Gábor Jelinek, Executive Director of the Public Relations Global Network, joins us to discuss emerging trends and PRGN members' predictions for the public relations industry in 2026.

Starting with a look back at last year's predictions, Gábor points out the continuities and new developments in global communications. He specifically notes the impact of AI in PR, its role in reshaping how agencies work, and its implications for measurement, crisis management, media relations, and agency operations.

Gábor also talks about the importance of human authenticity, the revival of live experiences, and the impact of mergers and acquisitions, offering a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities in the year ahead.

Key Takeaways

1. AI continues to gain traction, moving beyond a mere tool to a strategic component in public relations, influencing media relations and crisis management.
2. Agencies must navigate new ethical, operational, and security considerations as AI reshapes traditional practice.
3. Despite technological shifts, the PR practitioner's role as a trusted business counselor remains pivotal to navigating uncertainty and strategic planning.
4. As global mergers in PR create potential conflicts, opportunities arise for independent agencies to provide personalized and focused client service.

About the Guest

As the Executive Director of PRGN, Gábor Jelinek is the engine of the global agency network. His versatile role covers both strategic and operational assignments. Gábor is the number one support of the President and the Executive Committee of PRGN, while he often serves as the face of the network when it comes to marketing, business development or new member recruitment. At the same time he makes sure the operations of PRGN run smoothly and member needs are served and supported.

With 15 years of agency management experience and ten years in business journalism prior, Gábor equally understands the factors that make agencies successful and the rapidly changing communications and media environment in which they all operate.

Gábor enthusiastically seeks to learn about different cultures and people which makes PRGN his native home bringing together 40+ nationalities and people with diverse cultures and languages.

More than 1,000 clients across six continents depend on the combined resources of the Public Relations Global Network to deliver targeted public relations campaigns in more than 80 markets around the world. With revenues of more than US$100 million, PRGN is among the world’s top five public relations networks. PRGN harnesses the resources of 40 independent public relations firms, 50 offices and more than 800 communications professionals to connect international companies and organizations with individual and culturally diverse markets globally.

About the Hosts

Abbie Fink is president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. Her marketing communications background includes skills in media relations, digital communications, social media strategies, special event management, crisis communications, community relations, issues management, and marketing promotions for both the private and public sectors, including such industries as healthcare, financial services, professional services, government affairs and tribal affairs, as well as not-for-profit organizations.

Dr. Adrian McIntyre is a cultural anthropologist, media personality, speaker, and strategic communications consultant for PR agencies and marketing firms. He's lived in over 30 countries and spent more than a decade in the Middle East and Africa as a researcher, journalist, communications adviser, media spokesperson, and storytelling consultant. He earned a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright scholar and National Science Foundation fellow. Adrian helps agency leaders strengthen their positioning, sharpen their messaging, boost their visibility, and win new clients by replacing impersonal, intrusive and ineffective marketing tactics with authentic human conversations.

PRGN Presents is brought to you by Public Relations Global Network, the world’s local public relations agency. Our executive producer is Adrian McIntyre. The show is produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, AZ.

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From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I’m Adrian McIntyre.

And I’m Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona, and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let’s meet our guest for this episode.

This is Gábor Jelinek. I’m the executive director of the Public Relations Global Network, PRGN. I’ve been in this role for seven years now. You can say I’m kind of the engine of the network, being in the center, being a support to many of the initiatives the network does, supporting the president and the executive director and sometimes being the face of the network, as in this opportunity.

And we are grateful for that. As one of the founding members of the network, we did it all ourselves in the early days. So it’s really nice to have someone that rides herd on all of us and makes sure we fulfill our obligations and the things we say we’re going to do. And one of the things that we get to do on an annual basis is our predictions about what the industry is going to be like in the coming year, get a chance to kind of reflect on what we thought we were going to accomplish in the year past and see how good we were at these predictions. And so, once again, we went out to our membership and said, what do you think’s gonna happen into the new year?

And we did a pretty deep dive, or you did, into the analysis of that data. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about some of the predictions that our members are thinking about into 20 26. So as you were doing that analysis, Gábor, what were some of your highlights? What resonated in the responses from our various members that really said to you, hmm, we’ve got some interesting things going?

Well, that’s, that’s a very good question, Abbie. I think what’s interesting is how much overlap there is from the predictions from last year and how many new things have come out of this. I think 20 25 was definitely a year when communicators, communications agencies, brands were experimenting with a lot of new things, but these new things are still around. So what I’ve seen, I didn’t just take the new predictions, but also looked at what the predictions were same time last year from this group of professionals globally. And I saw that some of them were, first of all, many of them were right, which is nice to say.

