EMEA - UK | 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.

When we first thought about hosting the first-ever Edelman AI Hackathon in the UK, we assumed the focus would be on exploring how AI tools can transform how we work. We were focusing on AI enablement, increasing AI fluency and how we could use AI to be more efficient and augment the craft of our comms work.  

Plot twist: Turns out our Hackathon really wasn’t just about AI, the tools or “enablement” and “fluency”. It was about how our colleagues collaborated, problem-solved and helped each other see challenges and opportunities from a different perspective. 

AI Was Just the Conduit. 

We know we have exceptional, creative people, with brilliant ideas and who care about our business, how we operate internally and how we consistently show up for our clients.   

AI was the catalyst to tap into that collective brilliance. The Hackathon was a safe place for our colleagues to experiment with AI, forget about fluency and expertise, and focus on brainstorming new ideas, rethinking the art of the possible.

The result? Two days of brainstorming and building with 80 colleagues in 14 teams producing 14 amazing ideas, prototypes and concepts created across two days covering themes including AI adoption, unlocking growth, onboarding new staff, identifying skills, creativity and content creation. Every idea had elements that we will explore and develop further to integrate into our day-to-day work.  

It was more than ‘building cool things with AI’ 

Innovation excellence doesn’t start with AI: It starts with people and a problem they really want to solve.  

Our colleagues weren’t asked to ‘build with AI’: They took an ‘IRL’ challenge or opportunity and hacked it, with a view to improving our employee and client experience using the Edelman suite of AI tools. 

We maximised the creativity of the output by building diverse and cross-functional and cross-experience teams, giving us a unique 360-degree view of the challenges, and  the solutions.  

The pain points that surfaced weren’t a surprise to anyone, so the real ‘a ha!’ moments came from using AI as a thought partner to push our thinking to new limits.  

Culture is the real unlock  

Our culture meant that colleagues were able to play with AI in a low-distraction space where there were no ‘stupid ideas’. The catalyst of AI quickly broke the ice as cross-functional teams started working together to uncover a new way of working outside of established teams and peer groups.  

The buzz was electric, energising and genuinely fun. This is important. If large-scale AI adoption is going to succeed, it must feel relevant, accessible, inclusive and exciting to all of us.  

Momentum Matters

The great ideas from our Hackathon are only the first step. What comes next is as important as the Hackathon itself: Tracking the development of ideas and concepts reinforces the value of this new way of working. Our colleagues need to see and be a part of how the ideas develop and evolve.    

Momentum is key, so we’re taking the energy from 80 colleagues who gave us two days of their time and investing it in pushing forward the ideas and solutions.  

Transformation Done Differently  

The Hackathon showed us how accessible innovation can be when grounded in but not distracted by the daily work. It also shows that transformation doesn’t have to be painful. Transformation is gradual, and it’s something that over time, we build together. 

At the post-Hackathon drinks, the question everyone asked was when the next one was taking place. Other markets and regions are already running and planning their own Hackathons. We are also developing a ‘Hackathon in a box’, so individual teams across the network can host their own versions.

And we are already developing how we can offer this to our clients, so they too can see how AI can be applied in practice, not just talking about the future, but building it.

Gavin Spicer is Chief AI Officer, UK & Managing Director EMEA at Assembly.

The best thought leadership doesn’t just inform. It makes people think differently. It changes minds. It sparks action. And in the years to come, high-quality thought leadership is going to make an even bigger business impact, helping companies rise above AI-generated noise. To deliver this kind of content, we’re going to have to be braver with our ideas. More generous with our insights. And sharper with our measurement.

Thought leadership is one of the most misaligned and misunderstood terms in business. It’s often mistaken for thinly veiled product promotion or executive vanity publishing. Yet, when done well, it’s a powerful tool for marketers to build trust with customers and drive growth through the funnel.

Political and economic uncertainty, and changes to established ways of working through AI are delaying business decision-making, refocusing priorities and extending sales cycles. A joint study by Edelman and LinkedIn surveying 3,500 business decision makers reveals that 64% have tightened their procurement processes, while 44% expect to be less receptive to sales calls and marketing outreach.

This means companies will have to work harder to earn the attention of busy business leaders. They’ll need to nurture conversations with prospects over longer periods and to really prove the value of the expertise they offer. These are all areas where thought leadership can make a bigger difference compared to other forms of marketing.

The Commercial Value of Thought Leadership

Our research found that:

Nearly three-quarters (75%) of decision-makers say thought leadership is a more trustworthy basis for assessing a company’s capabilities than traditional advertising or product marketing.
The same percentage (75%) say a strong piece of thought leadership prompted them to research a solution they weren’t previously considering.
Out of 10 business leaders, six will pay a premium to work with a company which clearly proves the quality of its thinking and expertise of its people.

The data shows that thought leadership can be decisive through the funnel, with 86% of respondents more likely to invite companies with high quality content to tender. It improves the ability to cross and upsell; boosts repeat business and can tip the balance when it comes to closing deals.

If buyer journeys are increasingly self-guided, with more people on the buying committee and longer sales cycles, then thought leadership is a valuable means of nurturing conversations, reaching a wider group of decision makers and ensuring companies are known for the right things.

