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Marketing and communications leaders are facing another year of transformation, disruption, and uncertainty. From AI reshaping search and workflows, to video dominating attention, to the professionalization of influencer commerce and the critical role of social customer care, the next twelve months will give us plenty of challenges and opportunities. 

This definitive guide breaks down the 15 biggest trends that will shape the year ahead in marketing, PR, and social media. Each trend comes with clear action points and shows how Meltwater’s suite of solutions can help you not just keep up, but lead.

The rise of AI Search Optimization and LLM reputation management

How to build resilience against misinformation and narrative attacks

Why creator commerce is shifting to performance-based partnerships

The new rules of video, social SEO, and multi-platform engagement

Get your copy today and prepare your team for the year ahead.

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Keep ahead of the big changes in PR and marketing communications in 2026, including agentic AI, misinformation, and influencer marketing.

Marketing Trends to Watch in 2026

What does AI tell prospective students about Australian universities?

AI-generated answers are becoming a new front door to university discovery. Prospective students are using platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity to compare institutions, courses, employment prospects and campus experience - often before they reach a university website.

Using Meltwater’s GenAI Lens capability, this report analyses 12 student-led questions across 10 leading AI platforms and 18,903 citations. It reveals which universities appear most prominently, how visibility changes by topic and platform, and the sources shaping AI-generated recommendations. A supplementary analysis also explores how Australian universities are represented across seven international student markets.

Established reputation creates a head start. Group of Eight universities dominate AI visibility, with the University of Melbourne, Australian National University and University of Sydney leading overall mentions in the main analysis.

There is no single AI ranking. The universities surfaced most prominently changed by question and model. Strong visibility in one area does not guarantee visibility across the wider student decision journey.

Third-party authority shapes the answer. Education advisory and study platforms account for 24.8% of citations, compared with 11.6% for university and institutional sources.

International visibility is local. The University of Melbourne and University of Sydney ranked in the top three across all seven international markets analysed, but the leading institution varied by country.

Academic strengths dominate the narrative. Engineering was the leading key phrase in every international market, appearing in nearly 60% of responses, while research ranked among the top five themes in every market.

The source landscape keeps moving. The most-cited sources changed across two consecutive 15-day periods, reinforcing the need to monitor AI visibility over time - not as a one-off audit.

See how AI platforms perceive Australian universities, which sources shape recommendations and how visibility changes by topic, model and market.

AI Visibility in Australian Higher Education | Report

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Higher Education in the Age of AI: How AI Platforms Perceive Australian Universities

Global Research Report by Meltwater & YouGov

How do audiences really feel about AI-generated content?

Trust it? Skeptical of it? Engage with it differently across platforms and generations?

AI is transforming how content is created, but public perception of AI-generated content is evolving just as quickly.

Created in partnership with the leading market research firm, YouGov, the Public Perception of AI-Generated Content Report reveals how almost 10,000 people interpret and respond to AI-generated content, and what it means for brands, marketers, and communicators navigating this new era.

Across industries and regions, this report delivers actionable insights for anyone shaping modern brand storytelling.

For brands and communicators, understanding perception is critical. Missteps can damage credibility. The right approach can unlock engagement at scale.

This report offers clear, data-backed guidance to help you:

Develop AI content strategies that resonate

Navigate transparency and disclosure challenges

Make informed decisions about AI adoption in marketing and communications

Download the full report to understand where trust is built, where it’s broken, and how to communicate effectively in an AI-driven world.

The images on this page and some images within the report were created using AI and are used for visual illustration only.

By completing and submitting this form, you will receive information, tips, and promotions from Meltwater, and you agree that Meltwater may share your contact information with YouGov for marketing purposes.

How do audiences really feel about AI-generated content?
Trust it? Sceptical of it? Engage with it differently across platforms and generations?

The Public Perception of AI-Generated Content Report

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Public Perception of AI-Generated Content

Learn how to influence ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other LLMs, before they shape your reputation for you.

AI is now the first place people go to research brands. If you’re not showing up in AI-generated answers, you’re invisible to your audience. This guide shows PR and communications teams exactly how to take control.

