Article | Edelman

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer confirms a defining shift in how trust operates: it is no longer expanding outward — it is contracting inward.

This year’s data shows that on average, 7 in 10 people globally are insular in their daily lives. They are turning toward smaller, values-aligned inner circles to determine what to believe, who to support, and where to engage. If someone — or some brand — does not share their values, sources, approaches to societal problems, or their background, they are simply not invited in.

For decades, scale was the dominant strategy. Reach signaled relevance. Visibility implied credibility. The larger the audience, the greater the assumed impact.

Insularity disrupts that equation.

In an environment where individuals increasingly rely on their inner circles, broadcasting louder does not build trust. It often reinforces skepticism. Mass messaging struggles to penetrate communities that have become more discerning about who belongs and who does not.

Trust is no longer built in the crowd. It is earned in the circle.

This is where Creators play a defining role.

Creators are not simply content distributors. At their best, they are brokers of trust. They cultivate communities over time, grounded in shared values, lived experience, and ongoing dialogue. Their influence is not derived solely from scale, but from the communities they’ve built.

In an insular environment, proximity matters more than popularity. That distinction is critical.

As trust becomes more values-based, alignment outweighs audience size. A Creator with a highly engaged niche community can often drive more meaningful action than a personality with broad but shallow visibility. Consider a simple example: I am far more likely to follow a Creator with 30,000 followers whose values align with mine and who shares my interests than a Creator with millions of followers whose worldview feels misaligned. The smaller Creator may have less reach but within their community, trust runs deeper.

However, the role of Creators in this moment goes beyond simply operating within insular communities. They also have the power to responsibly expand them.

When brands partner with Trusted Creators, they are not merely renting reach, they are being introduced to new audiences. And that introduction carries weight.

Creators can help brands enter conversations they would not otherwise be invited into. More importantly, they can help bridge perspectives. While communities may be insular, they are not immovable. Trusted voices within them can introduce new ideas, new information, and even new brands without triggering the resistance that often accompanies corporate messaging.

In this way, Creators can help break echo chambers rather than reinforce them.

But this requires intention.

If brands approach Creators as transactional amplification channels, they risk deepening insularity. Communities can detect inauthentic alignment quickly. Borrowed credibility is fragile.

If, however, brands approach Creators as strategic partners trust can in fact expand.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer underscores a defining reality: influence has become more intimate. Authority is increasingly mediated through trusted individuals and communities.

In an insular world, the brands that win will not be the loudest.

They will be the ones invited in — and the ones introduced by the Creators who already hold trust.

For organizations navigating this shift, the question is no longer whether to invest in Creator Marketing, it's how to do that with trust at the core of each campaign

If you are looking to build effective Creator Marketing strategies in this new trust landscape, reach out. At Edelman, we have more than 250 Creator experts globally who live and breathe this space every day and can help you navigate this fast-moving space in a strategic manner to drive scale and impact.

Attending the International Women’s Forum (IWF) Cornerstone Conference in Cape Town was more than a professional experience; it was a profound personal journey. For our Edelman delegation, the week was a reminder of what leadership truly means: connection, courage, and collective strength.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of South Africa, a country that embodies resilience and community, the conference brought together nearly 500 women leaders from over 30 countries. United under the theme of Ubuntu, meaning “I am because we are,” the event invited us to explore how leadership, empathy, and collaboration intertwine to create meaningful impact.

Redefining Leadership Through Connection

Many of us arrived in Cape Town yearning to learn more about leadership, belonging, and how to lead with authenticity in a rapidly changing world. Refreshingly, the panels didn’t focus on power or hierarchy. Instead, they delved into purpose, empathy, and the courage to show vulnerability.

What we heard was that leadership isn’t defined by seniority or title. It’s about connections. Leadership is found in conversations that challenge assumptions, in the teams that encourage us to listen more deeply, and in the networks that help us grow into better versions of ourselves.

That sentiment resonated throughout the sessions, which explored themes such as:

Creating psychological safety in an increasingly self-protective world.
The role of creativity, joy, and food security as survival topics, not side topics
How communities and women rise together.

We left reminded that while technology and AI may evolve faster than ever, the leadership qualities that matter most remain timeless: trust, empathy, and connection.

