As generative AI accelerates the scale of fake and manipulated content, the distinction between harmless “slop” and high-risk shadow content becomes a critical business issue for communications leaders and their clients.

As global leaders head to Davos for the World Economic Forum’s 2026 meeting, communicators are watching closely, because what leaders say, how they show up and how authentically they engage has never mattered more.

The idea of “the media” is a hangover from an increasingly distant past. A time when professional values of journalism were shared across channels, broadcasters and broadsheets. It was relevant at a time when we could rely on news to be based on the truth, reporting and facts, even if it leant left or right of a center that truly was a middle ground.

The rise of AI powered deception is reshaping corporate risk and forcing communicators to rethink trust at its foundation.

As AI blurs the lines between truth and fabrication, communications leaders rally around authentication as the future of credibility.

Authentication technologies like digital watermarking are fast becoming a necessity, not a luxury.