Source: USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations, 2026 Global Communications Report: A Quiet Shift

The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations releases a Global Communications Report every year, and the 2026 edition is titled A Quiet Shift. If you work in PR right now, however, the current environment may not feel quiet at all. 

The report surveyed more than 700 PR professionals and 1,000 members of the general public, and conducted interviews with Fortune 500 chief communications officers. It was built for large agencies and corporate comms teams. But the findings have direct implications for solo and independent practitioners too — especially if you are working with clients on sensitive topics, purpose-driven messaging, or thought leadership strategy.

Here are three findings worth your attention.

Finding 1: PR Professionals Are More Anxious About the Landscape Than Their Clients

81% of PR pros say polarization is either very high or extremely high. By comparison, only 69% of the general public agrees.

That 12-point gap is what the report calls a perception gap — and it has practical consequences.

PR practitioners are trained to anticipate risk, monitor signals, and think around corners. That vigilance is valuable. But when practitioner anxiety starts driving client strategy without a reality check, the counsel stops serving the client and starts serving the practitioner's nerves.

Before making a recommendation, it's worth asking whether you're responding to your own interpretation of the situation or to how your client's audience actually sees it.

Solo practitioners have a structural advantage here. Without agency group dynamics amplifying collective anxiety, you often have more room to separate your own perception from your client's reality and provide more grounded counsel as a result.

Finding 2: Support for Corporate Social Advocacy Has Dropped Sharply

Support has dropped from 89% in 2023 to 55% today. That is how many PR professionals now believe companies have a responsibility to advocate for social issues. Two years ago, nearly nine in ten PR professionals held this view. Today, the number has fallen to just over half.

The general public sits even lower, at 42%.

But the shift is not uniform. Among Gen Z PR professionals, 6 in 10 still hold this belief. Among millennials, 7 in 10 do. If your clients serve younger audiences — or if they are younger founders building purpose-driven brands — the headline number does not tell the whole story.

Knowing your client's specific audience is now more important than following industry-wide trends.

The strategic environment for purpose-driven messaging has changed, but that doesn’t mean the work stops. Instead, it requires more thoughtful framing and a more precise approach to counsel.  

Finding 3: C-Suite Content Volume Stayed the Same — the Topics Shifted Completely

Using exclusive data from Cometrics.io, the report analyzed LinkedIn posts from 6,317 Fortune 500 C-suite executives across a six-month window before and after the November 2024 election.

While the overall volume of communication remained unchanged, the topics discussed shifted dramatically. 

What went up:

• AI and agents content: +75%
• Cybersecurity: +29%
• Technology ethics: +27%

What went down:

• LGBTQ+ content: -77%
• Greenhouse gas content: -50%
• Net zero content: -44%
• DEI content: -13% (and likely more since the data was collected)
  

The communication did not stop; attention simply shifted toward different rooms. 

For practitioners with clients in the rooms that have gone quieter — DEI, climate, social purpose — the strategic work has not changed. The framing has. If your client has a credible AI story that connects to their business, they should be telling it. If they aren't, others are.

What To Do With This

Three practical questions to bring back to your client work this week:

• Am I advising this client based on my read of the environment — or their audience's? Check your assumptions before you deliver strategy.
• Do I know my client's audience well enough to calibrate how hard to push on purpose-driven messaging? Generational data matters now more than ever.
• Does my client have an AI story they aren't telling? Organizations that can speak credibly about AI today have an opportunity to establish authority while the conversation is still taking shape.

Read the full report at annenberg.usc.edu/cpr. Karen Swim and Michelle Kane discussed these findings on Episode 342 of That Solo Life — including what these shifts mean specifically for how you counsel clients in the current environment.

Image via istockphoto | gremlin