Proven Media Solutions explored how AI is altering the media landscape and driving the emergence of a new answer economy across two episodes of Cracking the Comms Code, featuring:

• Five Blocks CEO Sam Michelson, Scale Without Chaos founder Samantha Riel, and Zen Media founder and PR strategist Sarah Evans on AI’s impact on the PR industry.
• Meredith & The Media founder Meredith Klein, Friday Reporter Public Affairs founder and host Lisa Camooso Miller, and Sources of Sources founder Peter Shankman on what’s next in corporate comms. 

Here are the most important takeaways.

Visibility is being rewired

Perhaps the most counterintuitive insight was also the most commercially important. Despite widespread industry assumptions, the sources shaping AI-generated answers are often not traditional earned media.

Practitioners tracking thousands of prompts across major large language models are finding that owned content, such as corporate websites, structured brand information, and even open press releases, shapes responses the most. Earned media still matters, but it is operating more as a reputational validator than the primary informational input.

This distinction changes how communication value should be sold and measured.

If audiences are asking AI tools to synthesize recommendations or explain markets, they may never click through to coverage at all. It might not be enough anymore for an organization to be mentioned in a piece of earned media. Instead, the organization needs to be “front of page” as the answer to the question searchers are asking.

In practical terms, strategy must evolve from media placement to something closer to answer engineering, which means mapping the questions stakeholders ask and ensuring authoritative brand content exists to address them.

Productivity gains are buying back time

AI is making certain work faster and more efficient. What’s good about that is the time communicators now have on their hands to take care of higher-level tasks. But it also means higher expectations.

On the one hand, teams are already using AI to turn live conversations into content pipelines, transform messy strategic thinking into structured plans, and accelerate operational decision-making. On the other hand, an employee who once generated $120K of annual value may soon be expected to deliver multiples of that. 

On both hands, the takeaway is that AI amplifies the need for human judgment. Used well, it gives thinkers and doers the bandwidth to think and do, with good results up and down the company. Used badly, it takes over uniquely human functions and industrializes mediocrity at every level.

The most effective practitioners treat AI like a junior colleague – training it, correcting it, and refining outputs. Organizations expecting one-line prompts to replace expertise may find that AI-hallucinated strategies are simply fancier ways to put themselves at the back of the line.

Corporate crises now burn hotter and faster

Attention cycles in corporate communications are collapsing, meaning crises can erupt and disappear within minutes — or go on a long rampage, and someone has to know which kind we’re dealing with from moment to moment.

In a media environment where a geopolitical conflict, a viral customer complaint, and a celebrity meme can appear in the same social feed, audiences process outrage differently. Often, they move on fast — even before corporate responses clear legal review. This creates a paradoxical new discipline: knowing when not to respond.

Strong organizational values remain the most reliable compass. Companies grounded in consistent messaging and clear principles are better able to weather episodic storms. Preparation is therefore less about predicting specific events and more about stress-testing core positions in advance. 

Clarity is still king — both in how crises are handled and in how organizations present themselves both to outside consumers and inside team members.

Trust is fragmenting – again

Perhaps the most provocative shift involved in the AI answer economy is social rather than technological.

Audiences are increasingly bypassing institutional voices in favor of smaller, more familiar ones: local journalists, niche creators, subject-matter experts, and micro-influencers embedded in real communities.

Research and practitioner experience both suggest that local media retain disproportionately high trust. A recommendation from a neighbor or respected specialist may drive more behavior than a national campaign reaching millions. Meanwhile, mega-influencer credibility has eroded as it’s become harder to hide that the big guys are just trying to sell something.

For communications buyers, this creates a difficult recalibration. It’s cheap to reach the masses but more expensive than ever to persuade them.

The craft is still everything

One important point to remember is that the same skills that drove success in the 20th century remain relevant today. Narrative still matters. So do third-party validation and consistent positioning. What has changed is the mechanism through which these strengths are discovered and acted upon.

AI-mediated discovery will reward organizations that carefully and thoroughly stock their content libraries. Corporate volatility will reward those with pre-agreed value frameworks and faster internal decision pathways. Fragmented trust will reward communicators who cultivate authentic advocates rather than chasing vanity metrics.

Above all, the impact of communications must increasingly be demonstrated in business terms. Board-ready metrics like visibility in AI outputs, influence on purchasing pathways, and contribution to revenue will shape future budgets — so professionals need to be prepared to chase these numbers and prove their achievements. 

A new brief for buyers – and the industry

For organizations investing in communications services, the takeaway is not that PR has become obsolete, but that the definition of effective PR has expanded dramatically. We need more than just coverage, more than just speed, more than just scale.

Buyers should now demand strategies designed for how information actually moves: integrated owned-and-earned ecosystems, measurable visibility in AI discovery, influence rooted in credible voices, and productivity models aligned to real business outcomes.

For communications professionals, the message is sharper still. AI is exposing where the discipline was never applied rigorously enough. The opportunity ahead is enormous, but only for those willing to stop optimizing for impressions and start competing to become the answer.

Dive deeper into the full conversations in the videos below.

In countries like Iran, speech the government doesn’t like results in the speaker being threatened, jailed, and/or killed. But it doesn’t stop there. The people who facilitated the speaker often end up in the same circumstances, as do their families.