But second, the topics are predominantly the same. Obviously AI digitalization and the general uncertainty around us that will make communications tricky business to do. And of course, as the agency leaders now know more about some of these subjects, they go deeper and their opinions and predictions are more versatile within that topic. So this is my summary of how the predictions are coming out this year.

So, as you said, AI really dominated the conversation in 20 25. Many of us had that incorporated into our predictions. And I think, at least for me personally, it was a tool at that point. It really was a new technology, a new way of, you know, or a technological difference in what we were doing. And now for, at least for us, I think we’re seeing it really as, first of all, it’s a value-add opportunity. It’s an opportunity for us to potentially use it more strategically.

There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with using AI for content development and research and analysis. But it is really shifting the role that we play as communications professionals in the way that AI does what it does makes the practice of public relations, earned media developing authority and authenticity even more important because that’s where the AI engines are seeking their content to feedback is coming from the information that public relations practitioners are developing.

And so to me, I think that the shift is how are we going to use this tool? And what did you see from our members as they’re talking about AI and even some of the new to us, new to the process, things like GEO and AEO and its impact on how we’re using AI.

I would say that yes, it is clearly a strategic change that is happening right now. And most people thought about AI and the opportunities it offered as like, okay, we have another tool. Of course, many people have been worried and maybe still are worried that AI can take their jobs in some form where people with AI can take their jobs. So this is still there, but I think now all the players have a better understanding of what AI is capable of doing.

So I think now we can see more of the strategic change that is happening. So beyond the actual tools, let’s focus on what it means based on what our members say. Let’s begin with what is at the heart of public relations, which is media relations and managing relationships with all stakeholders. This will be a strategic asset for the companies, again if they want to be seen. And with the use of AI, there is a very interesting side effect to this.

As our member in New Zealand, Twain Alexander points out, AI never forgets, which means that previous crises that brands and companies have successfully managed can come back because the AI engines will find these. So Dwayne predicts, for example, and I would consider this as a strategic change as a result of what we’re seeing happening is companies and brands and the agencies working with them may want to put more emphasis on crisis prevention and making communication more of a management function where it becomes a high priority to avoid crises and prepare for crises.

Because even after successful crisis management, the recovery of a brand will be much more difficult and backlashes from previous crises will be still there. As AI will do a better job to find these old stories, it will be more difficult to counterbalance them. So the real recipe is trying to avoid the crises, which means more preparation time that will be needed by the brands and the companies and the agency supporting them. So that’s an interesting change which takes from the practical technical side to a strategic side.

Another strategic change we’re seeing, based on the quotes from and the predictions from our members, is measurement. For example, PR has always been seen as a hard to measure, softer branch of communications where perception matters. And it’s just so difficult to measure as, as our member in Dubai, Nick Layton with NettResults points out, now we have many more tools for measurement thanks to AI.

So, you know, agencies and comms teams in general will not be able to hide behind this idea that PR is difficult to measure because, because, you know, with more technology, more AI, more digitalization, these measurement tools will be so much more easily accessible. And if we talk about GEO, Generative Engine Optimization, which is basically the art of creating content and visibility for brands that will position them at high positions in AI searches, that in itself will be a measurement. So that’s another strategic change in the industry.

Further change on a strategic level is AI will reshape how agencies work. And so this this gives new tasks to agency owners, agency leaders, to find the right operational procedures where teams can efficiently combine AI tools with their own expertise, but also their ethical questions, their security, data security questions. Clients would want agencies to give them assurances that, you know, their data is handled securely if AI comes to play in an assignment.

But on the other hand, agencies have traditionally been measuring their work by the time they spent on it. Everybody knows timesheets and tools like that in this industry. This is probably going to be the past very soon. So the next challenge for the agencies and the strategic change for the agencies will be a shift away from the time-bound pricing to a value-based pricing. Because AI tools help your practitioners do their job faster.

But in a lot of cases what happens is the AI spits out more generic solutions and more generic content and you will need the PR practitioners to really give the human voice, the authenticity to it, the authenticity that is highly valued by GEO, by the AI searches. So at the end of the day, time will less be an issue, but the quality, the authenticity and the real communications value and creativity that an agency can bring to the table. So that’s another strategic change.

And I think on that topic there’s always been discussion amongst PR practitioners about the value versus the time. I’ve always answered that in a way that, you know, it may take me 15 minutes to do something today because I’ve spent 30 years in the, in the industry getting good enough to do something quickly and AI will make that even more so. However, as you say, the human component of that is still the value in that proposition. We still have to know what to ask, how to prompt the AI engine that we’re using to give us back information that’s relevant.

We have to understand what we’re getting and how we can make that be the information we need to benefit our clients. And that comes from years of experience, strategic thinking, understanding what we’re talking about. And I don’t believe we will ever be replaced in that sense. We have to understand how to use these tools and how to incorporate them into the things that we’re doing. We just have something that helps us get to an answer a little bit faster, but it doesn’t replace us as the answer.

