About the paper
This is a forecast-style corporate affairs report for 2026 from FleishmanHillard, centred on three linked forces shaping the field: fragmentation, declining trust, and a more confrontational geopolitical environment.
Methodologically, it is best described as a mixed-methods thought-leadership report grounded in the author’s original analysis, observation, discussions with colleagues, contacts and clients, and selective use of external datasets; there is no single disclosed sample, respondent count, or fieldwork design, and the geographic scope is broad but not clearly delimited, drawing on examples from markets including the UK, US, Germany and Japan.
Length: 32 pages
More information / download:
https://fleishmanhillard.co.uk/2025/12/corporate-affairs-trends-for-2026/
Core Insights
1. What is the report’s central argument about the corporate affairs landscape in 2026?
The core argument is that corporate affairs is becoming harder because the environment is simultaneously more fragmented, less trusting, and more geopolitically adversarial. The report says three forces stand out for 2026: fragmentation, decline of trust, and an increasingly confrontational geopolitical landscape. Rather than treating these as separate developments, it presents them as mutually reinforcing pressures that reshape how communicators reach audiences, build credibility and advise leadership.
The report also makes clear that AI is not a standalone trend in this edition because its effects are now embedded across all the others. In other words, AI is treated as a horizontal force altering research, measurement, publishing, direct engagement and execution, but not replacing the need for human judgement in areas such as geopolitical assessment.
Taken together, the report argues that the traditional model of corporate affairs, built around broad-reach media, relatively stable trust assumptions and a more predictable global environment, is no longer sufficient. The emerging model requires more precision, more segmentation, more direct publishing capability and greater sophistication in dealing with political risk and stakeholder complexity.
2. Why does the report say that “everything gets smaller,” and what does that mean in practice?
“Everything gets smaller” is the report’s shorthand for accelerating fragmentation. Drawing on Nicco Mele’s The End of Big, it argues that media, audiences, brands and institutions are all under pressure from digital atomisation, polarisation and weakening institutional authority. In practical terms, this means audiences are harder to reach at scale, general-interest channels are less dominant, and niche publishers, creators and platforms matter more than before.
The report says audiences are moving towards specialist, high-value and trusted outlets, including titles such as the FT, Economist and Wall Street Journal, alongside podcasts and subscription platforms such as Substack. On page 13, it also points to the visual evidence that major news sites are seeing steep traffic declines while Substack shows growth, reinforcing the idea that the mass-media centre is weakening.
A second part of this trend is economic: digital publishing is under pressure. The report argues that advertisers are likely to favour retail media networks and more directly attributable formats over traditional display advertising, while referral traffic from Google is declining as more users get information through AI-driven systems. That combination threatens publishers’ business models and may shrink the overall supply of quality journalism and analysis.
For corporate affairs leaders, the implication is strategic rather than merely descriptive. The report says they will need to widen relationship-building beyond the “usual suspects”, understand audience channel preferences in greater depth, include niche publishers and influential Substack writers in plans, and adjust measurement frameworks to prioritise relevant reach and business-linked outcomes over broad reputational proxies.
3. How does the report redefine trust, and why does it argue that “absolute trust” is ending?
The report argues that trust can no longer be treated as a stable, universal measure of reputation. For years, communicators often used trust as a broad proxy for reputational strength, but the report says that assumption is breaking down because trust is now polarised and audience-relative rather than generalised.
Its key evidence is that broad trust in institutions and news sources is weakening, while audiences increasingly trust the sources that align with their existing worldview. The report cites the Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report and notes that in 53 of the 54 countries surveyed there is a gap between trust in news generally and trust in “the news I use”. It also cites falling generalised trust levels in the UK, Germany and Japan, with US trust remaining low and flat.
This leads to a fundamental strategic shift. A channel cannot simply be labelled “trusted” in the abstract. It may be trusted by one stakeholder segment and distrusted by another. On page 19, the report uses the US example to show how left-leaning and right-leaning audiences consume and trust different sources. That means communicators must think in terms of relative trust within specific audience groups rather than aggregate trust across society.
The report pushes the logic further with the claim that “sounds true” increasingly beats “is true”. That is one of its strongest interpretive claims: in public debate, authority, emotional resonance and perceived credibility may matter more than factual correctness alone. The implication is not that facts no longer matter, but that institutions can no longer assume facts will persuade by themselves. They must communicate in ways that connect with audiences that do not automatically grant them trust.
4. What role does AI play in the report’s view of communications strategy and direct audience engagement?
AI runs through the report as an enabling and disruptive force. Early on, the author says AI is woven through the trends rather than isolated as its own section. The report’s view is that AI can materially improve efficiency, research, measurement and tactical delivery, but that its organisational adoption remains uneven and its limitations still constrain full replacement of human work.
In the context of fragmentation and trust, AI also changes how audiences discover information. The report argues that communicators now need to think not only about reaching humans through media and owned channels, but also about influencing the GPT-based systems those audiences may consult. On page 23, it says earned media accounts for about half of the sources cited by common GPTs in responses about companies or brands, while owned content contributes roughly another fifth. That makes credible earned and owned content strategic assets in both human and machine-mediated discovery.
This is one of the report’s more forward-looking ideas: businesses increasingly need to act as publishers, not only to reach stakeholders directly but also to shape the information environment from which AI systems draw. That makes publishing strategy more central to corporate affairs than in older media models. It also ties back to trust, because the report frames credible earned and owned content as “vital levers of influence”.
At the same time, the report draws a limit around AI. In the geopolitical section, it says AI can help manage the growing complexity of communications execution, but management’s demand for geopolitical intelligence, assessment and advice remains a uniquely human capability. So the report is neither techno-utopian nor dismissive: it sees AI as highly useful, but not as a substitute for senior judgement.
5. What are the report’s main conclusions for corporate affairs leaders, especially in a more zero-sum geopolitical world?
The report’s third major conclusion is that geopolitical uncertainty is no longer a background condition; it is becoming a central operating reality for corporate affairs. It describes a world in which governments are more nationalistic, businesses are increasingly treated as instruments of power projection, and economic security is becoming intertwined with national security.
This produces a “zero-sum” environment in which political actors increasingly think in terms of winners and losers, while global companies are trying to create value across multiple markets and stakeholder groups. The report says this tension makes life harder for multinational firms because supporting one government position can complicate operations elsewhere, and localisation strategies, though increasingly attractive, also multiply stakeholder complexity.
Its practical conclusion is that corporate affairs teams must become more sophisticated systems operators. They need better geopolitical sensing, more formal scenario planning, stronger risk tracking and more structured use of AI for targeted execution. But they also need deeper human expertise, because navigating cross-currents between governments, markets and audiences is presented as a high-judgement advisory function, not just a communications task.
So the report’s broader meaning is this: corporate affairs is moving away from broad-message distribution and towards high-complexity influence management. Success in 2026 will depend on understanding fragmented audiences, working with relative rather than universal trust, building stronger direct and AI-visible publishing capabilities, and helping leadership navigate a world where politics, economics and communications are tightly fused.