The Spirit of Ubuntu

Ubuntu was not just a theme; it was alive in every interaction. As President Cyril Ramaphosa, during the opening session, shared, “Our progress is intertwined, and when women rise, societies rise with them.”

The spirit of Ubuntu calls us to build ecosystems, not empires and to recognize that our humanity exists through others. We cannot be fully human if we diminish someone else’s humanity. It’s a call to lead with purpose, to uplift others as we rise, and to celebrate success collectively rather than competitively.

We witnessed that spirit vividly in the women of South Africa, in their warmth, confidence, and grace, reflected not just in their words but mostly in their presence.

Each of us left Cape Town changed. We were reminded that leadership is often about making decisions that shape lives, not about the titles we hold. That birthing new ideas, like human birth, can be messy, but necessary if we want something real to emerge.

We also found strength in each other. The bonds we built, across Toronto, Washington D.C., Dubai, Chicago, Seoul, and beyond, are ones we will carry forward. Together, we’ve pledged to stay connected as women leaders who support one another across geographies and disciplines.

To the IWF organizers, thank you for curating a truly transformative experience. To our Edelman leaders, Taryn Solomon, Claudia Patton, Lisa Sepulveda, Matthew Harrington, our managers and our account teams, and many others, thank you for making this opportunity possible. And to our fellow Edelman delegates: Ivana Musich, Kevval Hanna, Marta Guasch, Alesia Nadtochiy, and Janet Kim, thank you for the laughter, the learning, and the late-night red cappuccinos.

We returned home grounded, inspired, and committed to leading with courage, empathy, and intention, and to carrying the spirit of Ubuntu into everything we do.

Co-authored by: Ivana Musich (Toronto), Kevval Hanna (Washington D.C.), Marta Guasch (Dubai), Alesia Nadtochiy (Chicago / LATAM), Janet Kim (Seoul).

At CES this year, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on a topic that feels less theoretical by the day: how AI is fundamentally reshaping post-production.

The conversation brought together creators and platform leaders who are building and using AI-powered tools to streamline workflows, boost creativity, and rethink how content moves from idea to distribution. But what became clear during the discussion is that this shift isn’t about one breakthrough tool or a handful of clever automations.

It’s an end-to-end transformation of how modern production operates.

And it’s already happening.

Shrinking the Gap Between Idea and First Cut

For decades, creative production followed a familiar ratio: roughly 20% of the time spent on ideation and 80% spent on execution (editing, formatting, revisions, versioning, distribution, etc).

AI is flipping that ratio.

Today, creative teams can move from concept to viable first cut faster than ever. That doesn’t mean AI is telling the story. It means teams can explore more directions earlier, test more variations, and bring human judgment into the process sooner.

At Edelman, we’re embedding AI across research, development, and distribution workflows to reduce friction where it slows creativity. Not to automate for automation’s sake, but to create more space for thinking, refinement, and craft.

The earlier you can see something tangible, the earlier your taste and expertise can shape it.

And taste is the one thing that doesn’t scale.

Storytelling at Scale

Efficiency is often the headline when people talk about AI in production. But what I’m seeing, and what we discussed at CES, is something bigger.

AI isn’t just reducing production time. It’s enabling:

Faster experimentation across formats
Rapid iteration based on performance data
Seamless adaptation for different platforms and audiences

When repetitive tasks are automated, creative professionals can spend more time on strategy, structure, and narrative precision. Instead of manually versioning assets across platforms, they can focus on refining the idea itself.

This matters because modern culture demands production speed. But speed alone isn’t valuable. Speed that protects quality and deepens creative thinking is.

Trust, Disclosure, and Governance as Production Quality

As AI-assisted content scales, so does scrutiny.

Audiences are increasingly attuned to authenticity, provenance, and transparency. At Edelman, we’ve built what I think of as “trust checkpoints” directly into the production pipeline. That includes:

Rights and IP review
Disclosure guidance
Bias and fairness checks
Factuality validation

Governance ensures that human creative input remains central. It protects brand integrity. It safeguards reputation. And it allows innovation to scale responsibly.

The more powerful these tools become, the more essential thoughtful guardrails are.

Trust is no longer adjacent to production. It’s embedded within it.

Tools Matter. Workflow Design Matters More.

At CES, we talked about everything from rapid clipping and voice tools to automation systems that can transform one piece of content into multiple outputs across formats.

But the real difference between a “cool demo” and reliable production isn’t the tool.

