africa, that responsibility is being placed squarely on employers and business leaders. More than three-quarters of employees in all three countries say employers are obligated to help bridge divides and build trust between groups that distrust one another. The same expectation extends to CEOs, with large majorities expecting business leaders to play a direct role. What stands out, however, is a clear gap between the level of obligation placed on business and how well it is perceived to be fulfilling that role, creating a more immediate onus on organisations to respond.

    What is encouraging is that people are clear about what they expect, and the actions that would make a difference are practical.

    The Trust Barometer shows strong support for creating more direct interaction between people from different backgrounds, whether within organisations or through partnerships that bring together groups that would not ordinarily engage. The idea is to allow for meaningful contact, where people are required to engage with different perspectives in ways that are constructive. There is also a clear view that teams should be structured in ways that require individuals with different values and viewpoints to work together, supported by a shared sense of identity and the ability to navigate disagreement productively.

    Leadership, in particular, is expected to play a more active role, with CEOs being asked to seek out perspectives that differ from their own and engage directly with groups that may be critical or distrustful, not to resolve disagreement immediately, but to ensure it is understood and accounted for. Done effectively, trust brokering at this level has the potential to overcome insularity and help close the income-based trust gap.

    Ubuntu assumes that people recognise themselves in one another, even where there is difference.

    What the data suggests is that this is becoming harder to sustain, as trust becomes more contained and unevenly distributed. That does not mean the principle no longer applies, but it can no longer be assumed. It has to be actively built, and African businesses are best placed to do so.

    Karena Crerar, CEO at Edelman Africa.

     

    Insights

    Trust in a Divided Environment: The Rise of Business Diplomacy

    In today’s low-trust, high-anxiety environment, business has an outsized role in bridging divides and rebuilding trust in institutions. Not because it’s perfect, but because it is often the most proximate institution in people’s lives and among the most trusted. Employers and CEOs, in particular, are seen as highly credible sources of information.

    That matters more than ever because trust isn’t just low; it’s fragmented.

    The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that seven in ten people are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who has different values and backgrounds, consumes different sources of information, or holds differing views on ideas for solving societal problems than them. At the same time, economic anxiety is pervasive, with growing concern about recession and trade conflict-related job impacts.

    Importantly, that anxiety is not evenly distributed. The data shows a widening trust gap between higher- and lower-income groups, with fundamentally different views of how institutions are performing and who they are serving. For many, the promise that innovation creates opportunity no longer feels credible.

    As economies transition toward more technology and AI-enabled models, a sizable share of people, particularly those who are lower-income, worry they will be left behind rather than realize any actual advantages. Business leaders are echoing this concern, warning that AI disruption, geopolitical instability and declining institutional trust are converging risks.

    This combination of low trust, high anxiety, and unequal experience defines today’s public affairs environment. People are not just uncertain; they are operating with a sense of personal risk. They are turning inward, relying more on their immediate networks including employers, peers and local communities, while becoming more skeptical of national and global institutions.

    For business, that creates both a challenge and a responsibility.

    The traditional model of public affairs - top-down messaging and reliance on institutional authority - is less effective in this environment. Authority alone doesn’t persuade. Proximity and relevance do. That shift is already visible in the data. Trust is increasingly local. People place more confidence in institutions and voices that are close to their day-to-day lives and less in those that feel distant or abstract.

    At the same time, there’s a clear expectation gap. Institutions are widely expected to help bridge divides, but far fewer believe they’re doing it effectively. Business, and especially employers, are uniquely positioned to close that gap.

    Increasingly, that role extends beyond communication into something closer to diplomacy. In a polarized, high-anxiety environment, there is also a growing expectation that businesses help lower the partisan temperature, bringing people together around shared interests and creating space for more constructive dialogue.

    This is where trust brokering becomes critical.

    Trust brokering is not about persuading people to change their views. It’s about creating enough shared understanding to move forward toward common goals despite differences. It means acknowledging that people have different values, sources of information and lived experiences, and translating across those differences to find common ground. Working together, rather than in opposition to one another, enables collective action, stimulates growth, and strengthens competitiveness.