America’s speech laws aren’t perfect. Some people opposed the Biden administration’s jailing of two dozen pro-life activists, while others will point to the recent deaths surrounding Minnesota protests against immigration enforcement.

But the fact that millions of people can publicly protest, spread awareness on social media, and advocate for change through the media and to their elected representatives means that our speech is still mostly free.

Contrast that with Iran, where in the last few months tens of thousands of people were slaughtered for the crime of protesting against their government. 

As you go back to your day, please take a moment to read our piece above, or to watch a few minutes of our panel conversation with Iran International journalist Negar Mojtahedi about the freedoms we cherish in the West and hopefully will see flourish in Iran. 

Then they go home, close their laptops, and leave their own LinkedIn profiles untouched for four months.

That contradiction was at the center of a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, where Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins sat down with Brendan Watts, Director of PR and Communications at Storyblok; Jacqueline Martinez, President and Chief Communications Officer at Digital HQ; and Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker. 

The topic was how PR professionals can build their personal brands and the uncomfortable finding was that most aren’t doing it.

The skills transfer perfectly

Jacqueline said it directly: “You already know what to do. You’ve just always done it for everybody else.”

Think about what a strong LinkedIn presence actually requires. A clear point of view. Consistent messaging. An understanding of your audience and what they want to hear. The ability to turn an insight or an experience into something worth reading. The discipline to show up regularly. PR professionals develop all of these skills on behalf of clients. Why not apply the same skills to their own career?

Dustin made a similar point from his own experience. When he transitioned from political journalism to running his own company, he had no idea what to post about. His father’s advice was simple: write things down throughout the day as they come to you, then once a week, sit down and pull out the best ones. That’s a content strategy. It’s also exactly what communicators do when they’re building a messaging calendar for a client.

What “building your brand” actually means

One point the panel was quick to correct: personal branding on LinkedIn is not self-promotion. 

Brendan’s most-engaged posts have nothing to do with his employer. They’re about how he thinks about his work – the process behind a campaign, an observation about the industry, a lesson from something that went sideways. “People sense they don’t want you to sell them,” he said. “But if I talk about how we planned a campaign rather than promoting it, it pops off.” Noah’s top-performing post of all time was a breakdown of how he’d approach getting a product’s first hundred customers – actionable, generous, no pitch attached.

PR professionals constantly write thought leadership for clients. They ghostwrite op-eds, develop executive voices, and shape how a CEO comes across in an interview. The same instincts apply on LinkedIn – the only difference is whose name goes on it.

Jacqueline’s framing was useful here. A client of hers in the public sector had built a consistent LinkedIn presence around his work and his thinking. When he walked into the governor’s office to meet the chief of staff for the first time, that chief of staff pulled out a book the client had recommended on LinkedIn weeks earlier. The client came back to Jacqueline, saying he was walking into rooms where his reputation preceded him. “We are warming these rooms for our clients,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we be warming these rooms for ourselves?”

The mechanics are the same, too

The tactical elements of LinkedIn success map almost exactly onto what communications professionals already practice.

The hook – the first two or three lines before someone hits “read more” – is a lede. Noah said it deserves as much attention as the rest of the post combined, because it determines whether 100 people see the content or 1,000. Any PR professional who has written a pitch email or a press release knows how to write a lede.

Commenting on other people’s posts is relationship-building and source cultivation. Jacqueline makes 10 to 15 substantive comments a day, not to drive traffic back to her own profile, but to stay connected, add value, and keep relationships warm. That’s account management. Noah noted that a thoughtful comment shows up in connections’ feeds – it’s essentially a post with lower stakes, and it’s a natural starting point for anyone not yet comfortable publishing original content.

Content planning is already in the toolkit. Brendan keeps a running text document – currently over 560 items – of observations, one-liners, and passing thoughts that he draws from when it’s time to post. It’s a source list. PR professionals maintain those for clients all the time.

Even the question of what to post answers itself through a PR lens. Dustin described a lobbyist whose organization had just secured a White House meeting on a low-profile bill. The instinct was to announce it. The better post, as Dustin reframed it, was: “Here are five things we did to get a White House meeting that had nothing to do with Venezuela, immigration, or government shutdowns.” Don’t just report the win. Explain the strategy behind it. That’s the difference between a press release and a story – and PR professionals know how to tell stories.

Why it matters now

The stakes are real and getting higher. Brendan is about to hire two PR professionals. Before he opens a job description, he’s already on LinkedIn. What he’s finding is that 95% of candidates have profiles that are effectively empty – recycled company posts, a CV-style about section, nothing that shows how they think. He said: “You’re being hired to do this for your execs and your company and immediately I have a bad taste in my mouth.”

Noah told us that for every hiring manager doing this consciously, there are probably a hundred doing it without realizing it. People posting regularly have built familiarity and credibility before the first conversation happens. The people who aren’t posting start at a disadvantage that they may not even know exists.

PR professionals have spent careers making other people visible, credible, and worth listening to. The tools are the same. The platform is the same. The only thing that needs to change is realizing who the client is: themselves. 

Catch the full conversation in the video below.

Hosted by Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins, the show featured Erick Woods Erickson, nationally syndicated talk radio host and former Fox News and CNN contributor; Glenn Kessler, longtime Washington Post reporter and former Fact Checker; and Dave Levinthal, senior editor and investigative reporter at NOTUS.  