(Re)defining Thought Leadership

Part of the challenge is in having a common definition of thought leadership. Perhaps, obviously, it is about ‘thought’, but that means genuinely fresh perspectives and new data from subject matter experts. ‘Leadership’ is about vision, unexpected angles and shaping the agenda. Some of this seems self-evident but content badged as thought leadership often ends up aggregating existing views. Too often, it’s based solely on opinion and doesn’t move a debate forward, nor drive action.

The impact of AI on this definition is interesting. If everyone has access to the same AI tools and Large Language Models, responses are based on existing available web information and content based solely on this may become similar and derivative. If AI is used as a thought partner to stimulate new ideas and concepts, make unexpected connections between disparate sources of data, aid deeper research and free up thinking time for experts then this can really aid thought leadership. AI is a powerful tool but as with many things, originality, creativity and quality remain key.

Why Now?

Over half of CEOs (54%) spend over an hour a week consuming thought leadership content. If you’re leading a business, this makes sense. You need trusted external sources of information and new ideas to spot competitive advantage. During challenging times, people are hungrier for fresh insight. Business leaders are searching for new opportunities, key trends and ways to be more effective in their jobs. They want to understand how their organisation can succeed in tough conditions

The use of Generative AI is growing faster than the adoption of the computer or internet, with Gartner predicting that brands organic search traffic will decrease 50% by 2028 as B2B decision makers switch to LLMs to help them evaluate companies and potential service providers *. Companies need to evolve their marketing as traditional advertising and search optimisation will no longer be as effective. The emphasis will shift to trusted sources, quality content and distinctive creative, which earns attention – all of which means thought leadership will have more influence and impact for companies in the near future. To prepare for AI-driven search, companies need to act now.

To help companies adapt their marketing strategies, Edelman recently launched GEOsight, a new service that enables companies to benchmark where they are today across major AI search tools. Businesses can analyse content and use this to develop frameworks for marketing, communications and thought leadership.

Defining What Good Looks Like

When it comes to understanding, planning and evaluating content, Edelman has developed the Thought Leadership Flywheel. This useful lens defines the six core attributes of the most effective content:

White Space: uncovering contrarian angles, which surprise the audience and enable bolder, more imaginative thinking.
Relevance: grounding insights in primary customer and real-world data; avoiding the ‘everything to everyone’ trap of trying to cover too many topics, too broadly.
Vision: providing a unique, forward-looking perspective, which drives action and behaviour change.
Trust: focusing on topics your organisation has credibility talking about; bringing in diverse, trusted third-party experts.
Brevity: clear, accessible human storytelling; with shorter, easy to digest formats and bite-sized options for busy professionals to consume.
Attribution: our Thought Leadership Impact story has found that only 29% of organisations can link sales leads back to specific pieces of content. Quantifying this makes the case for further investment, which leads to better content and a virtuous circle for businesses.

Where Next for Thought Leadership?

Ask most companies and they’ll say they want to reach more senior decision makers, retain or grow their customer base, and be seen as the most trusted partner in their industry. Thought leadership is the foundation beneath any plans to achieve this. For B2B marketers, there are several key considerations:

Think through the funnel: thought leadership is often associated with awareness and reputation but can play a valuable role throughout sales, marketing and business development. Set KPIs, which quantify how your thought leadership helps you reach new decision-makers, move deals along, start new sales conversations (cross and upsell) and boost conversions
Maximise the value: If you’ve invested in quality thought leadership, the content can often be adapted, personalised and extended through account-based marketing, direct sales and partner engagements. It can also be brought to life through events and experiences. Also think about how you can use it across different channels like Reddit, Substack or Instagram.
The challenger advantage: 60% of decision makers say thought leadership builds credibility for companies looking to define or break into a new category and for newer players to punch above their weight.
Earned, not bought: In an age of ad blockers, algorithm fatigue and AI-driven search, quality thought leadership is how brands cut through with relevance.
Drive action: while thought leadership is about ‘thinking’, the most impactful campaigns drive tangible action and behaviour change. An example is the DP World ‘Move to -15’ campaign, which galvanised logistics companies, warehousers and supermarkets to reduce the temperature at which frozen food is shipped, stored and sold. The campaign drove an 11% increase in trust for DP World, as 60% of the world’s biggest food producer, retailers and transporters signed up to make a meaningful change.

In short, we are all going to have to think differently about the thinking we offer our industries. In a market full of noise, the companies that invest in showcasing their thought leadership will enjoy the strongest growth.

Andrew Mildren, Managing Director, Edelman Business Marketing EMEA.

Sources:
All figures from the Edelman Thought Leadership Impact reports from 2022 – 2025, based on interviews with 3,500 business decision makers and producers of content across seven markets and a range of sectors. To view the latest report, click here.
Gartner, ‘How Marketing Can Capitalise on AI Disruption’, February 2024.

I'm sure my wife and I were not alone on the iPlayer watching Ezra Collective at Glastonbury, wishing we were there.

The sun was setting and drummer Femi Koleoso stepped up to the mic and launched into a powerful sermon. At a time where we increasingly feel separation and loneliness, what binds us? 

