Six Communications Predictions for 2026

What's coming for communications in 2026? Here are six predictions.

One of them will definitely be wrong - but which?

1. Attention begins to shift from social media to chatbots

Social media loses some of its grip on our screentime as we start spending more time in conversation with AI. Ensuring your work is 'in the mind's eye of the AI' becomes a crucial communication challenge - restyling content norms just like SEO and keywords did decades ago - and each of us drifts further into a more personalised and less sociable online existence.

2. AI personalities become socialised

We are all familiar with the quirks and demographics of different social media platforms - TikTok for the kids, Facebook for pensioners etc. In 2026 we'll start to get more sense of who uses different LLMs and the quirks of their design. As we do, we realise the need to develop different channel strategies for different LLMs - reaching the institutional management class through Co-Pilot and the new economy through Gemini.

3. The slop backlash gathers pace

Even in the highly polarised US, AI slop can unite voices across the political chasm. Similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats dislike the use of AI video. Platforms like TikTok have said they will put 'slop filters' in place but the problem is - as we know from their failed (and now largely aborted) efforts to identify and remove harmful content - platforms can't police themselves. Expect to be wading through slop for a while yet.

4. An AI scam becomes a scandal

A company's AI chatbot is manipulated into offering up confidential information and the material extracted is immediately analysed with AI to set in motion a PR disaster (or whistleblowing triumph!) that is almost over before the comms team can open their laptops.

5. AI gets political

The use of AI by politicians continues to creep into public life, with firm numbers emerging around how often MPs use LLMs to draft routine correspondence and even speaking notes. But politicians themselves start to wake up to the distorting effects of AI when lobbyists begin deploying AI agents to flood their inboxes and casework systems - making it almost impossible to separate human signal from AI noise.

6. The bubble is a red herring

The AI bubble bursts or deflates - but the real challenge isn't the economic impact. It's the way that collapsing AI share prices enable people to convince themselves that the impact of AI on our lives won't be that big after all. 'Bubble Cope' sets in while AI technology is woven further and further into the fabric of our lives, hoovering up our data and reshaping how we see the world. Growth and productivity continue to stagnate - but AI companies are growing again by the end of the year….