Blog post

How is Isentia responding to AI reshaping communications leadership?

The role of communications professionals is evolving rapidly. AI is now actively shaping how organisations build trust, manage reputation, and engage key audiences, moving beyond theoretical discussions.

Gartner’s latest forecasts for Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) highlight a growing profession under increased scrutiny. Traditional methods such as press releases and media relationships are no longer sufficient. Communication is now central to business, and supporting tools must evolve accordingly.

Isentia’s platform combines AI-driven media intelligence, real-time narrative tracking, and expert human analysis. These capabilities address several urgent needs identified by Gartner. Below, we outline key predictions and how Isentia’s tools help meet these challenges.

AI is transforming how brands are discovered and evaluated

Gartner predicts that, as large language models replace traditional search, PR, and earned media, PR and earned media budgets will double by 2027. Stakeholders will increasingly view organisations through AI-generated summaries. The quality, authority, and timeliness of earned media will directly influence how AI systems represent your organisation.

Gartner emphasises that this is a communications challenge, not a marketing or SEO issue. Search engine optimisation requires PR and communications expertise to build trust, secure media coverage, and maintain consistent messaging across stakeholders.

Isentia’s Lumina AI suite and Narratives AI tools address these needs. Narratives AI identifies, summarises, and ranks stories from billions of news articles and social media posts in real time and historically. It reveals how stories develop and spread, enabling communications teams to understand both the content and its influence on AI-generated perceptions.

Isentia’s upcoming Lumina AI View feature enables organisations to see how their brand appears across AI platforms and understand the information shaping those results. Intelligence is no longer a luxury.

Gartner’s second forecast was that by 2029, 45% of CCOs will use narrative intelligence technologies to monitor reputation amid rising disinformation. Traditional monitoring tools often miss early signs of harmful stories because they focus on keywords rather than story development and spread.

Isentia has addressed this challenge. Our crisis monitoring teams provide 24/7 coverage and real-time alerts via email, mobile app, and WhatsApp, delivering the intelligence-driven support Gartner recommends. 

Our Media Impact Score (MIS) supports this approach. It evaluates not only the volume of coverage but also its reception, combining tone, importance, and audience reach into a single human-coded score that reflects true reputational impact.

The growth of AI-powered internal communications

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 75% of employees will use chatbots for internal information instead of intranets, newsletters, or manager updates. This shift from push-based to pull-based, conversational access raises important governance considerations.

Isentia’s GenAI-powered Insights Chatbot addresses this need. It allows users to query past reports and data, providing clear, evidence-based answers from the organisation’s media intelligence archive. Teams can interact with their data, compare trends, identify patterns, and access insights efficiently.

As Dr Nici Sweaney, Founder and Director at Ai Her Way, observed at Isentia’s recent webinar on AI as a new stakeholder: “What will set people apart — and what AI cannot replicate — is the human lens. The judgment, the relationships, the institutional knowledge, the strategic read of a room. The organisations that lean into supporting their people to harness these tools, rather than just deploying the tools, will be the ones best placed.”

This principle guides Isentia’s approach. Our platform combines AI with over 100 local analysts across Southeast Asia (SEA) who review AI-generated data for cultural context, slang, and sarcasm. This model achieves up to 95% sentiment accuracy, ensuring reliable results through human expertise.

Analytics must move from retrospective to predictive

Gartner’s last key prediction is that analytics must shift from retrospective to predictive, much on data, and Gartner’s final key prediction is that by 2029, communications teams will double their spending on data and analytics to 6% of budgets. This reflects increased pressure to demonstrate business impact. Nearly half of CCOs struggle to prove their value, and a third report their teams are viewed as cost centres. 

RepID and interactive dashboards go far beyond simple metrics. For example, RepID measures an organisation’s reputation by analysing stories and posts across areas such as leadership, ethics, and quality. This gives a clear, evidence-based view of how reputation is really changing, not just how much coverage there is.

Our interactive insights reports enable clients to track share of voice, narrative sentiment, and influencer impact in one platform. This real-time, results-focused measurement aligns with Gartner’s recommendations for credibility in communications.

Implications for communications leaders

Communications teams must achieve more, operate with greater precision, move faster, and deliver measurable business results. AI is both the driver and enabler of this change, but success depends on investing in the right intelligence systems.

Isentia’s platform already provides the essential tools Gartner recommends, including Narratives AI, real-time risk alerts, AI-powered chatbots, human-verified insights, and advanced measurement systems. For PR & Comms leaders in Asia-Pacific and beyond, the key question is how quickly they can implement this intelligence.

Join the conversation

We invite you to attend our upcoming webinar, Inside the AI Shift: How Communications Leaders Are Adapting, on Tuesday, 5 May 2026 at 11:30am SGT / 1:30pm AEST / 3:30pm NZST via Zoom. 

The conversation has shifted from what AI could do to what it’s already doing in the workplace. Comms leaders are now responsible for shaping how their organisations navigate this landscape

That means managing executive expectations, rethinking strategies and workflows, and staying ahead of emerging reputational risks as they unfold. The session will include top comms leaders like Catherine Arrow (Executive Director, PR Knowledge Hub), Ben Rice (Head of Government Relations and Media, Low Emission Technology Australia), Russ Horell (Isentia APAC’s Chief Revenue Officer) and Ngaire Crawford (Director of Insights, Isentia ANZ) as they explore how this new reality should be addressed and what it would take comms leaders to reset and adapt within this AI shift.

Please fill up the form below to register: