Three January Signals for Corporate Communications in 2026

January has come and gone, and once again the communications and corporate affairs role is front and center as organizations navigate an increasingly complex environment. But are some of the things we witnessed part of a yearlong trend, or just a blip on the radar screen?

CEOs Speaking Out – With Precision

Events in Minneapolis sparked a collective response from the local business community. More than 60 CEOs from Minnesota-based companies – including leaders from 3M, Best Buy, General Mills, Medtronic, Target, and UnitedHealth Group – signed an open letter calling for deescalation after federal immigration operations led to two fatal shootings. The letter was carefully calibrated, avoiding direct criticism of federal policy while urging cooperation among officials.

We also saw employee activism surge in Silicon Valley, where tech workers signed petitions demanding their CEOs cancel ICE contracts and speak out publicly.

Golin’s CEO Impact Index for the first half of 2025 demonstrated a “cone of retreat”- a sharp pullback in CEO engagement following the arrival of the second Trump administration. Is Minnesota a turning point? I don’t think so. Companies will remain cautious and precise when engaging publicly, with tactical exemptions for specific circumstances. Minneapolis may represent a unique situation given what happened there in 2020. How many companies would be speaking out if this was happening in Tulsa instead?

Can We Trust Our Data?

Over the past 15 years, we’ve built increasingly sophisticated metrics to measure brand reputation and content performance. But what we measure and the way we measure it are fundamentally changing.

In September, Alethea researchers uncovered a network of bot accounts using AI to target pharmaceutical companies with coordinated narrative manipulation. These accounts were part of a broader network that has repeatedly used political inflection points to amplify false or misleading narratives about businesses, governments, and public figures. This particular campaigns portrayed pharmaceutical brands as profiteering, careless, or politically compromised – manufacturing negative sentiment at scale around actual policy announcements.

The challenge extends beyond commercial threats. In January, the New York Times reported on Alethea research into Russian propaganda networks that ramped up coordinated campaigns following the U.S. raid in Venezuela, promoting narratives designed to undermine American credibility and military hardware sales globally, with the clear underlying motive of painting the U.S. as an unreliable ally.

AI tools have exciting possibilities for innovation in our profession, but they are also giving greater voice to inauthentic actors at scale. Corporate communicators now face a critical challenge: separating genuine stakeholder sentiment from manufactured outrage. This isn’t a temporary phenomenon – it’s an accelerating trend that requires new detection capabilities and more sophisticated analytical frameworks. To be able to properly separate risk from noise, communicators must understand that it’s not just about what is happening (bots, “trolls,” coordinated attacks), but who is behind it and why.

The Function’s Contradictory Moment

January brought significant attention to the rising importance of communications and corporate affairs, particularly coming out of Davos. Coverage across industry outlets highlighted how essential the function has become, with multiple observers noting that navigating geopolitical complexity now requires dedicated communications and corporate affairs expertise.

Yet simultaneously, we continue seeing Chief Communications Officer roles layered into organizational structures in unusual ways – rather than directly to the CEO.

My take: The trend toward CCO and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer roles reporting directly to CEOs still holds. Multiple studies over the past two years show more than 50% of these roles now have that direct reporting relationship. But boards are also telling CEOs to shrink direct reports, creating organizational tension.

So I expect two steps forward, one step back. The strategic importance is undeniable, but the structural path forward remains messy.

From the boardroom perspective, it’s encouraging to see communications and corporate affairs expertise increasingly considered when boards build their skills matrices – recognition that this expertise matters at the highest levels of governance.

The Bottom Line

January 2026 revealed a profession simultaneously under siege and indispensable. CEOs are more cautious about public engagement, measurement tools face existential challenges from coordinated inauthentic behavior, yet the strategic value of sophisticated communications and corporate affairs counsel has never been clearer.

Whether these are blips or trends, one thing is certain: 2026 will be another year for agility and adaptability in our profession. And the organizations best positioned to navigate the complexity ahead will be investing in experienced in-house talent or adopting the fractional leadership model to fill in talent gaps.