The headline lesson was simple: “left vs right” is rarely the real problem. The real problem is that comms teams often pitch as if all media work the same way.

They don’t. And the wider the spectrum you’re trying to cross — from local to national, blog to newsroom, talk radio to fact-checkers — the more your success depends on understanding what the outlet is built to do.

Pitching partisan outlets without sounding fake

Partisan media are best understood as audience service. They exist to meet a specific reader’s or listener’s expectations, sticking to values, language, and framing that feel familiar. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently unserious; it means it operates under a strong “audience contract.”

This means two rules apply for PR pros.

First, sound native. If you use language that reads as though it was copied from the other side’s talking points, the pitch comes across as not “balanced,” but manipulative. A conservative outlet receiving a pitch full of progressive-coded phrases will assume you’re either trying to bait it or that you don’t understand its audience. A liberal outlet seeing loaded right-coded phrasing may assume you’re bringing a culture-war fight, not a story.

Second, offer something real. Partisan outlets still reward the same things traditional outlets do: exclusivity, credible sources, hard facts, and specificity. “Here’s an issue” is less valuable than “Here’s a local example, a human story, or documentation that proves this isn’t just an opinion.”

When comms teams struggle here, it’s usually because they treat partisan media as a checkbox: “We need conservative coverage” or “We need progressive coverage.” That mindset produces generic, over-engineered pitches. What works is the opposite: tailored framing, clear relevance, and substance that stands up to scrutiny.

Pitching media styles, not just politics

The most useful way to think about “the spectrum” is as a difference in media format. The same story can be pitched in completely different ways depending on who’s receiving it, because each format has different constraints and incentives.

For instance, investigative editors and reporters want leads, not copy. They’re looking for material that can support reporting, such as documents, patterns, conflicts of interest, wrongdoing, or hypocrisy that can be proved. The strongest pitch to this style of journalist is not a polished narrative. It’s the building blocks of a story with a clear “why now.” 

If you’re pitching an investigative reporter, aim for

• a specific claim that can be tested;
• evidence (documents, filings, credible witnesses);
• a clear conflict or discrepancy; and
• a short explanation of why it matters to the public.

What usually fails is “PR theater”: sweeping statements, big adjectives, or pre-packaged articles. Good investigative journalists don’t want to paste your story. They want to own it, because ownership is what protects credibility.

Talk radio and personality-driven media run on attention

A talk show host is not a newsroom assignment desk. Even when they care about facts, their job is to hold attention. That changes what a successful pitch looks like.

Here, a pitch works when it is

• relevant to the host’s existing interests,
• sharply framed (the hook needs to land fast),
• deliverable in the host’s voice,
• not overly scripted or “campaigny.”

A common mistake is sending talk radio the same thing you’d send a policy reporter: dense, careful, document-heavy material with no immediate spark. A host needs a reason to talk about a topic right now, not a thesis statement. 

This is where relationships become unusually important. Hosts are inundated and operate with ruthless filters. The people they already trust rise to the top.

Reaching traditional reporters 

Reporters are allergic to spin. The easiest way to lose them is to package a pitch as a conclusion rather than a question.

As such, the most effective stance is “Here’s what was said. Here’s what we believe is wrong. Here’s the supporting evidence.”

If you’re pitching a reporter, you’re essentially inviting scrutiny. That’s the point. The reward is credibility. If you’re right, you get powerful validation; if you’re wrong, you learn — perhaps painfully, but quickly. 

Handling negative coverage like a professional

One of the most useful parts of the conversation, especially for PR practitioners, was how political operators respond to negative media. There’s a lesson here that transfers perfectly into corporate comms: don’t take it personally.

What separates strong comms teams from fragile ones isn’t whether they avoid negative stories. It’s whether they can respond without emotion getting in the way of judgment.

Here are some practical takeaways:

• If you’re wrong, correct cleanly and quickly. Don’t litigate.
• If you’re right, don’t gloat. Support your position with evidence and calm repetition.
• Avoid “pleading” with journalists. It reads as insecurity and rarely works.
• Don’t demand friendly language from an outlet whose audience expects different framing. Translate your message without losing its substance.

The deeper point is that the media aren’t there to protect your self-image. They’re there to serve their audience. Once you accept that, pitching becomes less stressful and more strategic.

Relationships matter, no matter the politics

The final takeaway was the oldest one, and still the most ignored: relationships matter.

Not in the cheesy “I know a guy” sense. In the professional sense, the reporters and editors who have learned that you don’t waste their time, you don’t send irrelevant garbage, and you don’t spin them into embarrassment are far more likely to read you when it counts.

That trust is built through

• relevance (you understand what they cover),
• restraint (you don’t spray-and-pray),
• honesty (you don’t hide bad facts), and
• consistency (your tips don’t collapse on inspection).

The era of mass pitching is ending — not because PR people stopped doing it, but because the media environment has become too noisy. Signal, credibility, and attention are scarce.

If you can pitch in a way that respects those constraints — tailored to format, rooted in evidence, framed for the outlet’s audience — you can still land coverage across the spectrum. But you have to stop treating “the spectrum” like a list and start treating it like a set of distinct worlds.