His answer: Joy. Its power to unite even happiness with sadness.

Through his words I saw a pathway to help how we adapt in what feels like unrelenting change and social dislocation at a time of constant innovation.

Because as much as we ask people to adopt new technologies, behaviours and narratives about what the future holds, in reality most are still bracing. Less for what's coming, and more for what might be lost along the way.

The Great Transfer of Trust

The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer shows the weight of this strain. Trust inequality between the average trust in institutions of high and low-income groups has widened to double digits in most countries. Grievance is high in many developed markets and belief in a better future is at stunning lows. Trust in institutions has not grown despite political changes and economic shifts.

There is a widespread sense of grievance, believing that the actions of business and government are hurting us; serving only a select few in a system that favours the rich, where the rich are getting richer.

But it's brands that are now tasked with filling this space. According to the 2025 Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me, people now place more trust in the brands they use than in business, government, media, and even NGOs.

At a time where the perceived withdrawal of these institutions is leaving many feeling more isolated, brands are present in the small daily moments. And in a climate of volatility, that presence carries weight. But being there is about more than presence.

Over the past five years, people’s expectations of brands have grown more personal, more emotional, and more expansive. They now look to brands to play five very human roles, each tied to a rising importance over the last 5 years:

Give me optimism (76%) – Offer a sense that things can get better, even when progress feels hard to see.
Make me feel good (74%) – Provide comfort, ease, and emotional lift in moments that feel uncertain or overwhelming.
Help me do good (75%) – Enable people to act in ways that align with their values, without requiring grand gestures.
Provide me with a sense of community (73%) – Create space for belonging, even if just in passing, shared experience.
Teach me something useful (71%) – Help us navigate complexity, make better choices, and feel more equipped.

Somatic Readiness

These asks are functional signals of stability and care. Together, they tell people: you’re not alone in this. This is a call to action for all, even for brands that show up quietly in our busy lifestyles. When everything else feels uncertain, these are the brands people rely on to hold the line.

Meeting these expectations has a steadying effect, whether it's connection, lifting the mood, a sense of purpose or just a learning moment. To be clear, these are not brand differentiators but readiness cues. Signals that say: you can trust this and move now. You are ready.

This trust signal is best described as somatic readiness, what happens when the body says yes before the mind fully understands why. Our shoulders loosen, breathing settles, we become more willing to try, explore or consider. 

Somatic readiness makes space for action by loosening the grip of uncertainty and lowering the emotional cost of trying something new. It relaxes the body and opens us to the future.

This is the starting point for how we deliver what I've described as innovation at the speed of trust.

In this state, innovation lands because it's both exciting and feels within our reach. It means we're noticing whether people are listening or simply bracing for change, designing for the nervous system as much as for the message. Because progress can’t land in a body that still feels under threat.

Brands that understand this won’t just communicate better. They’ll move better, becoming interpreters of change and translators of what’s new into what’s possible.

Tech availability

Tech brands most often stand at the hard edge of somatic readiness. At the same time, tech companies have long been among the most trusted businesses.

Yet that trust is no longer unconditional. While 76% globally still say they trust tech to do what is right, not all tech or tech brands are seen the same. At a time where the biggest conversation about technological change is centred on Artificial Intelligence, trust in AI companies is falling, as is enthusiasm for the technology. 

Fewer than 1 in 2 are comfortable with the business use of AI and those with the highest sense of grievance (those who feel most let down by the system) are 2 points less trusting of AI than those with a low sense of grievance.

This suggests we are at a critical juncture. Reframe what trust looks and feels like beyond institutional loyalty into something closer, quieter, and more grounded in people’s real experience.

In these everyday moments trust might simply mean being available with the ability to lower tension, show up consistently and give people back a sense of rhythm when the future feels out of sync.

For tech brands as harbingers of the future, this doesn’t mean withdrawing from embedding purpose in innovation but instead adding a context people recognise. Introducing change in ways that don’t overwhelm the nervous system and being patient enough to earn belief, and present enough to sustain it.

More belief

Another inspiring moment at Glastonbury came from Kae Tempest. A set stripped of spectacle, anchored in language and presence. The message: more belief in each other, the possibility of something better.

That’s what trust can do and why tech brands have a role to play by helping create the conditions where more belief can grow.

Through this lens, trust is less a crescendo and more a pulse, repeated, grounded and steady. The kind of drumbeat you don’t notice until it’s gone. But when it’s present, people pick up the rhythm because they’re inspired and feel safe enough to move.

Innovation becomes a reason for hope.

Sat Dayal is Managing Director of Technology at Edelman UK.

Generative AI (GenAI) technology provides unprecedented opportunities to drive efficiencies and cost-saving. The pace of development in AI-systems is often hard to keep track of. But, for now at least, the human touch remains the master stroke when it comes to avoiding reputational headaches. In this article, Chris Musgrave (IP & Media Lawyer at Freeths LLP) and Henry Cunnington (Associate Director, Crisis & Risk at Edelman) take a look at the areas where reputational risks are crystallising and where they are likely to arise as businesses seek to take advantage of the benefits GenAI brings.

