Blog
Original research at the intersection of AI and communications: how attention, trust and measurement are changing, and what comes next.
Here’s what our team has been writing about how communications is changing. The newest essay is first.
StrategyHuman-in-the-loop is not a control systemA human approval gate is not a control system. Five questions for designing AI oversight that can detect problems, intervene in time, and improve the next decision.October 27, 2026StrategyWhen AI Becomes the Front Door to TrustAs AI chat becomes a front door to knowledge, brands can optimize their visibility while leaving verification unresolved. Public trust will depend on original reporting, provenance and accountability.September 7, 2026Industry PerspectivesAEO Becomes a CategoryBetween July 18 and July 24, 2026, five category-defining events transformed AEO from an emerging practice into a contested market. What happened, what it means for communications strategy, and why Shadow treats AI visibility as foundational to communications.July 24, 2026ResearchThe Token Bill Comes Due: Inside the AI Cost CrisisPer-token API prices collapsed 98% since GPT-4. Enterprise AI bills tripled. Both are true. This is the full investigation into the AI cost crisis: the data, the companies getting burned, and the market scrambling to respond.June 10, 2026StrategyA Founder's Guide to Company Announcements: Communications at Every MilestoneEvery company milestone requires a different communications approach across five surfaces: earned media, owned content, GEO, social, and search. This guide covers the seven major announcement types founders face.June 1, 2026ResearchThe AI Layoff Narrative: Anatomy of a Corporate Communications CycleBetween January 2025 and May 2026, at least 14 major companies explicitly cited AI as the reason for cutting more than 50,000 jobs. The language is converging. The backlash is compounding. The data shows the script is doing more harm than good.May 29, 2026ResearchEarned Media Is Now AI InfrastructurePR professionals spent thirty years building relationships with publications, earning coverage, accumulating third-party credibility. It turns out they were also building the exact infrastructure that AI engines now use to decide which brands to recommend.May 22, 2026The Data LayerEvery communications engagement in the history of the discipline has started from the same place — someone's best guess. Not a bad guess, usually, but a guess nonetheless. What changes when the read is built from data instead?March 16, 2026 · 9 min readPart 4 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRThe Business Model Crisis: Why the PR Agency Model Is BreakingThe PR agency business model has remained largely unchanged for decades. Clients pay a monthly retainer, agencies staff those retainers with account teams, and the cracks are showing.February 28, 2026Part 5 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRWhat AI Actually Changes in Communications: Operations, Not Creativity91% of communications professionals use generative AI. But the industry's anxiety has been about the wrong things. AI is not replacing judgment — it's attacking the operational layer beneath it.February 28, 2026Part 6 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRThe Future of Communications Belongs to Judgment, Not AccessThe closing argument. What survives when attention fragments, trust localizes, measurement gets honest, and the agency model bends — and what comms leaders should be building toward now.February 28, 2026Part 1 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRThe Attention Shift: How Public Discourse Decentralized71% of PR professionals cite fragmentation as their primary challenge, yet most agency workflows were built for a centralized media environment that no longer exists.January 15, 2026Part 2 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRThe Trust Shift: Why Credibility Now Follows Proximity, Not PrestigeTrust in institutions has declined. In its place: contextual credibility — trust that flows from proximity, specificity, and demonstrated experience inside a specific community.January 15, 2026Part 3 of 6 · The Structural Crisis in PRThe Measurement Trap: Why PR Can't Prove ROI in a Metrics-Driven CultureOnly 32% of execs prioritize revenue or ROI from communications, yet PR teams face increasing pressure to demonstrate value in terms that don't fit what they actually do.January 15, 2026