    The data shows this approach works. When institutions are seen as effectively brokering trust, overall trust levels increase by 18 points among lower-income groups that tend to be the most skeptical, making their levels of trust on par with high-income.

    The reality is that trust has become a form of strategic infrastructure. Without it, even well-designed policies struggle to gain traction. With it, institutions are far better positioned to navigate complexity, economic volatility, and change.

    For business leaders, the implication is clear: trust is no longer just a reputational asset. It is an operating requirement.

    In this environment, there are three things business must get right:

    • Make it real: Connect policy and global issues to tangible local impact such as jobs, costs, security, and economic opportunity. If people can’t see how policy and action affect their daily lives, it won’t land. Multi-nationals must start behaving as multi-locals.
    • Focus on shared stakes: Avoid zero-sum or overly adversarial framing. In a high-anxiety environment, lowering the temperature matters. Emphasize what people have in common and what we’re solving for together.
    • Choose the right messengers: The messenger now matters as much as the message. Trust is built through credible, relatable voices: employees, business leaders, and experts who can translate complexity into something people understand.

    As Tip O’Neill famously said, all politics is local and in today’s environment, trust follows the same pattern. It’s earned through proximity, consistency, and action.

    And that matters, because action earns trust and trust drives growth.

    Aaron Guiterman, U.S. Head of Government & Public Affairs.

     

    Insights

    AI Search: Why Healthcare Brands Can’t Afford to Be Invisible in the Age of GEO

    Claudia Aru, Omnichannel Strategy Director /

    The rules of search have changed. As consumers increasingly turn to AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, they are no longer presented with links to information – they are receiving direct answers that sound like authoritative opinions. The emerging discipline of AI Search or Generative Engine Optimisation (AIO / GEO) is reshaping how trust, reputation, and influence are built. Visibility in AI answers can’t be bought; it must be earned. 

    Living in a Zero-Click World

    AI assistants deliver answers instantly, eliminating the traditional journey through links, websites, or comparison pages. This zero-click environment means one thing: if your brand or product does not appear in the AI-generated answer, you are effectively invisible. There is no page two.
    For industries like healthcare, where accuracy and safety are paramount, this shift is profound.

    The Human Cost of When AI Gets It Wrong

    I recently conducted a series of interviews with healthcare professionals that revealed a concerning trend: patients are arriving at appointments with product recommendations generated directly by AI systems. Often, these products are not clinically appropriate, which contributes to misinformation, patient confusion, and reputational risks for pharmaceutical organisations.

    In one particular case, a patient had used ChatGPT to research a routine medical need. The research that came back heavily featured a niche brand, while the broader, more clinically superior product did not appear at all in their results. 

    Upon hearing this, the doctor asked the patient to conduct another round of research, this time comparing the niche brand with the standard-of-care option. The patient was mortified. They realised they had been ready to use something clinically suboptimal strictly because an AI tool suggested it.

    This case study exemplifies the core problem: If your brand isn’t visible in AI search results, people may end up trusting a less accurate, less credible alternative simply because it shows up based on how they phrased the question.

    Future-Ready Organisations Need a New Approach to AI Search

    This shift isn’t just about competing for ranking. It’s about future readiness, ensuring your brand, products, and expertise are accurately represented when AI systems answer the world’s questions. It’s about shaping the narratives that AI repeats. 

    In an AI-mediated environment, earned media signals, credible coverage, expert commentary, and consistent third-party validation increasingly determine which brands are surfaced as trustworthy by AI systems. Generative systems prioritise:

    • credible, high-authority sources
    • consistent brand narratives
    • structured, clear content
    • strong earned-media signals
    • evidence-based trust cues

    Preparing for AI Search isn’t simply about tactics or optimisation. It requires reflection, responsibility, and a new set of strategic questions:

    • How accurately are we showing up in AI answers today, and what might be missing?
    • What information are AI models using about us now, and what should they be using?
    • Which topics or questions do we need AI to get right about us?
    • How will we keep track of how AI represents us as the models change?
    • How do we stay consistent globally while adapting to local ways people ask questions?