AI in advertising: Take a left before the uncanny valley

AI-generated content has been creeping into advertising for some time, be that in still images or moving audiovisual content. The problem is, while GenAI can produce passable visual content at a glance (and with increasing realism), high profile gaffes have highlighted its current limitations with collateral damage to brand image.

2024 afforded us a number of examples as brands continued to grapple with AI in their marketing strategies. Among these was a Christmas campaign for a popular soft drink, which included three short AI-generated adverts. Viewers were quick to point out that various details were “off”: facial expressions with a feel of the uncanny valley; wheels gliding rather than turning under the trucks; and large exhaust pipes appearing and disappearing in the same shot (to name a few). The public backlash was swift. In addition to the poor quality, the campaign was seen as an example of large brands cutting human creativity and design out of the process.

AI-generated images are proliferating in advertising and, while the video and image quality on certain leading platforms has recently reached new levels of realism, they can often give themselves away by their hyper-glossy feel, logical discrepancies and eery human expressions. This is more than just a bad piece of advertising creative. A number of consumer brands have been caught up in similar controversy. And, in each case, the business is placed on the back foot, having to deal with a campaign that has generated all the wrong talking points.

Avoiding the “Big Brother” label

The reputational risks from use of AI are not limited to advertising. The conversation around the ethics of certain AI applications continues and public awareness is growing.

Take employee monitoring. Hybrid and remote working has raised concerns from some corners that staff are not as productive as they would be in the office. AI-enabled employee monitoring technology has emerged as one solution, setting new regulatory and reputational beartraps for the unsuspecting business.

From a legal standpoint, using AI for surveillance is likely to involve the accumulation of large amounts of personal data. Personal data breaches risk hefty fines and breed distrust. The public are alert to this. An Office of National Statistics survey in late 2023 found that 72% of the people surveyed thought AI-systems’ use of their personal data without consent was a negative impact of artificial intelligence. As a result, European regulators have now begun imposing fines for breaches of the General Data Protection Regulation on the basis of “excessive” surveillance of employees, while a similar system has been reported in the UK.

Employers take note. It has never been easier for employees to anonymously, and publicly, report on their working conditions. Sites like Glassdoor are used by prospective candidates to check out what current employees say about their employer. Public petitions are also taking aim at certain industries and calling businesses out for bad practice. So, caution is advised. Anything that fails to find the right balance risks negative fallout and the costs that go with responding in the right way.

Poor decision-making: Unfair firings to IP infringement

GenAI-systems make mistakes. In the employment context, there are concerns that use of AI-tools could lead (and is already leading) to discriminatory outcomes and unfair disciplinary action without any transparency, matters which rarely play out well in the court of public opinion.

As AI-tools represent the sum of their training data and programmed algorithms, their output reflects the version of reality reflected in that data set and biases of the algorithm, however skewed those might be. Likewise, any overcorrection can lead to embarrassment and there have been high profile examples in the last eighteen months. Certainly, it remains the case that even technology giants can allow for serious error their AI-systems.

There is also scope for inadvertent intellectual property (IP) infringement. AI-systems are trained on vast bodies of material, many of which will contain third-party IP rights such as copyright works and trade marks. GenAI tools often have safeguards in place to avoid generated output infringing third party IP. However, these are not fail-safe and the evidence submitted at the pleadings stage in the current Getty Images case against Stability AI shows that third party brands and artistic works (like logos) can creep into AI-generated images¹. This happens because the AI-system does not recognise a trade mark or artistic work per se, but rather has been trained on data that tells it all images of a certain thing include a certain element – in that case, a blurry resemblance of a Getty Images watermark. Inadvertent misuse of IP in this context not only risks legal repercussions, but a negative public reaction. IP infringement is therefore often a double-edged sword for the defendant: there’s the costs of defending the claim, and the costs of dealing with the PR fallout of being called a copycat.

Accounting for creators

The Getty Images case draws into sharp focus the debate around the competing interests of AI-developers (who want to train their AI-systems on copyright protected works) and the rights of copyright owners (who, at the very least, want to be paid properly for such use). Generally, publishers are leading the pushback against perceived pro-AI interventions by the government. The twist is that certain publishers have found themselves in reputational hot water where they have sold (or, in some cases, allegedly handed over) authors’ works to developers, even if doing so is within their rights as the copyright owner.

Perhaps the mistake here lies in failing to recognise the special nature of GenAI as a competitor to human creators. As with the soft drink advert, there is concern that AI poses an existential threat to creators’ livelihoods and nobody feels this more acutely than the authors and artists themselves. Publishers rely on their contributors and it pays to keep them on side. Failing to account for creators’ interests in any licensing deals with GenAI-developers is going to come with some reputational risk and smart publishers will have a strategy to mitigate these risks from the outset. It also presents a wider reputational risk as public sentiment strongly aligns with the creators themselves and the importance of preserving their rights (not to mention their license to exercise their creativity). Any perception that a publisher or other corporation doesn’t respect its contributors will inevitably lead to public backlash.

So, where does that leave us and what can be done?