Inside the guide, you’ll discover how to:

Understand how AI makes decisions: Learn how training data and real-time citations influence brand visibility.

Turn PR into a growth engine for AI visibility: See why earned media is now one of the most powerful signals for LLMs.

Build a repeatable AI visibility strategy: Follow a proven workflow to monitor, influence, and optimize your presence.

Leverage the C.O.R.E. framework: Scale visibility with Credibility, Omnipresence, Readability, and Endurance.

Activate the right channels: From news media to Reddit and YouTube, know where AI actually looks.

This guide is backed by insights from Meltwater’s GenAI Lens, the first platform built to monitor and optimize brand visibility in AI. 

Take control of your brand in the age of AI

Download the Own Your AI Visibility guide and start shaping how AI represents your brand today.

Get the Guide!

Download this free guide to learn how to influence ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and co., and take control of your brand’s visibility in AI-driven search.

Free Guide: Own Your Brand’s Visibility in AI

Own Your AI Visibility - Shape What AI Says About Your Brand

Document-level sentiment is no longer enough, here’s what to do instead.

Traditional sentiment analysis was built for a simpler media landscape. Today, conversations are complex, multi-entity, and full of nuance. 

This co-authored white paper from Meltwater and Converseon explains why organizations must move beyond document-level sentiment to entity- and aspect-level analysis to unlock more accurate, actionable, and AI-ready insights.

Download the white paper to learn how leading brands, researchers, and communications teams are closing critical insight gaps and future-proofing their analytics.

In Getting Granular with Sentiment Analysis, you’ll discover:

Why document-level sentiment creates blind spots in modern media and social analysis

How entity-level sentiment reveals who or what sentiment is actually about

How aspect-level sentiment uncovers the specific drivers shaping perception

Real-world examples showing how mixed sentiment is misclassified, and how granular models fix it

Why granular sentiment is becoming essential for AI accuracy, explainability, and governance

How entity- and aspect-level approaches improve recall, precision, and actionability

This report is designed for professionals who rely on sentiment data to guide decisions, including:

Social listening and media intelligence teams

Market research and insights professionals

Data, analytics, and AI governance leaders

If accuracy, transparency, and actionability matter to your work, this paper is for you.

Through Meltwater’s partnership with Converseon, research-grade NLP models and attitudinal analytics are integrated directly into Meltwater’s enterprise social intelligence capabilities, enabling deeper insight without sacrificing scale.

The result is a practical, evidence-based guide to the next evolution of sentiment analysis.

Download your report on Getting Granular with Sentiment Analysis

Why organizations must move beyond document-level sentiment to unlock more accurate, actionable, and AI-ready insights.

Getting Granular with Sentiment Analysis

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AI is rewriting how brands get discovered

Buyers aren’t browsing anymore — they’re asking AI.

And AI isn’t just finding answers… it’s deciding which brands show up, how they’re described, and who gets trusted.

This report reveals what’s actually happening behind the scenes — and why LinkedIn has become one of the most influential sources shaping AI-generated answers.  And most brands are not prepared for how that changes visibility.

AI is prioritizing expertise, relevance, and structure.

Turn your LinkedIn content into an AI visibility engine

The brands winning in AI aren’t just publishing more, they’re activating their experts. This report shows how to:

Track where your brand appears in AI-generated answers

Identify which sources shape your narrative

Measure how your content performs across AI models

Analysis of 9.5 million AI citations reveals LinkedIn’s growing influence in AI-generated answers.

Analysis of 9.5 million AI citations reveals LinkedIn’s growing influence in AI-generated answers and how brands can create content that gets cited.

How LinkedIn Powers the Answers AI Gives the World

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How LinkedIn Content Wins in AI Search

This new Meltwater Intelligence Report explores how public conversation, social platforms, and AI driven search are reshaping trust and reputation in the Australian insurance sector.

With insights drawn from nearly 5,000 media and online conversations across a 90 day period, ‘The Trust Gap’ reveals how customer perception is formed in moments of friction, uncertainty, and silence, and why insurers are often absent from the conversations that matter most.

Trust is no longer owned by brands: It is shaped across forums, social platforms, and AI generated summaries, often without brands being present in the conversation.

Frustration doesn’t build, it spikes: Claims related issues spread quickly across social channels before reaching mainstream media, shaping perception in real time.

Small moments can become big narratives: Individual experiences can escalate rapidly, turning into broader sector wide conversations about fairness and trust.

Uncertainty fills the gaps: When information is fragmented across media, influencers, and AI generated sources, customers are left to interpret conflicting signals.

Influence now sits with the crowd: Creators, communities, and AI systems are redefining how insurance products are understood, beyond traditional brand control.

If you are not visible, you are defined by others: AI generated search is driven by earned media and open web sources, meaning third party content shapes how your brand is represented.

Download the full report to understand what makes Australians trust, question, and choose their insurance providers today.

The Trust Gap: Reputation in Australian Insurance

The Trust Gap: What Public Conversation Reveals About Reputation in Australian Insurance

Join Meltwater’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Krysta Gahagen, and Kim Perdue, Senior Manager, Global Communications Insights & Analytics at Expedia Group, as they analyze more than 1.6 million news articles, 4.3 billion social engagements, and 93 million brand conversations that defined the FIFA World Cup 2026.

FIFA World Cup 2026 at a Glance
Understand the scale of the event and the opportunity it created for brands.

Brand Impact, Fan Engagement, and Emerging Trends
See which brands owned the conversation, what drove engagement across media and social channels, how sponsorships influenced visibility and share of voice, and which content themes generated the strongest reactions.

Turning Insights into Strategy
Learn how to measure the business impact of major cultural moments and apply those insights to future campaigns.

Key Takeaways and Q&A
Review the main findings and hear answers to key audience questions.

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On Demand Webinar: FIFA World Cup 2026 Insights

FIFA World Cup 2026: The Brands That Won the Conversation

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Meltwater Presents FIFA World Cup 2026 Insights Webinar: What the Data Reveals About the World's Big

Consumer behaviour doesn’t follow a linear journey; it’s fragmented, making influence harder to track and business impact harder to understand.

People discover products on TikTok, validate them in Reddit threads, hear about them from creators, search for reviews later, and purchase days or weeks afterwards.

So how should teams think about evidence, confidence, and impact when attribution alone can’t tell the full story? 

This Social Intelligence Lab session explores how social intelligence teams are building more defensible understandings of impact by combining different signals, behaviours, and forms of evidence when attribution alone is no longer enough. 

In the session, guest speakers, including Felix Scherrer, Global Director - Insights Client Strategy at Meltwater explore:

Why traditional attribution models struggle with modern consumer journeys

How strong teams build confidence without overstating certainty

Different forms of evidence that support commercial decision-making

A clearer framework for communicating influence and impact internally

How multiple signals can be combined into a more defensible understanding of business outcomes

Jocelyn Hlawaty Vice President, Insights & Optimization, Athena Global Advisors 

Dr Ayesha Taylor-Camara, Consumer Insights Manager, Bauer Media Group 

Seth Hammac, Global Partner Lead - Advertising & Marketing Technology, Amazon Web Services 

Felix Scherrer, Global Director - Insights Client Strategy, Meltwater

Download to watch

On-Demand Webinar: Beyond Attribution: What counts as evidence in social intelligence

How social intelligence teams are building more defensible understandings of impact by combining different signals, behaviours, and forms of evidence.

Beyond Attribution: What counts as evidence in social intelligence?

How LinkedIn Content Boosts Brand AI Visibility

Why AI platforms trust LinkedIn content

Getting your LinkedIn content cited

Do you know how the top AI platforms talk about your brand when your customers are researching buying decisions? GenAI Lens helps you track, measure, and improve your brand’s AI visibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

Exclusive research reveals the power of LinkedIn. Read the report and watch the on-demand webinar

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How to optimize  your LinkedIn strategy for AI search

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Higher Education in the Age of AI: How AI Platforms Perceive Australian Universities

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Own Your AI Visibility - Shape What AI Says About Your Brand

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On-Demand Webinar: Beyond Attribution: What counts as evidence in social intelligence

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Getting Granular with Sentiment Analysis

How LinkedIn Content Wins in AI Search

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