Now we’re living with the consequences: a slopocalypse. And for comms professionals, it’s creating a real strategic dilemma. When everyone can produce “good enough” copy in minutes, how do you justify quality work that takes time? How do you keep a human voice from getting ironed out into something that sounds like every other brand on the internet?

The answer is sobering, but surprisingly hopeful.

The AI challenge to comms professionals

In a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins hosted two members of the content team to explain how comms teams can use AI as leverage while keeping the human voice and story-first craft that actually earns attention.

Content Director Jasper Hamill and Senior Editor Drew Belsky started with some honesty about AI. It didn’t just make writing faster, but changed expectations.

Leaders started to ask: Why does this take a week when a tool can produce a draft in ten minutes? Why do we need three rounds of edits when a model can “polish” a piece instantly? Why pay for craft when speed now looks like competence?

That pressure is real, and in many teams, it has meant fewer writers doing more work, with less time to think. And once the internet is flooded with easy content, attention becomes even harder to earn. You can publish every day and still feel invisible.

That’s the trap. AI increases output, but it doesn’t create impact. Most of what it produces sits in the same gray zone — technically fine, emotionally flat, structurally predictable.

So yes, AI is a threat. But not in the way people first feared.

The surprising opportunity for PRs

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: AI is not great at the part of comms that actually moves the needle.

It’s good at generic competence. It can summarize a report, generate variations, brainstorm headlines, and produce a clean paragraph that “sounds professional.” If your goal is to fill space, it’s an efficient machine.

But if your goal is to be memorable — if you need content that lands with a specific audience, feels human, carries a distinctive voice, and earns trust — AI still struggles.

Why?

Because high-end communications is not just writing. It’s judgment. It’s knowing what to leave out so the reader keeps going, putting the most interesting detail at the top and finding a hook that makes an editor lean forward rather than hit “delete,” and understanding which line will make a piece feel alive in a crowded feed.

AI can imitate patterns. It can’t reliably choose the best pattern for this moment, audience, publication, or human reader.

Editors and journalists are already developing a feel for machine-written text. The clichés change over time, but the feeling is consistent. The writing is frictionless, and that’s the problem. There’s no tension, no personality, no risk. It reads as though it was engineered not to offend anyone, which is exactly why it fails to engage.

In a world where a thousand companies can publish “acceptable” content, the advantage shifts to those who can produce something distinct.

That’s the opportunity. The more slop there is, the more valuable the signal becomes.

How Proven Media makes it work

At Proven Media Solutions, the operating assumption is simple: AI is a tool, not a substitute for craft. Used well, it can accelerate the parts of the process that shouldn’t require human genius. But the parts that matter most — story selection, interviewing, voice, structure, and editorial standards — stay human-led.

The core differentiator is not a secret prompt. It’s doing the thing that slop can’t do: talking to real people.

When you interview someone properly, you get specificity — scenes, tensions, contradictions, lived experience. That’s where the “angle” lives. It’s also what makes a piece credible. Anyone can pull data. Not everyone can capture a voice.

That matters even more in public affairs and opinion work, where readers are saturated with talking points. Proven Media’s approach is to find the human story inside the policy or the issue: what does it change, whom does it affect, and what’s the surprising detail that makes it worth reading?

Then comes the part AI still can’t do at a consistently high level: shaping. Great writing is not simply correct grammar and a professional tone. It’s architecture. It means opening with a compelling detail rather than a generic thesis. It’s pacing, clarity, and a sense of momentum. It’s what elevates content that gets published into content that gets remembered.

Finally, there’s the unglamorous but decisive step: editing. In the AI era, copyediting becomes a strategic advantage. A single obvious “machine-ism,” a misplaced phrase, or a too-neat rhetorical formula can trigger a reflexive rejection from an editor who has seen the same pattern fifty times that week. Human editors catch what models miss: the subtle signals that a piece isn’t truly authored.

Take advantage of the era of AI slop

The comms industry is heading toward a split. There will be fast, low-cost content that satisfies basic needs. And there will be bespoke, high-trust content that organizations use when the stakes are higher: reputation, persuasion, credibility, authority.

If you’re a comms professional who cares about staying valuable, don’t compete with AI on speed alone. That’s a race to the bottom. Compete on what AI cannot commoditize:

• Original reporting and interviewing
• Distinctive voice
• Sharp hooks and structure
• Local relevance and specificity
• Rigorous editing
• A clear and fresh point of view

The slopocalypse is real, and believe it or not, it’s a gift. It has made the difference between “content” and “communication” visible again.

In an era where anyone can publish, the winners will be the teams who still know how to say something worth reading — and say it like a human being.

In many organizations, AI functions like a cheat sheet. It speeds up individual tasks, generates first drafts, or summarizes information—but it rarely touches on how work is structured, governed, or scaled. As a result, AI becomes a bolt-on tool rather than an integrated system.

The problem is not the technology. Any tool is effective only when it is used appropriately. A hammer is indispensable on a roof but useless behind the wheel of a car. A steering wheel is essential for driving but meaningless without an engine, brakes, and a driver who understands the road. AI works the same way. Without intentional design, training, and integration, it accelerates activity without improving outcomes.

That distinction—between using AI tactically and embedding it strategically—defines the difference between teams who might reap short-term efficiency gains right now and organizations that pile up advantages for years or decades to come.