It goes without saying, GenAI is here to stay and the rate GenAI systems are improving is staggering. The opportunities are huge. The technology opened a new frontier and those who fight it will be left behind. However, it pays to be smart with implementation to avoid reputational issues. Here are some key takeaways:

Use AI with caution. These systems are not fail-safe and there is a real risk of seriously damaging your brand’s image and long-term reputation.
Keep well trained humans involved in processes, whether that’s in creative roles or operational positions.
A human eye can spot things an AI system would not, be that an ingrained bias or an illogical hallucination in some advertising copy.
“AI-assisted” may well produce better results than “AI-generated”.
Consider the views of human authors and artists when preparing materials, and certainly before licensing their work to an AI-developer.
Speak to a reputation professional when it goes wrong. That might just allow your business to turn a gaffe into an opportunity.

¹This article was prepared in spring 2025, ahead of the listed June 2025 trial date of Getty Images v Stability AI in the UK and should not be relied on as a report on the latest developments in that case.

The content of this page is a summary of the law in force at the date of publication and is not exhaustive, nor does it contain definitive advice. Specialist legal advice should be sought in relation to any queries that may arise.

Henry Cunnington is Associate Director, Crisis & Risk at Edelman UK.

Chris Musgrave is an intellectual property and media lawyer in Freeths' London office.

It’s a rare thing for dinner conversation with my youngest to extend beyond a few grunts, laughs and sighs. Not least because I’ll often ask about school at a time when he’s trying to stop thinking about it. So when I recently asked what he was looking forward to before school’s out, he barely looked up.

“We’re rehearsing for a play,” he said. “The Twelve Labours of Heracles.”

One question led to another, and before long we were side by side at the kitchen table, quizzing Alexa. We landed on the topic of astrology where he discovered he’s a Capricorn.

"The Goat," he said. "Greatest of all time."

I laughed. He sighed.

Two Universal Truths

We kept going. Astronomy, astrology. Which one’s science, which one’ stories. How the universe works and how we might fit into it. And for a moment, we both just sat with that. Then, having had enough of me, he made a run for the Xbox. I was left at the table, the conversation lingering.

Just a week before, I’d been part of dinner conversation hosted by the fearless Jackie Cooper, alongside some equally bold and pioneering client leaders.

The topic was brand trust. What stayed with me was a shared sense of how the frameworks we once relied on to make decisions, to communicate purpose, to earn belief, carried a new weight.

We've shifted from stories to systems, from myth to math. But even now, even with dashboards and data and digital twins, people still want to know: Does this future include me? Does it reflect what matters to me?

This got me thinking about what it means to innovate for a future people can believe in.

Here, so much of what surfaced in both dinner conversations talked to two universal truths. One that explains another that can interpret. One built on systems and rules, the other helps us locate ourselves within these.

That distinction matters. Because in today’s brand landscape, leaders are being asked to hold to both.

Moral imagination and emotional fluency

The latest 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me makes it clear: Trust is no longer a rational equation. It’s relational. Consumers expect brands to meet functional needs and emotional expectations. They want clarity with connection. Data and direction.

62% say it’s important for brands to help them feel optimistic about the future. 61% say brands should help them do good in the world. 53% assume the worst if a brand stays silent on societal issues. And 51% say they’ll lose trust or be less likely to purchase if a brand ignores its obligation to act.

What does this mean for the most innovative brands? It means product is no longer enough. Nor is messaging. Innovation now includes moral imagination and emotional fluency. It means acting not only with speed, but with context.

When over half of consumers will penalise silence and disengage when values aren't mirrored, innovation can't be decoupled from trust. Trust is no longer the outcome of great innovation. It’s the entry point.

These numbers signal a shift in how belief today is earned and sustained. Which brings us back to my question of what it means to build innovation on a foundation of trust?

Reframing the Role of Trust

For trust to give a green light for speed, it must also become the force that keeps the momentum from collapsing. We often position trust as a metric. But maybe it functions more like infrastructure built on a shared sense of belonging. How people translate a future built on technological innovation by understanding their role in its promise.

In what the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report on Brand Trust describes as the shift from 'We to Me', not a rejection of community, but a rebalancing. As Jackie explained over dinner, people still care about collective good, just not ones that feel hollow: “If your brand disappeared tomorrow, and nobody noticed, you haven’t built a community”.

Universal truths yet multiple possibilities at play in this work. Trust as infrastructure, invitation, alignment. No single framing captures it all.

What is clear is that when trust is treated as transactional, it fractures under pressure. But when it’s practiced as a relationship, it endures. So maybe the real work is this:

Build from emotional insight without losing strategic intent. What feels important shouldn’t cloud what must be done.
See relevance as where engagement begins, not where responsibility ends. It signals attention, not assurance.
Learn to navigate the truths, even when they pull in different directions. Disconnection is the problem, not complexity.
Let trust determine the tempo, not just of messaging, but of making. Fast isn’t always forward and slow doesn’t mean stuck.

The Conviction to Act

Heracles didn’t choose his labours. They were handed to him. But he still had to act with both strength and conviction. Maybe that’s what’s being asked of innovation that moves at the speed of trust. It must keep with the pace of belief.

To move forward, clearly, courageously and in a way that makes people want to join. Not just because we’ve mapped the path. But because we’ve made it matter.

