5 PR Trends You Need to Know in 2027
1. AI is the new gatekeeper
AI is increasingly deciding what people see, who they trust and which brands make the shortlist. But what it says about your brand may be very different from how you position it…
That changes the role of PR. If an AI assistant is deciding which companies, experts and sources to surface, earned media and credible third-party coverage become even more important to both SEO and AI visibility.
We’re already seeing this in our own industry intelligence that we conduct on a weekly basis for our clients. When we test how AI models answer questions about specific sectors and companies, the sources they draw on can reveal a very different picture from traditional measures of SEO and media visibility.
A business might have a strong reputation among journalists but still be surprisingly absent from AI generated answers and AI search results. Equally, a publication or individual journalist can have an outsized influence on how AI understands a particular market.
Our advice: Don’t just think about where you rank in traditional search. Start asking what AI says about you, which sources and publications it relies on and whether your organisation is appearing when the questions that matter are being asked. Where there are gaps, think about how PR, earned media and credible third-party coverage can help strengthen the sources and narratives AI is drawing from.
2. From coverage to impact
You can have a strong run of press coverage, but the real question is what that coverage actually changed.
In 2027, we think PR measurement needs to move further away from volume and towards influence, relevance and business impact.
That means looking beyond how many pieces appeared and asking better questions: Did we reach the right audience? Did we change the conversation? Did the coverage support a business priority? Did it put our client in front of the people who matter?
And now there is another layer to consider with AI visibility. If people are increasingly using AI to research companies, sectors and products, then whether a brand appears in those answers becomes another useful indicator of influence.
Our advice: Agree what success looks like with your agency before a campaign starts. Measurement should be something you build into the PR strategy from the outset, with both sides clear on what you’re trying to achieve and how you’ll know whether it’s working. Measure the things that matter to the business, not simply the things that are easiest to count.
“A common mistake in assessing the success or otherwise of any media relations initiative is to see it as a volume game. While a high number of brand mentions across earned channels is undoubtedly useful and relevant, a deeper and more precise approach to measurement is to look at the influence level of the coverage you've worked so hard for. The coverage itself isn't the outcome - the outcome is the thinking or behavioural change observed in your stakeholder audience as a direct consequence of exposure to the coverage you've generated. While quantifying these thinking and behavioural changes may feel challenging, it can and should be done. For example, assigning part of your measurement budget to an attitudes and opinion survey across a stakeholder group can be useful way of gauging shifts in perception over time.”
Con Franklin, Director & Senior Client Advisor at Rosely Group
3. Creators are becoming part of the media landscape
The definition of “media” is getting broader.
Newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and LinkedIn creators can all build significant audiences and influence how people understand an issue. For some audiences, these channels may be more relevant than a traditional publication.
That doesn’t mean journalists are becoming less important. Quite the opposite. The strongest campaigns will increasingly understand where different types of influence sit and use them together.
A journalist might provide credibility and reach around a major announcement, while a specialist creator or podcast host provides depth, personality or access to a highly engaged niche audience.
Our advice: Stop thinking about media lists as a fixed list of publications. Think about where your audience actually gets its information and who they trust within that space.
“Creators and traditional media can work much harder when they’re planned as part of the same campaign. In our consumer work, we’ve combined traditional media outreach around product launches and seasonal stories with influencer activity, giving us the credibility and reach of press alongside the more personal, experiential connection creators can bring. Rather than treating them as separate channels, bringing the two together can make the overall campaign much stronger.”
Georgie Sandhar, Senior Account Manager
4. The ability to move quickly will become a bigger competitive advantage
The news cycle is faster than ever. A story can break in the morning and be old news by lunchtime.
That means having a huge media list isn’t necessarily the advantage it once was. Knowing which journalists matter, understanding what they care about and having the right expert ready to respond can be far more valuable.
This is where intelligence-led PR comes into its own. Tracking what journalists are writing about, spotting emerging themes and knowing where a client has something genuinely useful to say means teams can act before an opportunity disappears.
We’ve seen this repeatedly in our own work. The strongest reactive opportunities often come from knowing the landscape well enough to recognise a story early.
Our advice: Build the intelligence before you need it. Know your key journalists, understand the conversations they are having and have credible spokespeople ready to respond.
"No business exists in a vacuum, and great PR is about understanding the wider world and moving quick when the opportunity arises for a client to be part of the conversation. The world of FX is quicker than most, and a day in the currency markets can be a rollercoaster as investors around the world react to the news agenda. Understanding this and being responsive has allowed us to put our client Caxton at the heart of the FX conversation, translating global news into actionable insights for customers in the UK that are exposed to currency volatility. A great example was this piece in CityAM on a topic that feels distant - an election in Japan - but which, in a hyperconnected world, is far more impactful than might at first be assumed."
Liam Thompson, Head of Insights, News and GEO at Rosely Group
Want to see how we approach intelligence-led PR? Explore our PR services
5. AI-generated misinformation will change the crisis playbook
Deepfakes and synthetic content are making it increasingly difficult to take digital content at face value.
For communications teams, that creates a new kind of crisis scenario: a piece of convincing AI-generated content can spread before anyone has established whether it is real. How quickly can you verify it, respond credibly and stop the false narrative from taking hold?
The answer isn’t simply having a response statement ready. Trust needs to exist before the crisis happens.
The organisations best placed to respond will be those that have already built credibility with their audiences, understand how misinformation spreads and have agreed processes for verifying and responding to suspicious content.
Our advice: Put AI-generated misinformation into your crisis planning now. Think through how you would verify suspicious content, who needs to be involved in the response and how you would communicate quickly without giving the false narrative more oxygen.
Further reading: Adopting AI: Narrative Risk and the New Rules of Reputation and Rise of the Robojournalist.
What this means for PR in 2027
There is one thread running through all five trends: credibility.
AI needs credible sources. Journalists need useful experts. Audiences need people and organisations they can trust. And as synthetic content becomes harder to distinguish from reality, reputation will become even more important.
Our view is that the strongest PR in 2027 won’t necessarily come from doing more. It will come from being more relevant, more intelligent and more useful - understanding what matters to audiences, knowing what journalists need and making sure the right people have something worth saying.
Talk to us about your 2027 PR strategy
Further Reading
Looking back: 5 PR & Comms Trends for 2026