February 17, 2026
Get Jim O'Leary's playbook on how to navigate AI, geopolitics, and media fragmentation in the year ahead.
The role of the Chief Communications Officer (CCO) is undergoing its most significant transformation in decades. In 2026, communications leaders are no longer focused solely on brand reputation or media relations. They’re being asked to help their organizations navigate geopolitical tension, societal division, and rapid AI advancement — all within an increasingly fragmented media landscape. These forces combined are pulling communications leaders closer to the center of enterprise decision-making.
We sat down with Jim O’Leary, Global President and CEO of Weber Shandwick North America, to unpack what these shifts mean for the CCO role in 2026 and what the winning enterprise communications playbook looks like for the year ahead. If you’re a CCO, head of communications, corporate affairs leader, or brand executive navigating the next era of influence, this guide is built for you.
What the Modern CCO Role Looks Like in 2026
Communications leaders are stepping into one of the most influential roles in the modern enterprise.
The environment they’re operating in today looks nothing like it did even five years ago. Pressure is no longer just commercial. It’s political, social, regulatory, and reputational, often unfolding simultaneously at a global scale. As these pressures intensify, the communications function is no longer a downstream execution arm. It’s becoming a central coordinating force across the C-suite, sitting at the intersection of:
Corporate communications
Risk and reputation management
Corporate affairs
Government relations
Investor relations
Brand and narrative strategy
CCOs are increasingly acting as enterprise-wide integrators, helping CEOs navigate geopolitical exposure, guide AI-driven transformation, and maintain alignment on narrative and brand in a shifting media environment. In 2026, the most effective CCOs operate as strategic leaders who can align multiple functions.
Jim noted that there is a clear shift in the industry toward broader titles and mandates for communications leaders, including Chief Corporate Affairs Officer roles, expanded government relations leadership, and communications leaders who increasingly oversee analytics, operations, and AI transformation efforts within an organization.
Communications leaders are uniquely positioned to elevate decision-making at the enterprise level.
“The CCO and the communications function has always played a central role in crafting and telling a company's story. And arguably for the AI companies, that's even more important in today's world because they're facing a bit of an uphill battle on a couple of different narrative threads.”
The New Geopolitical Mandate for Communications Leaders
Reflecting on conversations at the World Economic Forum’s 56th Annual Meeting — one of the world’s largest gatherings of global business leaders — Jim noted that two topics dominated executive discussions: geopolitics and AI.
In today’s macro environment, global companies can’t avoid politics, regulation, or societal issues, even when they want to. Supply chains, market access, workforce policy, AI regulation, and international conflict all create reputational exposure. Geopolitical instability demands both real-time reputation management and long-term strategic positioning, all of which are core responsibilities of modern communications teams.
Because the CEO role has become more complex and more visible, communications plays a critical role serving as a strategic guide and layer of protection in navigating that exposure. CCOs are increasingly expected to help CEOs anticipate geopolitical risk, decide when (and when not) to engage publicly, navigate global stakeholder expectations, and maintain credibility across markets, governments, and communities.
This is one reason more communications leaders are coming from political and public policy backgrounds, a trend Jim expects to continue.
“It’s a way for our profession to continue to exert more influence across the C-suite as CEOs are under more pressure to be geopolitical actors.”
AI Implementation and Adoption at Scale
AI fluency is now table stakes for communications leaders.
Unlike past technology waves — cloud, mobile, digital — AI transformation is not being delegated to the CTO. Jim shared that many CEOs (and in turn CCOs) feel personally accountable for the success or failure of AI adoption across their organizations.
In fact, communications is one of the functions best positioned to capture AI-driven efficiency gains. A recent Boston Consulting Group report found that communications ranks among the top functions for generative AI upside, with more than 80% of communications work primed for AI augmentation.
But unlocking that value requires more than experimenting with individual tools. According to Jim, communications leaders need to orchestrate AI at scale within their teams. This means building systems, workflows, and infrastructure that integrate AI across the entire function.
For communications teams, this means building an AI spine into the function, leveraging automation and generative tools across processes such as media monitoring, content development, and insight generation, while maintaining strong human judgment and quality control.
“The reality is I don't believe AI transformation is something that can be driven in the same way as previous enterprise technology transformation. The communications function has an AI collaboration sweet spot, where the combination of humans and AI together create a force-multiplying effect. I would argue that this is an opportunity for our profession to deliver increased value, as a result of using AI to power the function in a way that creates arguably greater scale.”
The Skills Every CCO Needs to Master in 2026
Even in an AI-driven era, Jim emphasizes that the most important skills in communications remain deeply human.
Soft skills like business acumen, alignment-building, judgment, creativity, resilience, and adaptability are becoming more important. In a fast-moving environment, organizations need leaders who can interpret external signals, make high-quality decisions quickly, and unify stakeholders under pressure.
Much of a CCO’s role is working across the C-suite to build consensus and align leadership around decisions with reputational impact. This is deeply human work. No AI system can replace instinct and intuition, judgment and creativity, and the ability to build collaborative relationships with other human beings.
As enterprises grow more complex, having a CCO who is inherently “AI-native” and has these soft skills becomes even more valuable to the enterprise.
“So much of what you do as a CCO is working across the C-suite to try to gain consensus and alignment around certain things that are going on, which is a soft skill that certainly no AI agent in the first single future is ever going to be able to replace. I would argue the same case for other skills that are arguably so human that I don't know if we're ever gonna be replaced. Things like intuition or instinct or judgment or creativity.”
Conclusion
The modern CCO is no longer seen as just a message manager. They’re a strategic power center. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the CEO, operating across every function, fluent in AI yet grounded in human judgment, they shape how the enterprise responds to geopolitical risks, regulatory shifts, cultural flashpoints, and market volatility in real time. The leaders who will succeed in this new media era are those who can operationalize AI at scale, cut through a fragmented media landscape, and turn every signal into decisive action fast.
For CCOs, PR leaders, and corporate affairs executives, this is a rare inflection point. As the media environment grows more complex, the value of strong communications leadership is indispensable for modern businesses.
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