3 Hot Communications Trends for the New Year

As we welcome in 2023, we’re thinking about what trends are likely to impact the communications and PR world. 
 
Here are three things we find most compelling – each of which we plan to explore in greater depth throughout the year. 
 

1. AI content creation goes mainstream 
Going through some old files over the holiday, I came across an article I wrote as an intern for a company way back in 1987. The topic: How engineers at the firm were exploring something called Artificial Intelligence to create new efficiencies. 
 
The piece served as a reminder that AI is nothing new. But what is new is the emergence of ChatGPT, an AI tool that can write an original article, essay, love letter – you name it – in less than a minute. And, it has the added ability to read your feedback and edit accordingly.
 
Depending on your perspective, this can be either terrifying or exhilarating. Our early take is it is a bit of both – ChatGPT is likely a powerful efficiency tool that at the same time creates a host of thorny ethical and creative issues regarding the balance of technology, copyright protections and maintaining the human element in communications.  

2. Storytelling revisited
“Why must I relive my deepest trauma to convince donors to fund my organization?” That question, posed by Damien J. Cooper in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article, gets to the heart of the emerging movement to re-evaluate the ethics of storytelling. 
 
Cooper who runs a nonprofit focused on helping boys in Baltimore is referring to the frequent request that he retell his own story of being shot years ago. Stories such as Cooper’s are told time and again because they have the potential to make an emotional impact, and, in turn, make a difference. 
 
Yet what hasn’t gotten enough attention is the process of working with individuals to tell their stories in ethical and empathetic ways – and what they might expect during the reporting process, at the time of publication and potentially well into the future as stories live in perpetuity on the web. There are no easy answers to this one, but continuing to ask the questions is a good start. 
 

3. Rising influence of the influencers   
Like it or not, traditional media continues to lose its clout as news organizations face increased competition and ever-shrinking newsrooms. Increasingly, organizations are turning to influencers to serve as the mouthpiece to amplify their message. PR Daily estimates that brand spend with influencers will increase by more than 23% in 2023, with an emphasis on working with micro-influencers. 
 
We expect that more organizations in 2023 will look to leveraging influencers as part of their overall communications and outreach strategies to make sure they are engaging with all of their audiences and getting their stories told in new ways.