And I think that’s where all of us are kind of landing that the value we bring is still relevant. Even if it is less time to create something, we still have to put ourselves into it. And it leads me to one of the things that has been driving conversations for a long time. And I know the president of PRGN this year has placed this out there as one of his guiding posts for the year is really thinking about the impact of misinformation and disinformation.

And that’s being found just as much as good, clear, authentic, truthful information is. And so, you know, we have to bring our, our knowledge and expertise to those conversations and will continue to be important in the implementation of AI across all business strategies. And if it makes us smarter and if it makes what we’re providing more relevant, then we become equally more important and more relevant to, to the strategies that we’re developing. So I think it’s a, it’s an interesting evolution and I think it’ll be fun to look back next year when we have you back on, to look back at this year and see how, you know, 20 26 played out when it comes to the impact of AI.

Did you see any in the responses that you got, any significant regional or market specific things that might have, you know, changed? What were you seeing maybe in North America vs Europe or Asia vs Latam? Any differences there in any of the responses? Or were we pretty consistent with how we were evaluating either AI or any of the things that we communicated back in our predictions?

Yeah, they’re both many similarities and there are some differences as well. Interestingly, when it comes to the technology or maybe obviously when it comes to the technology, most of the predictions are aligned. So for example, it was interesting to read or remember from Bret Kafka, our member from Cleveland, Ohio, echoing with what Frederic Francois in Belgium said. They both put the emphasis on the human voice, the genuine content and the authenticity as a result of the proliferation of AI.

Whereas you can also see regional differences. For example, in Latin America more agencies are putting emphasis on owned channels now, which is an interesting trend as more US based agencies would be putting an emphasis on Earth media and an omnichannel approach, discovering that the AI searches, the generative engine optimization favors more media presence and earned media than owned media. So it probably has to do with how brand communication is developing in Latin America versus other parts of the world.

In Asia, a more individual approach was mentioned among our members there as a need to serve communications needs better. But I think right now most of the agency members are trying to figure out the changes that are happening around us thanks to AI. And let’s not forget that there, there are a lot of uncertainty around us, not just AI and what it means to communications and the PR profession, but also if you look at the political uncertainty, security issues, the entire world around us has become much more unpredictable.

And that brings a very important change to the forefront in the PR industry, which is again, the role of PR practitioners and communications professionals as counselors is increasing again because when we are talking about content produced with or without AI, we have to know that the output we see from the work of a communications team or agency is like the tip of the iceberg, like 10%, there’s 90% behind, but is not visible to the public, which is all the work that goes into developing a campaign, finding the right insights, understanding the stakeholders, differences between the various audience groups and what they expect.

Now, thanks to AI, by the way, communicators can do much more predictive analysis. It is now possible to run scenarios. AI tools can help you put things into different perspectives, test the scenarios, test the messaging, and have a more sophisticated understanding of how something might work out in the future. So this role, this counseling role has also been supported by the advent of AI. And because of the uncertainties, I think these two trends really push the industry to be seen again, better as counselors, not just practitioners who just put things into practice and lead a campaign.

But I think the planning of the campaign or making sure that the campaign is safe and doesn’t involve risks is now becoming much more important. So this entire background work and counseling is again being elevated.

And that really just reemphasizes what we regularly say is your communications team needs to have a seat at the table. We need to be part of the business discussions. We are not just, you know, operating in a vacuum. We need to understand your business goals and objectives. We need to know how you’re making your business decisions, whether that’s us, you know, from an external perspective or if you are listening in and you’re an in-house communications professional. We’ve talked a long time that we need to be at the table. We need to understand and use our understanding of the tools and what to do with that information gives us that counselor role, that trusted advisor that we are here with the primary intent to make sure decision making is done for and done effectively and is good for the long term health of the business.

And we now can help you further understand what the impact of some of these decisions are going to be. And that plays very well into what Dwayne talks about, right? About crisis prevention. That’s where it starts, right? Is fully understanding what we’re about to do and what that impact might be and how we can create communications channels and campaigns that align with the business goals, but, you know, protect the brand reputation and ultimately the organizational strengths.

In a lot of ways, this is exactly what we’ve always done. This is exactly who we’ve positioned ourselves to be. This is how we have talked to our clients for decades, that we are a counselor, we are an advisor, we are part of your business strategy. We just now have other ways to support that theory that impacts the bottom line for these businesses and gives us more Opportunities to be measuring the impact that we’re having on the individual business.