    As AI is rapidly becoming the default for health questions, product decisions, and everyday choices, healthcare brands need to monitor, shape and protect how they appear in AI-generated answers. In this environment, visibility is not just a discovery issue; it is a trust issue.

     

    Insights

    AVE is dead. For APAC CMOs, attention is what earns relevance and returns

    Delicia Tan /

    APAC CMOs do not lack data. What they lack is clarity. 

    Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) belongs to a time when exposure could be assumed to drive impact. That assumption no longer holds in APAC. The region is too diverse, too fragmented, and too platform‑led for visibility to mean very much on its own. A headline placement does not mean a message landed. Reach does not mean relevance. Volume does not mean influence. 

    Across APAC, media models have shifted faster than most measurement frameworks. Independent digital publishers, niche business titles, creators and platform‑native journalists now shape perception alongside traditional outlets. Audiences consume content across feeds, messaging apps, professional communities and closed networks. In this environment, AVE does more than oversimplify performance. It actively masks what is working. 

    This is why attention‑based metrics are gaining traction with CMOs across the region. They force a more commercially useful question: did the content earn attention, and was that attention efficient compared with other marketing investments? 

    At Edelman, we anchor measurement in the A3 framework of Attention, Attitude and Action. For APAC CMOs, this structure matters because attention is the gateway metric. Without it, nothing downstream converts. 

    The challenge is that attention behaves very differently by market. 

    In Hong Kong, a mature and highly competitive media environment now sits alongside fast‑growing digital business platforms, financial communities and closed professional networks. For many brands, especially in finance, technology and professional services, influence is no longer driven by mass exposure but by depth of readership among decision‑makers. A story that earns sustained attention in the right business circles often outperforms broader but shallow visibility. 

    In Greater China, scale is rarely the problem. Attention is. With audiences consuming content across super‑apps, platform‑native media, KOL ecosystems and private groups, attention is fragmented and highly conditional. Content competes not just with other brands, but with commerce, entertainment and peer recommendation. Attention‑based measurement helps CMOs understand which narratives genuinely hold focus across platforms and which simply register as noise. 

    In Southeast Asia, the picture is equally complex. In Malaysia, independent digital publishers and business platforms often deliver deeper engagement than larger legacy outlets. In Indonesia, scale is easy to buy, but sustained attention across platforms is not. In Singapore, influence increasingly comes from niche business titles and professional communities where depth of readership matters more than mass exposure. A single regional metric cannot capture these dynamics. 

    Attention‑based measurement changes behaviour in ways CMOs recognise. It shifts focus from volume to effectiveness. It sharpens decisions about where teams invest effort and budget. And it brings PR closer to the commercial language CMOs are accountable for, without stripping earned media of its credibility advantage. 

    But attention is not the KPI. It is the filter. Within A3, attention only matters if it leads to attitude change and, ultimately, action. Treating attention as a standalone score simply replaces one weak proxy with another. 

    For APAC CMOs, the move away from AVE is not about adopting a new metric. It is about demanding sharper accountability from communications. In a region defined by diversity, platform fragmentation and selective audiences, the question is no longer how widely a story travels. It is whether it earns attention, shapes perception, and drives outcomes that matter to the business.

     

    Delicia Tan is CEO of Edelman Singapore, Hong Kong & Taiwan.

    Insights

    AI Isn’t the Advantage, Clarity Is

    What SXSW revealed about brands navigating an AI-driven landscape /

    SXSW has long been an agenda-setting event for how brands show up in the marketplace, bringing together innovators, creators, educators and business leaders for a week-plus of conversations that signal what comes next. But the real value of SXSW isn’t on stage. It’s in the conversations it catalyzes: the hallway recaps, the debates, the insights attendees bring back to their team huddles and boardrooms. That’s what makes SXSW a bellwether for where business, brand and culture are headed next. At a moment when attention is increasingly shaped by algorithms and trust in institutions is under pressure, that signal carries more weight than ever.