Sat Dayal is Managing Director of Technology at Edelman UK.

The AI gender gap isn’t about capability. It’s about who gets to trust, and who gets trusted.

The trust gap in AI between men and women isn’t closing. It’s holding steady, and in some markets, widening. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, globally, women are five percentage-points less likely than men to trust companies working in AI subsector. The eight percentage-point gap in the UK is even more stark.

At a recent roundtable on the gender AI gap hosted by Media Trust and IMD, a theme helped surface some of the many challenges: women who resist using AI because they fear it’s cheating. Not wrong. Not boring. Cheating.

The internalising of a moral binary: creativity as authenticity, effort as purity and AI, with all its promise, feels like a shortcut that violates both.

Of course, this tension isn’t new. Gender bias has shaped, and been shaped by, every technological wave before this one, from the way tools are designed to who’s trusted to use them and how.

What struck me most wasn’t just the resistance, but the way it pointed to a deeper disconnect between how tech innovation is unfolding and trust is earned. And maybe, how uncomfortable it remains to sit with questions that don’t yet have clear answers.

The real gap isn’t capability. It’s permission.

What was clear through the conversation that included educators, equalities charities and tech platforms, was how women are not behind in ability but actually ahead in discernment.

They see the complexity and sense the contradictions. But too often, they’re receiving the wrong signals from the people and institutions meant to guide them: don’t cut corners, don’t rely on tools, don’t get it wrong.

Men, by contrast, are often encouraged to experiment. To break things and push boundaries. AI is one of those new boundaries and rewards those who are willing to play this way.

The result? Women withdraw. Not from interest but from perceived misalignment with the story they’ve been told about what “real work” looks like.

That’s not a skill gap. It’s a trust signal we should pay attention to.

This Isn’t Resistance. It’s Calibration.

What I’ve come to realise, especially in the wake of recent research and conversations with Gen Z, is that this generation doesn’t default to trust. It verifies, constantly. Not just facts but tone, intent, alignment.

They don’t want to be told what to think about AI. They want to see how it behaves and judge for themselves.

So when a teenage girl says “AI feels like cheating,” she’s not rejecting the tech. She’s interpreting the cultural framing she’s been given. And she’s noticing where it doesn’t add up.

That’s not resistance. It’s calibration.

What Gen Z is showing us is that trust isn’t a linear variable. It’s lateral, contextual, real-time. And it moves through proximity (amongst peer groups), not proclamation (from authority).

If AI adoption feels emotionally out of reach for girls, the answer isn’t just training. It’s recoding the story.

Not AI as shortcut. But AI as co-author.

This isn’t a youth campaign. It’s a gatekeeper recalibration.

To be clear, this doesn’t just get fixed by marketing to girls. Or by top-down ethics modules. It gets fixed when the people who still hold cultural authority (educators, policymakers, designers, media leads, tech executives) are willing to step into a new kind of exchange.

In the roundtable, these 'gatekeepers' emerged as figures still shaping the norms around what counts as real work, credible creativity, and acceptable use of technology. These are the adults who, often unconsciously, reinforce the idea that using AI undermines authenticity. Their influence isn’t inherently negative but it is structural.

And if permission is going to be reshaped, these are the people who have to be brought into the loop, not just as enablers, but as co-learners. Not as sole holders of legitimacy, but as participants in a loop they don’t fully control.

Reverse mentoring came up again and again, as something that, when done well, helps shift permission back into circulation. But it only works if it’s mutual.

Not youth performing wisdom nor adults performing openness. A real exchange of perspective that allows both sides to recalibrate what counts, what’s credible and what’s next.

That’s what trust looks like when it’s in motion. Not downloaded but shared.

This isn’t about speed. It’s about synchrony.

This whole space, from the gender AI gap to the future of work to rising dislocation with innovation won’t be solved by speed or scale.

I recently wrote about narrative fluency, as the ability to sense what people are ready to hear, to speak with emotional credibility, to communicate across fractures without hardening them. This might be one of the mechanisms we’re overlooking.

It starts by telling stories that match how people actually feel and listening to the friction before trying to remove it. We learn to treat permission as something granted but also exchanged.

That said, it’s not a silver bullet. We should be cautious not to project fluency where there’s still real ambiguity, and to acknowledge that people’s relationship with technology, especially something as fast-moving as AI, is shaped as much by uncertainty as clarity.

We don’t just need to communicate that AI is safe or useful, we must make it make sense in the lives and language of those expected to use it. And that means holding space for discomfort, contradiction, and re-evaluation.

Because if women and girls believe that using AI makes their work less real, less credible and less theirs, we’ve failed to properly listen to the story they’re already telling themselves.

And if we want to change that, we must rewrite or recode the rules by co-authoring the next chapter with them.

Sat Dayal is Managing Director of Technology at Edelman UK.

Global communications firm, Edelman, has today announced the renewal of its strategic partnership with Founders Forum Group, a curated global community of the world’s leading digital and technology entrepreneurs and group of businesses supporting entrepreneurs at every stage of their journeys.

This year’s event, held from 10-12 June, coincided with London Tech Week, marking the 20th anniversary of Founders Forum Global, a milestone moment gathering the world’s most influential technology entrepreneurs and leaders, and convening top founders, CEOs, investors and policymakers shaping the future of technology.