Team-Level Execution: How Proven Media Solutions Used AI to Scale Without Chaos

Proven Media Solutions faced a familiar challenge: client demand was growing rapidly, and the firm was on pace for significant year-over-year expansion. Sounds great, but here’s the problem:

• hiring aggressively would have introduced financial risk and cultural strain, but 
• holding the line would have forced the team into unsustainable workloads. 

In stepped AI, promising a solution. But it would deliver only if the firm could apply it without compromising quality or judgment.

Rather than attempting to “AI-enable” everything, the firm identified a specific constraint: creating a first draft. first-draft content creation for earned media and thought leadership. This work is time-intensive, highly repeatable, and essential—after all, a lousy first draft won’t do much for earned media, and there can’t be thought leadership if bad work doesn’t convince anyone to follow. But being at the earliest stages of content creation, the first draft does not necessarily require senior-level strategic thinking.

AI was introduced not as a replacement for writers, but as a junior writing assistant, trained on high-quality, published examples, outlet standards, author voices, and internal editorial frameworks. Why the “junior assistant” framing? To keep everyone on the same page about what the system was for (and what it wasn’t). It was not asked to invent strategy or narrative direction. Those decisions remained human.

Editors and writers were trained to interact with the system the same way they would coach a new hire—by giving precise, concrete feedback rather than vague reactions. “This transition is weak” became “tighten this paragraph by grounding it in a specific example.” On top of that, the system improved by learning from finalized, published work fed back into its training loop.

The result? The AI’s first drafts were 80 percent “there” out of the gate. The remaining 20 percent—structure, nuance, fact-checking, voice refinement—was where human expertise added the most value. Writing time dropped dramatically while editorial rigor stayed strong. That meant content that integrated AI capability…but also didn’t look like it was written by AI. And that’s because it wasn’t, really. Humans guided the process at every step, just much more efficiently.

Most importantly, the system absorbed volatility. Sudden spikes in client demand, overlapping deadlines, and staff availability changes no longer threaten delivery. If the company had wanted AI to remove work, there might have been some disappointment. But knowing where the AI’s real value was—in redistributing work—allowed senior team members to focus on strategy, client counsel, and narrative framing instead of breaking their brains on mechanical execution.

AI Must Become a Core Capability…but the Right Way

This lesson about success on the team level scales directly to the enterprise. The trick is that organizations must resist the urge to treat AI as a side project…but also resist the urge to let AI run whole departments.

At the corporate level, AI adoption often stalls for one of two reasons. Either it is treated as a platform feature—something embedded in existing tools and assumed to deliver value automatically—or it is siloed within a single role or department. Both approaches miss the point.

Communications leaders must shift from asking, “How do we use AI?” to asking, “Where does work break down, and how should AI change the system?” High-value applications are not cosmetic. They sit at the intersection of time, repetition, and decision-making: real-time issue detection, organizational knowledge management, narrative intelligence across audiences, and workflow automation that reduces friction while maintaining accountability.

But this isn’t an invitation to give AI free rein. This capability requires (human) governance. Clear guardrails around data use and protecting intellectual property allow teams to experiment safely. Leadership will not want team members to be too terrified of plagiarism or made-up facts to try out the new AI. Reassuring everyone that human beings will keep the AI “honest” will give the whole team breathing room to learn.

And the whole team really means “the whole team.” AI literacy cannot belong to a single lead. Communications teams must understand how AI supports their role, how to manage its output, and how to correct it when it falls short, as any tool can and does. Those who worry about early-career professionals getting replaced are missing the mark—smart leaders will keep those essential people, but change what they learn. Strategic thinking is still essential. It will simply flourish through different inputs.

Perhaps most importantly, AI can offer insight on where humans add value. As automation absorbs repetitive tasks, communications leaders can spend more time on the work AI cannot do, like exercising sound judgment and building up their companies’ credibility and influence.

The Strategic Imperative

When it comes to AI, everyone wants to be the first through the door. But this technology will best reward those who adopt it deliberately, not just “really fast.”

At the team level, Proven Media Solutions demonstrated that AI can increase output without eroding quality, as long as it is treated as a trained assistant rather than an autonomous solution. At the enterprise level, the same principle applies. The men and women in charge must embed AI into workflows, govern it intentionally, and align it with human decision.

As AI might say itself (with the right prompts), “AI is not the strategy. It is the system that supports the strategy.”

Want to hear more about how AI can move from bolt-on tool to strategic system inside your communications team? Watch the full panel discussion here:

That sentiment framed a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, where Proven Media Solutions invited Brooke Kruger of KC Partners, Jessica Bayer of DHR Global, and economist Michael Feuz of ITR Economics to assess the market heading into 2026. Their message was candid and clarifying: the search experience feels painful, but the underlying data show a communications labor market that remains healthy, strategic, and above pre-pandemic levels.

The disconnect lies in expectations.

What the Comms Jobs Market Looks Like Now

Growth is real, but modest. 2021 and 2022 saw a hiring surge as organizations expanded teams rapidly amid social volatility, political scrutiny, and stakeholder pressure. But that pace was never sustainable, and it distorted the baseline. Recent economic data show continued job growth, but at a moderate rate. The communications sector remains larger than it was in 2019. What has changed is speed.

Employers can afford to take their time. The ratio between open roles and candidates has moved closer to balance. During the expansion years, companies competed aggressively for talent. Today, hiring leaders are emphasizing quality control. No starry-eyed dreamers here: when executives consider a hire, they want assurances of a measurable return on day one. That means longer hiring cycles and tighter screening.