    Like any conference these days, AI dominated the conversation. What stood out wasn’t its presence, but how quickly it moved beyond adoption. Far beyond.

    Across the festival, the tone was less “should we be using AI?” and more “AI is here – now what?” The dialogue has moved beyond novelty to real implications, from automated creativity to the increasing premium placed on human contribution.

    What emerged is a clearer divide: AI is accelerating the separation between brands that know who they are and those that don’t. As AI becomes ubiquitous, it stops being a differentiator and starts acting as a filter.

    When AI Is everywhere, what actually stands out?

    The conversation has reached a saturation point, and it’s reshaping what breaks through.

    At last year’s SXSW, terms like LLMs, GPTs, and AI personas still felt novel. One year later, they’ve become as commonplace as email or Slack: expected, embedded and no longer a point of differentiation.

    That shift was visible not just in the content of SXSW, but in how brands showed up. Where last year’s brand experiences leaned heavily into showcasing proprietary AI, this year’s activations signaled a shift toward distinct, differentiated brand expression.

    And that’s where the real signal starts to emerge.

    AI accelerates output, but it also widens the gap between signal and noise, making clarity the true differentiator. The brands that are clear on who they are – and, more importantly, the value they deliver – become more distinct because of it. The ones that don’t just become indistinguishable. They fall behind. In this environment, visibility is increasingly shaped by what is surfaced, cited and validated by others – not just what brands publish themselves.

    What’s holding brands back?

    SXSW made one thing clear: creativity isn’t the constraint. Execution is. What leaders pointed to was the growing tension between ideas and the systems required to act on them.

    With so many tools and services now at our disposal, falling behind can start to look like a choice. And in some cases, it is.

    AI has made it easier than ever to create and distribute content at scale. But that accessibility is also raising the bar for what actually gets seen and what earns trust. It’s not just about what brands can produce, but whether it resonates and holds up beyond the spaces they can control. This points to a deeper issue: not a gap in creativity, but a lack of clarity and alignment.

    Too often, brands have over-indexed the technology itself, allowing tools to dictate how they show up instead of grounding in the foundation of trust and credibility they’ve built over time. In AI-driven environments, visibility is shaped just as much by what brands publish as by what’s reinforced and validated by others, placing even more pressure on brands to show up in ways that earn relevance, not just attention.

    At the same time, the pace of culture has accelerated. Brands that continue to operate from a static playbook - long planning cycles, fixed messaging, prioritizing short-term certainty at the expense of long-term value - are struggling to keep up. Moving quickly is now table stakes, but speed without focus and clarity only adds to the noise.

    Organizations that are built to move with clarity and conviction show up differently – in what gets seen, what gets shared and what earns trust.

    What this means for leaders

    For business leaders, this shifts the mandate.

    It’s no longer enough to track AI adoption or how much content is being produced. The more important question is whether your brand is clear on what it stands for, and whether your organization is built to express that consistently at speed and in environments you don’t control.

    That requires a different kind of confidence – one rooted in a clear understanding of who the brand is and the trust it has built over time. Practically, that means:

    • Defining a clear, organization-wide narrative that AI can scale consistently
    • Prioritizing earned visibility and third-party validation as core measures of success
    • Building operating models that enable speed without sacrificing consistency or credibility

    In a landscape that moves at the speed of culture, safe and predictable decisions are increasingly invisible. The brands gaining traction are those willing to move with clarity and conviction – making decisions that reinforce who they are, not dilute it.

    That’s what SXSW reveals early: not just where the industry is going, but what it will demand of brands and the leaders behind them.

    If you’re still focused on how quickly your organization is adopting AI, you’re focused on the wrong thing. The brands that struggle in the next 12-18 months won’t be the ones behind on AI. They’ll be the ones unclear on who they are and unable to translate that into consistent, trusted presence in the market.

    Nick Nelson, Executive Vice President, Corporate Purpose.
    Additional contributors: Emily Chan, Emma Nash, Neven Simpson, Olivia Levada.

     

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