It’s workflow design.

Automation itself is a form of creativity. Designing the system—deciding where human input is essential, where iteration should happen, and where automation can responsibly accelerate output—is strategic work.

Prompting is already becoming less central as software layers create predictability and control. The future is less about crafting the perfect sentence for a model and more about building integrated systems that allow creative teams to operate with clarity and precision.

In our studios, we treat generative tools as collaborators, not replacements. They accelerate options. They surface possibilities. But humans remain responsible for story, taste, nuance, and brand alignment.

Interestingly, the more we operationalize workflows, the more creativity we unlock. When friction drops, exploration increases.

The Expanding Role of Producers and Editors

If there’s one takeaway from CES, it’s this: the role of the producer and editor is expanding, not shrinking. The future creative professional is:

An orchestrator of systems
A curator of options
A creative director across human and machine collaborators

At Edelman, we’re preparing for that future by:

Embedding AI across production workflows to accelerate prototyping and iteration
Scaling localization and multimodal distribution
Building quality guardrails to ensure outputs are compliant, consistent, and brand-aligned
Developing an AI-native team with sustained investment in tools and training

AI is not replacing creativity. It’s redistributing effort away from repetitive execution and toward judgment, taste, and strategy.

And in a world where culture moves faster than ever, that shift isn’t optional.

It’s foundational.

You can watch the full recording of Gabe’s panel at CES here.

Gabe Michael is SVP, Group Executive Producer - AI.

It is 2026. According to Pantone, the world is retreating into safe neutrals. That phrase could also describe my beloved Watford FC’s transfer policy over the past few seasons.

As work resumed in January, the predictions arrived. A new year, we’re told, will bring change. It always does. Sports marketing, like sport itself, is obsessed with what comes next. We analyse how younger audiences engage digitally, while older fans pay for tickets. We assess new formats and breakaway leagues. We watch athletes build followings and businesses beyond the field of play.

Yet amid all this movement, are we asking the important question: what stays the same? To coin Jeff Bezos; “you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.” The same applies to brand strategy. In sports marketing, constants often matter more than the latest trend. The principles that underpin success will endure, and in 2026, five of them will continue to shape how brands operate in sport.

Sponsorship choices will remain top-down, not bottom-up

Despite real progress in understanding sponsorship effectiveness, many deals remain shaped by personal preference at the top. Ask why a sponsorship exists, and too often the answer is familiar: “Because the CEO likes that sport.”

Important work by Rory Natkiel and others has advanced the case for evidence-led sponsorship, and the discipline is maturing. But defaults will persist. Pulling brands away from instinctive choices and towards more strategic, demonstrably effective investment remains one of the industry’s most important, and unresolved, tasks.

Reach will remain as a low bar for brands in sport

Sponsorship comes with commercial ambition, but also responsibility. The furore surrounding FIFA’s approach to ticket pricing for the 2026 World Cup has intensified scrutiny on how all governing bodies promote accessibility to live events, and brands willing to partner must recognise the chance for residual impact.

Edelman’s Pushed to the Limit study shows fans believe sponsors take more than their fair share from sport. In an inflationary environment, visibility alone no longer earns credibility for brands. Brands can’t lower ticket prices, but must be additive, be it making experiences better or the ecosystem stronger. As ever, brands need fans to be glad they are there.

Engaged fans remain the real prize

Keeping fans at the centre of decision-making is not new, but it remains decisive. The brands that succeed in sport continue to invest in deep relationships and meaningful experiences, in stadiums and niches that fandoms inhabit. In community marketing circles, success relies on turning anoraks into advocates.

In 2019, comedian Stewart Lee called his tour Content Provider to satirise digital dystopia. In 2026, it’s no joke for brands in sport. Engaged fans spend six times more than casual ones. That has shifted competition off the pitch, as brands and rights-holders weaponise content provision to chase global fan bases that sustain sponsorship, broadcasting, and merch revenues.

Consistency compounds value in sponsorship

As in other areas of brand building, consistency remains undervalued in sport sponsorship. Longevity and repetition drive impact, yet sponsorship is still too often treated as a series of short-term activations. Guinness’s commitment to rugby stands out as the exception that proves the rule.