Industry matters. Recruiters report stronger momentum in healthcare, financial services, energy, technology policy, and other regulated industries. Public affairs and government-facing communications are proving their value in helping organizations navigate policy risk. That means an open seat in the boardroom for the guy who protects corporate reputation and keeps everyone ready for a coming crisis.

Applicant volume is high, and discernment is higher. Recruiters are not going to evaluate all 219 applications that come in for a given position. They narrow quickly to the handful whose backgrounds match the role precisely. It’s understandable for candidates to apply broadly—they have to—but employers are prioritizing a good fit.

Comms remains a strategic business consideration. Frustrated job candidates should take solace that they’re not banging their heads against the wall. Yes, executive investment in communications continues. Companies can rise or fall on reputation, regulatory exposure, investor confidence, and stakeholder trust, and the execs know it. Boards expect communications leaders who can anticipate risk and guide strategy. If firms are being especially disciplined in hiring, that reflects the strategic importance of what they’re hiring for.

What Employers Are Actually Looking For

With the landscape established, we can get down to brass tacks. Employers want to see an immediate impact from their hires — “plug-and-play” leaders who can hit the ground running without extended onboarding periods. Candidates who already understand what’s going on today in the industry and the stakeholder environment hold an advantage.

Organizations also want communications professionals who can advise the C-suite and deliver operationally. The separation between strategist and executor has narrowed. Directors capable of operating at a CCO level while remaining hands-on are particularly attractive.

Can you connect strategy to value? How does your work mitigate risk, protect margins, or support valuation? Speaking the language of business leaders differentiates serious candidates from tacticians.

Emotional intelligence counts, too. The candidate brimming with technical skill might get a foot in the door, but if the guy next to him has good judgment, composure, and professional discretion, those qualities will get him over the finish line. Hiring leaders want someone they trust in moments of crisis.

And then there’s the shiny new elephant in the room: AI. Few professionals are true AI experts, and employers understand that. So fluency goes a long way. Candidates should be able to describe how they have used AI to improve efficiency, accelerate research, or strengthen quality control. Among skilled professionals, AI is viewed as a multiplier.

How to Stand Out Before an Interview

If you want to be seen, you first have to make yourself worth looking at. Start by going beyond the application—after all, submitting applications alone rarely differentiates a candidate. Identifying internal champions, securing referrals, or partnering with recruiters will make you stand out to the people who can get you a job.

Then think about narrowing your niche. This may sound counterintuitive—after all, we said above that candidates cast a wide net out of necessity—but it’s worth thinking outside the box here. In a selective market, candidates with clear and specific skills and relevant backgrounds make for less risky hires. Define your unique expertise—mergers and acquisitions, regulatory communications, IPO readiness, policy strategy—and demonstrate how it bears on the job. Pivoting beats reinventing.

Stay active, too, while you’re job-searching. Find fractional or advisory work if you can get it, and look for opportunities to get yourself in the press. You’ll gather fresh stories to show your worth and concrete proof that your expertise is in demand. You’ll also build relationships—the editor of a local trade paper who runs your story might have a lead for you, and you might be surprised at how fast a contractor can turn into a staffer.

Finally, don’t neglect LinkedIn. Yes, recruiters frequently turn to LinkedIn searches. Set up your profile to reflect the role you seek, include relevant keywords, and demonstrate the impact you’ve made in the field. If you can drum up some thoughtful engagement within your sector, all the better. People will notice that you’re an expert.

Best Ways to Stand Out During an Interview

Now you’re in the room with the guy who will decide whether you get a job. What next?

Start with those examples you’ve been compiling of the advantages you’ll bring. Make sure to connect your work to business outcomes relevant to the organization you’re pitching—not just campaign metrics (though those help), but also how your experience and even your temperament have delivered results. Articulate your distinctive advantage clearly, and even a little colorfully. Remember, you want to stand out—not just as a stand-out worker, but also as someone people can seem themselves getting along with.

From there, the tips to get the interview will apply, too, as tips to do the interview. Be prepared to answer the AI question, by showing how you have integrated AI into workflow or at least demonstrating thoughtful experimentation and strategic awareness. Frame communications, and your role in it, in terms of bottom-line value, risk mitigation, and stakeholder influence. Avoid jargon, and be straightforward. Executives respond to clarity, and hiring managers respect a candidate who’s respectfully putting his best foot forward, without looking as though he’s trying too hard.

The communications job market feels challenging – and it is! Competition is visible, and standards are rising. Yet the data show continued growth and sustained strategic investment. So communications executives willing to sharpen their positioning, deepen their specialization, and articulate business impact, will find a wealth of opportunities.

For the panel’s full breakdown of what’s really happening in the communications job market, watch the conversation here:

The problem is that no one sees any of it. Instead of becoming part of the company’s success narrative, only a handful of people even know the victory happened. That raises a simple but important question: how do you take genuine successes inside a business and turn them into reputation, credibility, and momentum outside it?

This was the theme of an episode of Cracking the Comms Code, hosted by Dustin Siggins of Proven Media Solutions, with Keith Berman (Director of Internal Communications at Vertafore), Jennifer George (SVP and Head of Communications at The Aspen Group), and Andrew Moyer (EVP and General Manager at Reputation Partners).