With 2025 marking its 20th year, the event hosted its highest calibre guestlist to date with 450 entrepreneurs including over 300 unicorn founders. Founders in the room achieved an aggregate valuation of over $1 trillion, collectively having raised more that $166 billion. Investors in the room, meanwhile, represented $2 trillion AUM, while companies represented at this year’s Founders Forum Global employ over 4 million people across the globe. Whilst most of the event takes place under The Chatham House Rule, the forum’s dedicated livestream stage highlighted a series of thought-provoking conversations to a global audience via Bloomberg.

This year’s partnership continues Edelman’s ongoing collaboration with Founders Forum Group’s diverse portfolio of forums across the globe, tackling era-defining questions and reflecting a shared commitment to convening changemakers and driving dialogue at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership.

“As we mark 20 years of Founders Forum Global, we’re not just celebrating what this community has achieved — we’re setting the stage for what’s next,” said Carolyn Dawson, CEO, Founders Forum Group. “Our continued partnership with Edelman brings together two organisations deeply committed to helping founders and CEOs lead through change and shape the global conversation on innovation.”

The announcement comes at a time of shifting public attitudes toward innovation, with trust in new technologies such as artificial intelligence in the balance, with just 34% of members of the public with a high sense of grievance saying that they trust AI versus just over half of those with a low sense of grievance. The tech leaders convened at this year’s Founders Forum Global face a unique opportunity to deepen trust in emerging technologies through open dialogue, cross-sector collaboration and forward-looking leadership.

“Our continuing partnership with Founders Forum Group comes at a moment when the expectations of CEOs have never been higher. This year’s Edelman Trust Barometer finds that CEOs remain more trusted than government leaders or media, positioning them as essential voices in navigating change. The public is clear: CEOs have a license to lead – particularly when their engagement drives both business impact and societal progress. Founders Forum is exactly the kind of convening platform where that leadership can take root,” said Julian Payne, CEO, Edelman UK.

At a time where people feel the pace of innovation is too fast yet the rate of progress too slow, ruptures are appearing across the social fabric.

According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, repairing that fabric is a job most of us want to see performed by civil society. Even those who harbour a high sense of grievance see NGOs, as the institution most likely to be a unifying force that brings people together.

At a recent Media Trust Roundtable there was broad agreement, too. Voices from tech, media, and the non-profit world came together to collaborate, share insights and define strategy to support the voices of charities and under-represented communities in a misinformation age.

The event left me with a question: If civil society is so critical to repairing the social fabric, what impact would it have in helping innovation spread more effectively across society?

When Innovation Moves Faster Than Trust Can Follow

Stephen M.R. Covey wrote that “when trust goes up, speed goes up and cost goes down.” That principle still holds. But while Covey showed us that trust accelerates everything, in a fractured world, speed alone isn't the win.

Because when innovation moves faster than people’s ability to make sense of it, it stops feeling like progress and instead, starts feeling like dislocation.

What’s really broken isn’t the pace of innovation, it’s the relationship between innovation and public belief. Trust is out of sync. The solution isn’t to slow down innovation or even speed it up. It’s to broaden the trust base that determines who feels carried by it.

Narrative Fluency: The Missing Trust Mechanism

At the roundtable, a recurring theme emerged: disinformation isn’t just about facts, it’s about belief. Because belief doesn’t form through repetition of messages or facts, it forms when something resonates. When it feels true, not just sounds true.

As one participant put it: “People don’t need more facts. They need a story that helps them make sense of the world they’re already living in.”

This is where narrative fluency enters. Not as a communications tactic, but as a condition for trust in high-friction environments. It’s the ability to:

Sense what people are ready to hear
Choose the right voice, not just the right message
Align tone, timing, and emotional credibility
Communicate across fracture without hardening it

Without narrative fluency, innovation speeds ahead. But trust falls behind.

Civil Society as the Trust Synchroniser

If innovation feels too fast, it’s likely because no one trusted has translated what it’s for.

Civil society plays a unique, and increasingly irreplaceable role here.

It operates close enough to communities to feel the emotional temperature, but independent enough from political and commercial cycles to maintain steadiness and moral clarity.

It doesn’t just distribute truth but delivers it in ways people can believe. Neither do civil society orgs just represent communities. They show up emotionally, relationally, and locally.

And as noted earlier, NGOs are seen as the institution best positioned to repair the social fabric by even the most aggrieved in society.

The Real Opportunity: Synchronising Innovation with Trust

Innovation at the speed of trust is about synchronising ambition with belief, change with consent, movement with meaning. It’s the difference between being carried by momentum and being left behind by velocity.

This is the recalibration we need. Not slower or faster but stronger and more relational.

To bring innovation and public trust back into sync, we must:

Respect emotional credibility as a strategic advantage
Build in proximity, not just scale
Treat trust not as reputation, but as infrastructure

Alongside this is an investment in narrative fluency as a core capability, and one that can be built in partnership with civil society.

After all, civil society knows how to re-establish the rhythm that can lift progress, innovation and trust. What it needs now is to be resourced, trusted, and brought to the table early as both an amplifier and architect.

