Organizations are under unprecedented pressure to make faster decisions in environments that are more complex, fragmented, and unpredictable than ever.
Greg Gittrich, Global Head of Edelman Intelligence
We are living in an entirely new operating environment. Narratives move at the speed of AI, attention is fragmented, and trust is increasingly insular. Traditional communications systems were not built for this moment.
Yet many organizations still rely on fragmented data, siloed measurement, lagging indicators, and reporting systems designed primarily to explain what has already happened.
This creates an uncertainty gap as communications and marketing teams are increasingly expected to navigate AI disruption, understand complex stakeholder landscapes, and demonstrate measurable impact in the language executives and boards trust.
This is not simply a technology challenge. It's an operating challenge. Communication has evolved from a storytelling discipline into a real-time intelligence function connected directly to trust, influence, risk, and enterprise performance.
The organizations that will succeed will be the ones that can:
- predict which emerging opportunities and issues will impact their organization,
- power smarter decisions in real time, and
- prove business impact with measurable precision.
This requires a fundamentally different model built around decision-grade intelligence.
Introducing Edelman Intelligence
Communications without modern intelligence is guesswork.
At Edelman, this reality has fueled a multi-year transformation focused on building predictive analytics, integrated measurement, trust intelligence and AI-enabled capabilities designed to help organizations navigate today's increasingly complex landscape.
The launch of Edelman Intelligence is a significant next step in that investment.
Rather than treating data and research as a standalone reporting function, we are integrating intelligence directly into how organizations anticipate risk, understand stakeholders, shape narratives, optimize growth, and measure business impact.
That includes expanding Edelman's strategic AI advisory capabilities and introducing new advanced data solutions designed to help leadership teams connect fragmented signals, make faster decisions, and operate with greater clarity in real time.
These offerings build on Edelman's longstanding advisory work. The research, analytics, behavioral science, econometrics, and data expertise that have previously housed within Edelman DXI form the foundation of the new Edelman Intelligence.
To be clear, this is not simply a rebrand of Edelman DXI. It reflects a broader transformation grounded in a clear mission: to predict, power, and prove the impact of earned strategy on business outcomes.
Predict: Anticipate what matters next, before it becomes obvious or urgent
Organizations today face an overwhelming volume of signals but often very little clarity. The challenge is no longer access to information. It is understanding which shifts will matter and identifying risks, behaviors, and opportunities before they become visible to everyone else.
This requires the ability to connect signals across culture, media stakeholders and audiences to understand what is changing, why it matters and what action should happen next.
For one client, a consumer goods company, we monitored evolving media and social narratives to identify activist concerns, boycott narratives, and reputational risks before they gained traction publicly. For a food and beverage brand, we identified opportunities to re-engage valuable customers and discovered where the brand had permission to show up authentically in cultural conversations.
Identifying signals alone is not enough. Intelligence only creates value when insights inform and improve decisions.
Power: Turn intelligence into action that shapes influence, not just understanding
Communications teams are increasingly expected to evaluate message resonance, identify audience tensions, pressure-test creative approaches, and better understand stakeholder reactions before campaigns launch or narratives harden.
That requires intelligence that not only explains what is happening, but helps shape better decisions before action is taken.
For a learning company, we simulated how decision-makers would respond to messaging before launch, to refine strategy and during the campaign, to improve content in real time.
For a consumer brand, we uncovered a disconnect between how consumers experienced representation in digital environments and how creators approached character design, informing new industry guidance aimed at improving representation standards across the broader ecosystem.
Prove: Demonstrate impact in the language executives and boards trust
Outputs alone are no longer enough, and executive leadership teams increasingly expect communications leaders to demonstrate measurable contribution to business performance.
That is driving a broader shift away from activity-based reporting toward integrated measurement systems that connect earned strategy directly to business outcomes.
For a furniture retailer, we proved how earned and owned communications strengthened trust and contributed to $180 million in sales impact. For another global client, we built impact models to quantify how earned media, creator content and cultural marketing drove more than $15 million in incremental sales impact.
The competitive advantage is not AI alone
The organizations best positioned for this next era will not be the ones deploying the most AI tools. They will be the ones that combine human expertise, methodological rigor and AI-enabled workflows to create decision-grade intelligence.
In a landscape defined by uncertainty and speed, the future belongs to organizations that can shape what happens next instead of reacting to it.