Internal communications creates external opportunities

Two concrete examples shared during the webinar showed how making internal stories visible to the right people can generate external proof points.

The first started as an internal “this is worth sharing” moment and ended up as major earned media. Within a dental brand, a local leader flagged a patient transformation for an internal newsletter. A doctor had offered pro bono care to a homeless veteran, helping him put his life back on course. In many organizations, the story would end in a short intranet post, a few appreciative comments, and then silence.

But because internal and external communications had visibility into the same pool of stories, someone recognized this story for what it really was – not just an internal morale boost, but proof that the brand’s mission and values were more than marketing language. The team took it outward, starting in the local community, and it eventually formed the basis of an NPR piece.

The second example involved a client bringing nearly 20,000 teenagers and young adults to New Orleans. The client had not conducted PR in years and lacked a mature communications process. They did not arrive with polished spokespeople or a stack of ready-made case studies. What they did have was leadership willing to provide access to real people and genuine stories inside their network – which is far more valuable. 

When the agency engaged with one of the client’s key states, a local leader said they had the perfect spokesperson: a teenager with a powerful personal story about her father saving her life after a traumatic car accident. It was not a corporate message that could have been lifted from a newsletter. It was a human story uncovered by people close to the work, then brought into the external campaign.

The story ended up as an op-ed on Fox News Digital on Fathers’ Day. It was not created by clever pitching alone. It was enabled by internal visibility, internal trust, and a leadership culture willing to open doors. Without that, the agency would have had nothing real to work with.

Bridges, not silos

These two examples make the larger point easier to understand. External communications cannot manufacture credibility on demand. It can only amplify what already exists. Internal communications is often the system best placed to find the raw material – the people, the moments, and the lived proof that a company’s narrative is true. If internal communications is isolated from external communications, those stories stay trapped in inboxes and team meetings. When the two are connected, the narratives can be packaged, verified, and turned into external proof.

These moments matter because the external world rarely takes corporate messaging at face value. What it trusts is consistency – and consistency begins internally. Employees are often the first audience, and in practice, they are frequently the first newsroom. If employees do not understand the company’s strategy, values, or direction, the outside world will not, either. And if internal and external narratives drift apart, trust erodes in both directions.

However, stories are not enough on their own. They have to be surfaced, validated, and communicated in a way that leaders can repeat consistently, employees can recognize as real and external stakeholders can trust.

In practical terms, the pipeline is not complicated. Internal comms needs channels and routines that surface meaningful stories from across the business. Internal and external teams need shared visibility into those stories. Leaders need coaching to communicate in language employees actually understand. The organization needs one truth base internally and externally, so it does not tell employees one story and the market another. Agencies, when involved, need to function less as press release writers and more as partners who can identify which internal stories have the highest external relevance and place them where they will have the most impact.

Turning everyday work into marketing and branding wins

“Turning internal victories into external impact” can sound abstract, but the underlying idea is simple. If a company cannot recognize and communicate its wins internally, it will struggle to convince the outside world it deserves trust. And when internal communications is treated as a strategic function rather than a broadcast channel, it becomes one of the most reliable ways to build external credibility – without having to reinvent the wheel every time.

Ready to see the full conversation behind these examples? Watch it here:

That simple example shows the power of coalitions, which can turn a niche problem that looks like self-interest into a shared issue that voters, journalists, and lawmakers need to take seriously.

That was the focus of an episode of Cracking the Comms Code hosted by Dustin Siggins, founder of Proven Media Solutions. He was joined by three colleagues: Kerri Toloczko (Director of Public Affairs), Robert Kuykendall (Director of Accounts), and Jordan Banegas (Director of Special Projects).

The power of legislative coalitions

The timing mattered. Legislative season was beginning in many states, and the midterms were only months away. That combination changes incentives fast. Lawmakers become more sensitive to what is happening back home. They pay closer attention to local news, get more cautious about votes that can be framed as out of touch, and become more responsive to organized pressure because, as elections approach, political risk shapes decision-making. In that environment, coalitions become one of the most practical tools available. They demonstrate breadth, credibility, and local relevance simultaneously.

One story captured the mechanics of coalition-building perfectly. A lobbying push sent a dozen letters to a member of Congress through the legislator’s local office. The sender knew exactly how many were submitted, because the sender personally faxed them through.

Later, when the group met with the legislator, he claimed to have received eighty letters on the issue. The point was not the technology or even the exact numbers. It was the takeaway: coalitions multiply and amplify voices, expanding what lawmakers perceive as the size of an issue. A dozen letters from one organization look like lobbying. A flood of messages from a range of people seems more like pressure from the district, and politicians always take the district more seriously than a single organization.

The right people with the right messages

Another example challenged a common assumption. People often think coalitions matter only when they are massive. In practice, some state-level fights are won with only a handful of advocates if they are strategically positioned and credible.

One case in Georgia showed this clearly. A bill made it across the finish line with very few activists involved. Those individuals weren’t famous or super-rich. They mattered because they represented a broader group and could speak as practicing professionals or community members. Lawmakers are counting support…and also calculating risk. A small number of trusted local voices can create more political risk than a large but distant group that appears to have an agenda.

