By Jessica Forres, Executive Vice President, Top of Mind Public Relations
Public relations has always evolved alongside the media. We went from faxing press releases – or so I’m told; that was before my time – to emailing them. Newspapers and evening broadcasts gave way to a 24-hour news cycle, followed by blogs, social media and countless new ways to reach audiences.
But the changes happening now feel different.
AI is transforming how people find information. Journalists are building audiences outside traditional newsrooms. Podcasts and TikTok are challenging traditional speaking platforms, and individual experts can command more visibility than the organizations they represent.
Traditional PR isn’t obsolete. Quite the opposite. But the assumptions behind the old playbook need a rewrite.
Your Website Is No Longer a Brochure. It Is an AI Press Office.
For years, organizations treated their websites as destinations for people looking for information. Today, AI is another audience. When someone asks an AI tool who the leading experts are or which organizations are working on a particular issue, the answer has to come from somewhere.
That makes your website more than a digital brochure. Executive bios, blog posts, research and analysis help establish what your organization knows and where its expertise lies. Earned media adds another layer of credibility. Muck Rack’s 2026 analysis of more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini found that earned media accounted for roughly 84% of AI citations.
For PR professionals, the job is no longer just getting today’s story noticed. It’s helping shape what people and AI systems find about an organization tomorrow.
The question is no longer simply, “What does our website say about us?” It’s “What are we teaching the internet that we know?”
Rethinking the Traditional Conference Panel
Securing speaking opportunities for executives and subject-matter experts has always been an important part of PR. But getting someone onstage is only half the opportunity. The real value comes from creating a conversation that audiences remember.
Traditional panels still have their place, but there are plenty of creative ways to showcase expertise. Think debates, rapid-fire interviews, lightning talks, live problem-solving sessions or fishbowl discussions that invite audience members into the conversation.
Imagine two experts working through a real-world challenge onstage, or an audience member joining the discussion to offer a different perspective. Suddenly, attendees aren’t just listening. They’re participating.
The goal of thought leadership isn’t simply to put an expert in front of an audience. It’s to give them an opportunity to share ideas that people will still be talking about after the event.
Forget the Masthead. Who Has the Audience?
Getting quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or Bloomberg still carries enormous value. But prestige alone no longer determines the impact of a media placement.
Journalists are increasingly building their own audiences through Substack, newsletters, podcasts and independent publications. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, 30% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get news from email newsletters.
A journalist with 20,000 highly engaged subscribers in healthcare, venture capital or another specialized field may offer more value to an organization than a brief mention in a national publication with millions of readers.
Major media will always matter, but so will smaller, highly influential voices.
Welcome to the Expertise Economy
Companies spend enormous amounts of time building brands. But increasingly, the most compelling doorway into an organization isn’t the logo. It is a person.
Think about how closely Richard Branson became associated with Virgin. His personality, opinions, adventures and public visibility gave an enormous corporate brand a recognizable human face.
Even Microsoft is rethinking who should tell its story. In October, Forbes reported that the company is shifting its communications strategy to give employees a greater role in storytelling. Rather than relying exclusively on corporate messaging and executive spokespeople, Microsoft is recognizing the value of putting engineers, researchers and other employees closest to the work in front of audiences. It’s a significant shift, and one that reinforces a larger trend: people want to hear from people, not just brands. Sometimes the engineer who built the product, the researcher who conducted the study or the employee solving a customer’s problem has a more compelling story to tell than the CEO.
And this shift extends well beyond the technology industry. Executives, researchers, academics, doctors, attorneys and other specialists can build recognizable platforms around what they know. And AI may make this even more important.
We are entering an era in which producing generic information is extraordinarily easy. Anyone can generate a competent summary, corporate statement or LinkedIn post in seconds. Actual expertise, lived experience and a distinctive point of view are much harder to manufacture. That makes subject-matter experts potentially more valuable, not less.
Organizations should be asking who their public explainers are. Who can take something complicated and make it understandable? Who has enough expertise to offer an opinion rather than repeat the company line? Then build around those people.
The strongest organizational brands of the next decade may be built partly through recognizable people who consistently teach audiences something useful. Thought leadership works best when there is an actual thinker attached to it.
The First Wave Gets the Quote. The Second Wave Gets the Idea.
One of the oldest pieces of PR advice is to move quickly when news breaks. That’s still true. But speed alone isn’t a strategy. You have to decide which wave of the story you’re trying to own.
The first wave is immediate. A major court decision, new regulation or groundbreaking study sends reporters looking for experts who can explain what happened. Organizations with available spokespeople, clear messaging and a rapid-response process have the advantage.
But there’s another opportunity in the second wave, when the conversation shifts from what happened to what it means.
This is where deeper expertise becomes valuable. An op-ed exploring overlooked consequences, original research challenging conventional wisdom or a podcast examining what comes next can extend an organization’s influence beyond the initial headlines.
And sometimes, skipping the first wave is the smarter move. If you have nothing different to add to the first 50 reactions, why offer the 51st?
First-wave PR is about explanation. Second-wave PR is about interpretation. The best strategies know how to do both. The mistake isn’t arriving second. It’s arriving with the same thing everyone else already said.
The Playbook Isn’t Dead. It Just Needs Updating.
None of these shifts mean we should throw out the fundamentals of PR. The fundamentals have not changed. You still need strong relationships, credibility, good writing, good news judgment and a reputation for being useful to journalists.
What is changing is the environment around those fundamentals. Your website now has audiences you cannot see. A speaking opportunity doesn’t automatically create thought leadership. A smaller media outlet can sometimes deliver the exact audience you need. A person’s expertise may carry further than an organization’s carefully polished brand language.
And when news breaks, winning the conversation doesn’t always mean being first. Sometimes it means knowing exactly when and how to enter it. The organizations that adapt won’t abandon traditional PR. They’ll understand that the definition of good PR has expanded. And if the times are changing, our playbook should too.
About The Author
Jessica Forres is Executive Vice President of Top of Mind Public Relations, where she leads the firm’s Law and Advocacy Practices and oversees the agency’s Traditional Media team. With a decade at the firm, she brings deep expertise in strategic media relations, thought leadership positioning, and issue-driven advocacy campaigns.
Jessica has guided communications strategies for national nonprofits, international coalitions, and leading law firms, securing high-impact coverage across top outlets while shaping narratives on complex policy, legal, and social issues. Known for her ability to bridge traditional journalism instincts with modern PR strategies, she helps clients elevate their voices, influence public discourse, and build lasting visibility in an evolving media landscape.
Contact us at: info@topofmind-pr.com.