Because when people feel heard, represented, and protected, speed can become progress again.

Sat Dayal is Managing Director of Technology at Edelman UK.

LONDON 2 June, 2025 - Today, Edelman UK announces the appointment of Julian Payne as CEO.

Julian, who previously served as Global Chair of Crisis and Risk and Chair of Corporate Affairs for Edelman EMEA, will now lead Edelman’s UK operations, overseeing the business based in London. Julian will take on this role alongside his existing role as Global Chair, Crisis & Risk.

Julian succeeds Ruth Warder, who has taken the decision to pursue a new role outside of Edelman following over 15 years at the firm. Ruth leaves at the end of the month and will be announcing her next move imminently.

Julian joined Edelman in 2022 and has made a significant impact across the firm's corporate, crisis, and leadership communications offerings. A recognised leader in communications and public relations, Julian has over 25 years' experience across in-house and agency roles. He has held senior positions at some of the world's most high-profile organisations, including the BBC, Burberry, and Sky Television. Prior to Edelman, he served as Communications Secretary to Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall (now King Charles III and Queen Camilla), where he led the communications strategy across the Royal Household.

Earlier in his career, Julian built extensive experience in agency roles, beginning at Lynne Franks PR and later as a partner at boutique agency Henry’s House, where his clients included BT, ITV, Honda F1, and Virgin Media.

During his time at Edelman, Julian has counselled a wide range of multinational clients on reputation, leadership, and trust in an increasingly complex stakeholder environment. His leadership has been instrumental in expanding Edelman’s Corporate Affairs capabilities across the EMEA region.

Edelman President & CEO, EMEA, AJ Hesselink commented: “I want to sincerely thank Ruth Warder for her outstanding leadership as UK CEO over the past four years, for the impact she has made as a steward of our Brand practice across EMEA and for the significant impact she has had within the firm for the past 15 years. Ruth has played a critical role in winning and growing some of our largest clients, advancing our integrated capabilities, and driving creative excellence — including nine Cannes Lions wins last year. She leaves behind a strong and dynamic leadership team and a UK business well-positioned for the future.

As we look to the next chapter, I’m delighted that Julian will step into the role of UK CEO. He is a proven leader with deep expertise in corporate affairs, reputation, and crisis advisory. His strategic judgement and trusted counsel have already made a real difference to our clients and our business. I’m excited to see him build on our momentum as we continue to grow, innovate, and evolve Edelman UK.”

Ruth Warder commented, “It has been an absolute honour and a privilege to be part of the Edelman journey over the past 15 years. A huge and heartfelt thank you to our outstandingly talented and brilliant team and to our incredible clients who partner with the UK business. I am delighted to pass the baton to Julian, who I have worked alongside for the past four years and know will be brilliant in the role, Edelman UK will go from strength to strength under Julian’s leadership.”

Julian Payne added, “It’s an enormous privilege to take on the role of CEO for Edelman UK. This is a business with exceptional talent, an enviable roster of clients, and a deep commitment to innovation and impact.

Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to support organisations as they have navigated their way through times of profound change — whether geopolitical shifts, the climate crisis, or the rapid evolution of technology. That experience has shaped my belief that the most successful businesses are those that anticipate what’s coming next and stay relentlessly focused on building trust with their audiences. I am also honoured to be working alongside our talented teams to build the next chapter of Edelman here in the UK — it is an exciting time to be working in our industry, and I look forward to seeing what lies ahead not just for Edelman UK but our industry as a whole.” Julian will report to AJ Hesselink, Edelman President & CEO, EMEA and will take role from June 9th.

For any questions please contact:
Helen Lee, Head of Marketing, EMEA
Mob: +44 7800639048
Email: Helen.lee@edelman.com

25 Years of Trust

Edelman Political Bulletin: What Happens Next?

AI at Work: What Our First UK Hackathon Taught Us

From Impressions to Impact: Crafting Thought Leadership to Drive Sales and Revenue

Trust as the drumbeat of technological hope

Reputational pitfalls in the age of artificial intelligence

Innovation at the Pace of Belief? What it now takes to build a future people can believe in.

It’s Not Cheating. It’s Co-Authorship.

Edelman Renews Strategic Partnership with Founders Forum Group: Marking 20 Years of Founders Forum Global

The pace of innovation isn’t too fast. It’s just out of sync.

Edelman UK Announces Julian Payne as CEO as Ruth Warder departs for a new role

25 Years of Trust

Edelman Political Bulletin: What Happens Next?

Share

AI at Work: What Our First UK Hackathon Taught Us

From Impressions to Impact: Crafting Thought Leadership to Drive Sales and Revenue

Trust as the drumbeat of technological hope

Reputational pitfalls in the age of artificial intelligence

Innovation at the Pace of Belief? What it now takes to build a future people can believe in.

It’s Not Cheating. It’s Co-Authorship.

Edelman Renews Strategic Partnership with Founders Forum Group: Marking 20 Years of Founders Forum Global

The pace of innovation isn’t too fast. It’s just out of sync.

Edelman UK Announces Julian Payne as CEO as Ruth Warder departs for a new role