Coalitions also shape media coverage in a way many organizations underestimate. Media narratives are shaped by whoever shows up. If one side organizes a rally at the state capitol and reporters attend, the story will naturally tilt toward the people who are physically present and ready to speak. The coalition’s job is to ensure credible voices are there to provide a second side of the story.

This is also why preparation matters. Coalition members need simple materials, clear talking points, and basic discipline. In practice, this is how coalitions generate “impactful media coverage”: not through clever press releases, but through coordinated timing, credible messengers, and being present where the story is already forming.

A final story brought the conversation back to the real-world overlap between business interests and local politics. A state legislator explained that he did not hold strong ideological positions on every policy detail, but he cared deeply about how legislation would affect small, independent providers in his district.

In rural areas, those providers are people everyone knows: pharmacies, clinics, medical equipment suppliers, and other small businesses that sustain the community. When those providers are aligned, they become a coalition almost by default. And because they are trusted locally, lawmakers listen to them.

Diverse people, one narrative

Helping to pass or kill a bill is one thing. But coalitions also build a relationship. The legislator advocates for these community figures at the Capitol, and those same figures become validators for the legislator back home. With the midterms approaching, that validation becomes even more valuable.

Coalition-building carries risks, make no mistake. The more voices you add, the more unpredictable the coalition becomes. One person can say something reckless and derail the whole effort. Coalitions need basic discipline: a clear purpose, someone willing to coordinate, simple messaging guidance.

You don’t have to script people like robots to achieve this. You can just ensure that coalition members understand what matters most to say – and just as importantly, what not to say. Coalitions create power by multiplying voices, but that same multiplication increases the chance of mistakes unless someone is actively managing the effort.

The closing point was blunt: timing is everything. Coalition-building is least effective if you start in the middle of a legislative session, when staffers are overwhelmed and every interest group in the state is calling at once.

If you want to be heard, you have to build relationships early, provide resources early, and coordinate messages before the noise peaks. Lawmakers are humans, and the most influential conversations often happen outside formal channels, through trusted community members in everyday settings.

Coalitions make – or break – perception

Coalitions are powerful for the same reason they have always been powerful: they change perception. They take an issue from “one organization pushing its agenda” and turn it into “a community of people who care.” That matters in any year, but it matters most during legislative season and in the run-up to the midterms, when lawmakers and media are looking for signals about what the public will reward, what it will punish, and what it will remember.

Catch our full breakdown in the video posted below.

I learned this when I watched pointless rules and petty bureaucracy nearly put a skilled man out of work. Francois, a master barber from the Ivory Coast, had been cutting hair for more than a decade. Overzealous regulators in Iowa required 1,000 hours of training for a barber’s license — even for professionals like him who had already proven their craft.

Francois didn’t need his skill rubber-stamped. He needed the government to get out of his way.

So he joined a coalition of barbers, small-business owners and community advocates who believed the system was holding talented people back. They told their stories at the state capitol. They argued that licensing should protect consumers, not trap workers. And earlier this year, the governor signed their bill into law.

Now his sons watch their father do what he came to America to do: cutting hair, building a business and contributing to the community he calls home.

Nationwide, people are proving that they don’t need a permission slip from bureaucrats to feed their families. It is a reminder that American federalism still works, and that when government gets out of the way, people do what they’ve always done: work hard, build a life and turn dreams into reality.

Arizona stepped up when it adopted universal licensing recognition in 2019, allowing professionals who hold a license in one state to work in another without having to start over. More than 8,000 workers have already benefited, including engineers, nurses and electricians.

California opened the door for home cooks, many of them women and immigrants, to run small food businesses legally from their kitchens. By setting clear safety standards and removing unnecessary red tape, the state allowed thousands of entrepreneurs to participate openly in the economy.

Georgia modernized cosmetology rules this year so new stylists and salon owners can enter the field more quickly while maintaining strong consumer safeguards. For many, it means turning a dream into a livelihood in months instead of years.

None of these reforms needed permission from Washington. They happened because state leaders saw how their occupational licensing systems were out of date, acting as barriers that hurt real people. 

That is the quiet power of federalism. Smaller coalitions move faster, decisions remain close to the people affected, and good ideas spread because results speak for themselves.

In the past decade, nearly 30 states have reduced unnecessary training hours, expanded license portability and eliminated bureaucratic mazes for skills like braiding hair and cooking.

Critics warn that letting states act independently creates inconsistency. That diversity is what allows innovation. One state tests a reform, another refines it, and others follow — not because they were ordered to but because better outcomes are hard to ignore.

Ordinary people building a life without waiting for permission is what made America work in the first place. We were built by rule-breakers, risk-takers and free-thinkers who believed opportunity belonged to anyone willing to reach for it. They didn’t wait for Washington to bless their dreams. They worked, they built, they pushed past the gatekeepers.

States still carry that torch. And if we want a future rooted in real-world solutions, we should trust the places where freedom still lives closest to home.

Today, Francois’s barbershop is full. He is training young apprentices, supporting his family and offering the kind of service that keeps a neighborhood connected. His success did not come from a federal directive. It came from a state willing to listen to the people living with the consequences of outdated rules.

His story is more than a victory for one barber in Iowa. It is evidence that the American system still works as intended: bottom-up, community-driven and grounded in everyday experience.

Jordan Banegas originally published this piece at Inside Sources.