Four shifts were already reshaping public relations as the decade turned. Read in 2026, the list holds up — each became a defining communications category of the years that followed.
1. Fighting Fake News
Communications teams had to take a vastly more vigilant stance. Two out of ten communications professionals in the U.S. and Canada reported that their organization had been affected by fake news, while nearly 60% characterized it as a "serious threat."
More businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations adopted policies and technical systems to detect and combat misinformation. Media monitoring services boomed, and crisis management practices expanded to absorb fake-news incidents as a standing category.
2. AR and VR Get Real
Augmented reality and virtual reality were on the way to reshaping digital marketing. Communications professionals began testing the formats to deliver brand messages with more depth than a static asset could carry.
Consumers turned to VR for entertainment and AR for utility. Brands that adopted AR early built reputational credit for innovation that compounded across the next product cycle.
3. Brands Taking Stands
Research showed that brands willing to take a public position on an issue could grow customer loyalty and earn category respect. Through the early 2020s, more companies stepped into social and political debates than ever before.
Many of the pronouncements landed as inauthentic and got punished as such. The discipline that emerged: research the audience, name the position, accept the trade-offs, and brief leadership before the post goes live — not after.
4. Tackling Deepfakes
Advances in video editing made it possible for anyone to produce footage of subjects doing things they never did, or saying words they never said.
Free and low-cost editing tools went mainstream. The category produced a new genre of crisis: brands and executives surfacing in fabricated video, with the burden of proof on the target rather than the producer.
"If they're so inclined, these mischief-makers could create a massive public relations nightmare for brands," said David Pring-Mill, filmmaker and writer. "People are currently talking about deepfakes within a political context but the business landscape isn't immune."
Prudent organizations began monitoring media closely and building action plans for the day they became a deepfake target.
2019 closed a big year in public relations. The four issues above ran through every year that followed — and now sit inside the broader AI Communications playbook, where the chatbox has become the new measurement surface alongside earned media, social, and search.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
