What to Look For in 2026

Jacob R. Robinson:

Asking for forgiveness, not permission, must become the industry norm

We’ve heard it before: Bring your own seat to the table. Don’t be an order-taker. Credential for credibility. Connect action to concrete business objectives. When you want it done right, do it yourself.

Collectively, I view these as philosophically significant as I do tangible calls-to-action. 

It’s also a ripe time to take a step back to think about what these really mean. We know the employee engagement surveys, industry reports and so forth cannot be treated as the ‘ends’ amid declining participation rates, survey fatigue and quiet-quitting. This isn’t new. But it is difficult to improve a situation that has no championing to be improved, with burnout inevitable the longer pain persists.

Externally, feeling undervalued by a client partner will lead any rational mind to reassess their commitment, look to new markets. Respect is the motivator there, not necessity.

Conflict is opportunity, but energy is finite. Focus needs regular reflection and re-orientation. And I believe that’s where the entrepreneurial spirit ignites (and re-ignites), why we’re also seeing a marked increase in newer talent (i.e. Gen Z and Alpha) saying no, matching energy and picking themselves up by the bootstraps. Their margin of error is comparatively thinner. They can’t afford to play catch up amid macroeconomic uncertainty. Early habits set the stage for future outcomes. They aren’t asking for permission.

Communication professionals can learn from this emerging ‘scrappy’ attitudinal shift. We don’t need to keep the peace, in fact, we should be actively challenging that. The strongest negotiation lies in our power to walk away from situations that no longer stimulate us, to fight complacency, to not make the same missteps twice. Intellectual autonomy should be celebrated, not discouraged.

No doubt the ripple effects from the ongoing war for talent will be interesting to watch, as the more stubborn, ‘but-we’ve-always-done-it-this-way’ organizations erode from their own inertia. More noise in the day-to-day spells a calling for more communication professionals to step up and be the signal, to be the measured change we wish to see in the world. It will take as much courage as it does concerted effort.

You don’t need an MBA for that, though it doesn’t hurt to have one.

AI will continue to revolutionize workflows to the point of agentic mimicry

More trouble looms for the uninitiated. 

People will use and be used by the tools, knowingly and unknowingly. There is already a marked preference for use among employees, so expect AI models to harvest more data and quicker. Becoming as predictive and interfacing as they are generative, as it continues to train and seep into every facet of our day-to-day.

A possible tipping point where it won’t stop at the work of entry-level individuals, but that of small teams with minimal human intervention.

From the reputational lens, it will also become more arduous to spot deep fakes and misinformation. Subtle re-workings of a few words can alter entire messaging, seeping its way into social media, political campaigns and community groups where people receive and trust their information. Narratives will be propagandized. Greed will rule where governance doesn’t. And talks around existential crises will blend with what’s happening now, as co-pilots become widely promoted as the new interns, note-takers and language translators.

Everybody has a responsibility to voice their concerns, from business leaders and policy makers to economists, academics and scientists. The disruption itself isn’t new, but the rate and scale at which it’s happening and resulting consequences are.

The leg up: Knowing what makes your talent and teams ‘tick’

Navigating the new world requires adaptability paired with an underlying willingness to adapt. Part-and-parcel.

Between flatter reporting structures, fast-disappearing drudge work, and rise in return to office (RTO) mandates, the evolution of work and the work ‘place’ as we know it is already underway. With five generations all coming together at the same time, intergenerational thinking, new learning and unlearning curves, and cognitive conflicts will continue to underpin the critical need for deeper listening, interfacing and affectance mechanisms within and between teams. When done well, decision-making and coordination of labour becomes fluid and unified in that spirit.

As the saying goes, “knowing what makes your talent and teams ‘tick’” will be a perennial skill towards wine-ranging, lower-funnel aims such as ‘value’, ‘benefit’, ‘satisfaction’, ‘loyalty’ and ‘evangelism’. The human and institutional elements become more pronounced in these pursuits. It is no longer enough to be a relationship architect, there must be advocacy and training embedded in the culture.

Where AI ‘slops’, human intelligence ‘slaps’. ‘Thrivers’ will not confuse the two. The communication engine is well positioned to inform, influence and steer, but it is up to us as communication professionals to take the wheel.

For those starting out in comms: Find your category and own it 

The grass is greener where you water it.

Find the playscapes where you’re feeling motivated and empowered to do your best work, then beat that into oblivion. I like to draw on Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and Susan Cain’s Quiet for challenging conventional ideas about success and truth. When competence is attained in one vertical, it becomes easier to build on that momentum, and to pivot more eloquently and credibly. It’s when the rest of the ecosystem begins to make sense. Where we make the dot-connections, understand what’s really happening beyond the Gantt charts and reporting structures, and know what questions to pose in coffee chats.

Approach your employer as your own client, using the partnership to accelerate your skills and growth. Finding the balance between pragmatism and ambition is delicate, yet brings great reward.

The new world belongs to those that see the forest through the trees – and act on it.

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Jacob R. Robinson is a Toronto-based Consultant at APEX Public Relations and long-standing committee member at IABC. He has worked with a wide range of clients across health care, real estate, fintech, retail and academia, and will graduate with his MBA with High Honours from the University of London in Spring 2026. He is a #WeLeadComms honoree.