Our industry is changing, these tools are changing how we do what we do. We’re seeing political uncertainty, cultural uncertainty around the world. It’s impacting all kinds of businesses. We’re certainly seeing changes in our industry and some of our industry competitors are making business changes that are going to impact the growth of independent public relations agencies. What are you seeing just in general, maybe not specific to our particular predictions, but what do you see in terms of our industry and some of the changes that are happening from a business perspective?

Well, as I said in the previous round, I think the business model is changing in a lot of ways. That’s probably the most fundamental for the industry. The time bound versus value based pricing will be increasingly an issue. I haven’t talked about this, but this is also an important aspect is now we’re in the second phase of AI deployment where a number of AI agents are available and many agencies have developed or are developing AI agents that support the work of their own employees.

But some of the agencies actually open this up for clients and create new revenue sources and new services to clients. And then there are independent agents, AI agents just for the PR industry that the agencies and brands can use. Just like Precis, which is a platform that was developed by one of the PRGN member agencies. And also, back in 2024, more than 30 PRGN agencies participated in beta testing that agent, which is specifically for the PR industry.

This means that it’s not just ChatGPT that you can use. You can use very dedicated AI agents for the PR and communications industry. Again, this can revolutionize some of the work. But I think this creates an additional task for the leadership of agencies to figure out not only efficient but also ethical and safe operations. Because I think that’s going to be in the foreground for clients is how safe this is, not just efficient, how general it is, how much, you know, human voice is still there in the communications.

I think these are very fundamental changes. And then maybe another interesting point, as you said, our industry continues to develop and change and from year to year when we talk about the predictions into next year, we see that. But also some of the changes are kind of like a spiral. So one of the interesting points that I saw from the predictions and this was mentioned by more of our members, definitely from our members in London and New York, that live experiences are coming back because of the digital and because of the AI, people just want to have the live interactions and communicators are probably going to increase the emphasis of these tools involving live interactions for two reasons. I see two reasons for this.

One is, obviously, you know, a live experience will stick with the audience much more than anything they can read or view. But also because live experiences are very easy to be promoted through social channels. It’s great content because it’s not just text, it’s not just voice, it’s a moving picture. It’s just great content for social media. So people need more of this. People need to see more of this, need to be part of more of more live experiences because they’re glued to their phone and their screens.

But also, you know, these events can be shared very easily in social media. So that’s kind of like a funky item of the predictions. But I think in a way, it can be pretty strategic as well.

Well, I will look forward to getting back to seeing people again at things, that’s for sure. As we think about concluding the episode and talking about our industry as a whole, we’re seeing some changes in our industry from a structural perspective. We are a network of independently owned and operated agencies, you know, 50 - 55 agencies across the world, making decisions independently for our own firms, but having the benefit of resources anywhere we need them. Other smart business leaders that we can call on if we need it.

We know there are a lot of different agency models out there that are successful business models, but we’re seeing changes in the way that businesses are competitors, whether they’re the large agency model or they’re other networks like ours. And in your role as the executive director and sort of overseeing how our network operates, what are you seeing in terms of the structure of our industry, the structure of our businesses, and what maybe some of these things like AI and how it might be changing? But what are we seeing as an industry in terms of what the new year might look like for our businesses in general? Not necessarily the work we’re doing, but how we’re structuring our businesses.

Yeah, this is a very, very interesting topic. And maybe we just dive too much into the depth of the communications profession. So I really appreciate the question, Abbie, because 20 26 will bring, I think, a lot of changes in that front as well. Not just the technology, not just the communications campaigns, and not just the work that the agencies are doing, but the industry globally is changing. Huge mergers and acquisitions are happening, and these will reshape the industry and there will be a lot of changes as a result of that.

Increasingly, global brands will see that as a result of the mergers but they’re being serviced by agencies that are now in the same group with other agencies serving their competitors. It might not be a comfortable position to be in. So this is my personal prediction that I will see. You don’t have to be very smart to see this, but. But you know, when you see those conflicts, it’s inevitable that there will be changes that the clients will make just for security and just the peace of mind that they may walk away from some of the networks because of these conflict issues created by the mergers.

There are layoffs, as we see again as a result of the mergers. And also when large organizations are involved in transformations like mergers of global agency networks, clients may feel that they are not in the focus anymore because the new structures, the new positions, the new initiatives, the changes, the culture changes will consume a lot of energy at these large agencies and large groups and companies.

So clients will be less in the focus, which means a great opportunity for smaller and independent agencies to show that they can put the clients in the focus and serve them better. This is an inevitable outcome of every large merger in every industry. And especially in communications, which is, which is a people’s business. This kind of focus on clients problem matters even more so. So a merger is always a big obstacle in putting the focus on the client. And that will create opportunities for other agencies and for the brands and the clients as well to do different things and try different things. That in itself will be a huge change in 20 26, offering new opportunities for everybody.

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

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