Who controls the narrative: AI, data or humans?
AI is changing how people research, discover and choose brands, increasingly shaping what they hear about organisations before they ever get a say. Our Research & Analytics Director, John Brasington, joined a recent Meltwater Summit to discuss who really controls the narrative. Here, he shares six ways communicators should be considering AI and data to maintain and reclaim influence.
1. Data matters. But so do the vibes.
Data should underpin strategic decisions, but there’s no substitute for someone who genuinely understands a community. Data can tell us an enormous amount, but it can’t always capture the nuances of lived experience. As ever, both are essential to making informed strategic decisions.
2. Why have we become so comfortable losing control?
There is increasingly sophisticated technology for identifying misinformation, understanding how stories spread and anticipating emerging issues. The industry should be using it to reclaim influence, not retreat from it.
3. Don’t wait for misinformation to become a crisis.
Traditionally, communications teams might avoid acknowledging misinformation because they don’t want to amplify it. But AI changes that calculation. If a false story is identified early, publishing a factual correction on the organisation’s newsroom enables AI to discover the correction and potentially incorporate. That’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about proactive reputation management.
4. Human-in-the-loop needs rethinking.
We’re now reaching a point where AI can produce more than humans can realistically review. That’s why skills and agents are so important. Rather than simply writing increasingly clever prompts, organisations can embed expertise, processes and safeguards into the systems themselves. The future is designing better ways for AI to work.
5. GEO belongs in the boardroom.
GEO is fundamentally a reputation channel. How many organisations are tracking what investors, investigative journalists, government advisers or regulators are asking AI? If a CEO rang tomorrow concerned about something Claude was saying about the business, could the communications team explain it? These are potentially far more consequential questions than whether a brand is appearing in product recommendations.
6. We need better practices, not best practices.
Everyone wants an AI playbook. But it’s far too early to claim the industry has established comprehensive best practices. Best practices imply certainty. Better practices acknowledge that the industry is still learning. The focus should be on experimenting, measuring and continually improving.
The bigger picture
AI is already influencing how organisations are understood. Complete control over what it says isn’t possible, but there are far more opportunities to shape those narratives than many realise.
The real question is whether communications professionals are equipped to take advantage of them.