Effective sponsorship should function like a long-running brand platform, anchored in a single idea that endures for the life of the deal. In practice, activation budgets are frequently contested, with CFOs seeking clearer proof of return. Securing the investment required for long-term creative consistency remains a battleground for brands aiming to maximise the commercial value of sport.

Athlete welfare looms large as sport’s most overlooked risk

The public has always been capable of compassion, but social media has stripped away the mythic armour of elite sport, revealing athletes as people first and performers second. In UK professional sport, athlete welfare remains the most significant unmanaged risk in the eyes of fans. How organisations protect, support, and listen to athletes directly shapes trust, credibility, and the relationship with fans.

Support cannot be symbolic. Sixty-six per cent of fans believe sporting organisations neglect athlete mental health, and nearly half believe retirement transitions are poorly handled . Failures in welfare can damage brands faster and more deeply than poor performance or commercial misjudgement.

In a year dominated by talk of change, it is these principles – familiar, persistent, and at times uncomfortable – that will continue to determine outcomes for brands in sport.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Will Butterworth is Strategy Director based in London.

Context: why connectivity policy is back at the centre of EU strategy

Connectivity has moved from being a sectoral concern to a strategic foundation of Europe’s economic, security and industrial agenda. Gigabit networks, advanced 5G, cloud computing and satellite connectivity are now critical enablers of competitiveness, underpinning everything from AI deployment and industrial transformation to public services and crisis response.

This shift has been reinforced by recent high-level policy thinking. Both Enrico Letta’s report on the future of the Single Market and Mario Draghi’s analysis of European competitiveness set out a high level of ambition for the telecoms sector, calling for deeper integration, greater scale and stronger investment conditions to overcome fragmentation.

Against this backdrop, the European Commission’s proposed Digital Networks Act (DNA) represents the most consequential rethink of EU connectivity regulation in over a decade, not as a full-scale overhaul, but as a targeted effort to streamline the framework, improve coordination and bring greater uniformity across Member States, while stopping short of the more far-reaching reforms envisaged in those reports.

Digital Networks Act

What the DNA is trying to fix

The Commission’s diagnosis is clear. Despite years of harmonisation, Europe’s connectivity markets remain fragmented along national lines, with divergent authorisation regimes, spectrum conditions and regulatory practices increasing compliance costs and limiting cross-border expansion.

This fragmentation increasingly clashes with how digital networks operate. As networks become software-driven, cloud-based and integrated with data and AI infrastructure, scale becomes a prerequisite for competitiveness. The DNA is designed to reduce structural friction and make it easier for providers to operate and invest across borders.

From national silos to a more integrated market: The DNA aims to reduce persistent fragmentation by consolidating key telecoms instruments into a single Regulation and introducing a single market authorisation framework, including a Single Passport, to simplify cross-border operations while preserving national regulatory oversight.
Fibre, spectrum and investment certainty: The proposal tackles two long-standing investment bottlenecks by establishing a coordinated transition from copper to fibre, based on national plans and conditional switch-off, and by reforming spectrum policy through longer or open-ended licence durations, enhanced EU scrutiny of assignments and stronger incentives for spectrum sharing.
Resilience, satellites and strategic autonomy: By formally recognising digital networks as critical infrastructure, strengthening EU-level preparedness and resilience coordination, and introducing a more centralised framework for satellite authorisation and spectrum management, the DNA aligns connectivity policy more closely with the EU’s economic security and strategic autonomy objectives, including crisis response and reduced dependence on non-EU infrastructure.

What this means for businesses

The Digital Networks Act is not just a telecoms file. It reshapes the conditions under which cloud providers, AI developers, infrastructure investors, industrial users and public authorities rely on connectivity.

The direction is clear: fewer regulatory barriers, stronger coordination and a more strategic view of networks as critical infrastructure. For companies operating across borders, the legislative process ahead will be a key moment to assess how future network regulation could affect investment decisions, service models and resilience planning.

Next steps to watch

The proposal now enters the legislative process, where Member States and the European Parliament will test the balance between EU-level coherence and national flexibility. Key areas to watch include how far harmonisation goes in practice, how spectrum safeguards are framed, and how resilience obligations are operationalised.

For stakeholders across the digital ecosystem, the coming months present an opportunity to engage early on how Europe’s connectivity framework should support competitiveness, innovation and security in the next decade.

For additional information, reach out to Diana.Angelova@edelman.com and Francisco.Herrera@edelman.com.

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