So far, 2026 has brought rapid and meaningful change to the communications landscape. Marketers heading into the second half of the year are navigating increasingly fragmented attention and a growing trust gap across channels.
To make sense of what’s actually worth paying attention to, we asked our clients, partners, and Airfoil team what they’re seeing and where they’re placing bets. The result is a practical look at the trends shaping marketing and communications right now, along with actions you can take to stay ahead.
Consider this your mid-year pulse check for communications in 2026.
1. Diversifying Influence Channels Beyond Traditional Media
Chris Austin, account director at Airfoil Group
While earned media has long been a cornerstone of brand storytelling, the ways audiences discover and evaluate information have fundamentally changed. Shrinking newsrooms, evolving search habits, and the rise of creator-led media have made earned coverage increasingly competitive and less predictable.
For marketing leaders, the next 3-6 months should be spent diversifying influence strategies beyond traditional media. Influencers, podcasters, independent journalists and newsletter publishers more meaningfully shape opinions and inform audiences in today’s media landscape. Audit where your audiences are getting information, identify the voices shaping conversations, and begin building relationships with influential sources. Engaging these voices can complement traditional earned media and expand the reach of brand storytelling.
At the same time, marketers should evaluate how paid media can amplify high-performing earned and influencer content. Brands that establish paid amplification plans for thought leadership, executive visibility and third-party validation will be better positioned to maintain share of voice as organic reach becomes harder to sustain. Earned media remains valuable, but brands will make a greater impact in the coming year by building integrated storytelling ecosystems. Marketers must combine earned, owned, influencer and paid channels to create trust, credibility and authority wherever audiences seek information.
2. Measuring and Improving AI Search Visibility
Angela Corsi Leon, senior vice president at Airfoil Group
No mid-year 2026 marketing trends guide is complete without acknowledging how AI search is rapidly reshaping how people discover information, evaluate brands and make decisions.
The shift is no longer theoretical. At Google I/O 2026, Google unveiled major expansions to AI Mode. Rather than presenting a list of links, AI search increasingly synthesizes information from multiple sources and delivers a direct answer. AI-powered search is quickly becoming a mainstream way people interact with information online.
For marketers, visibility is no longer determined solely by where a brand ranks in traditional search results. Increasingly, it depends on whether AI systems recognize and cite a brand as a credible source.
The best place to start is always with data. Establish an AI visibility benchmark for your brand and your competitors. How does your brand appear when prospects ask AI platforms questions about your category, competitors or industry challenges? Are you being cited? Are competitors appearing where you are absent? What sources are influencing the answers being generated?
AI visibility benchmarks are only as good as the prompts behind them. Measurement starts with knowing your audience and how they search. Build prompts around the real questions your audience asks, the problems they want to solve and the options they compare. The closer your prompts are to real search behavior, the more meaningful your visibility data will be.
One thing has become clear in this space over the last several months – there is no universal AI visibility strategy. The sources that large language models trust and cite vary significantly by industry, audience and topic. That’s why it’s critical to gather data specific to your business rather than relying on generalized best practices.
Understanding how AI sees your brand today provides the foundation for every decision that follows. If you’re not sure where to start, consider conducting an AI visibility assessment to establish a baseline and identify the opportunities most relevant to your industry, audience and business goals.
3. Aligning Sales and Marketing for Stronger B2B Growth
Jessica Greathouse, chief operating officer at True Digital Communications
One trend we’re seeing more often is the need for stronger alignment between sales and marketing. Many companies still operate with these teams working toward the same goal but measuring success in different ways. Marketing focuses on leads and awareness. Sales focuses on revenue. When those priorities don’t line up, it can create gaps in the customer experience and make growth harder to achieve.
Today’s B2B buyers spend a lot of time researching before they ever talk to a salesperson. They visit websites, read content, check reviews, and compare options. By the time they reach out, they often have a clear idea of what they want. If sales and marketing are not aligned on messaging and customer needs, the buying experience can feel disconnected.
The companies getting the best results are bringing these teams closer together. They share information more often. They review goals together. They use customer feedback to improve both sales conversations and marketing efforts. Instead of focusing on separate activities, they focus on what drives business growth.
For marketers, the opportunity is to look beyond tactics and think about the full customer journey. Understanding what happens after a lead is handed to sales can help create better campaigns, stronger content, and more qualified opportunities. Companies that connect sales and marketing in a meaningful way will be in a stronger position to grow and compete in the months ahead.
4. Building Brand Communities Through Strategic Content
Rebecca White, VP marketing and communications at Detroit Regional Partnership
For years, communications strategies have been built around a simple premise: define your message and distribute it as widely as possible. But as trust in institutions declines and audiences seek more authentic, peer-driven sources of information, that approach is becoming less effective on its own.
One of the most important shifts emerging in communications today is the move from audience-building to community-building. Organizations that focus solely on broadcasting messages to stakeholders risk missing opportunities to create deeper engagement, foster collaboration and cultivate advocates who actively contribute to their mission. Influence is built not by talking at audiences, but by creating spaces where people can participate in conversations, share perspectives and connect with others who care about the same challenges and opportunities.
Our mission at Global Epicenter of Mobility (GEM), an initiative led by the Detroit Regional Partnership (DRP), is to accelerate economic growth by building on the region’s unrivaled mobility assets to advance the next generation of industry innovation. Community building and storytelling are central to this mission and our new podcast, The Mobility Table has proven to be a powerful vehicle to do just that.
For marketers and communicators looking to make an impact, the question is no longer just, “How do we reach our audience?” It’s, “How do we bring our audience together?”
Developing a podcast that goes the distance involves months of strategizing, scheduling, networking, and batch recording before your first episode ever airs. But it’s a worthwhile investment for organizations thoroughly committed to earning industry authority and trust, and building a robust community dedicated to your mission.
5. Using AI to Streamline Marketing Workflows
Kelsea Fitzpatrick, senior marketing analyst at Airfoil Group
With new AI platforms emerging almost daily, marketers are being promised greater efficiency, better results, and faster execution. Much of the conversation has focused on content generation. But in reality, the biggest gains are coming from something less visible: using AI to eliminate the behind-the-scenes work that slows teams down.
Our teams are constantly experimenting with new ways to use AI to reduce operational friction and improve collaboration across the business.
AI is becoming a practical tool for streamlining workflows that have traditionally consumed valuable project management time. We’re using platforms like NotebookLM and other secure, AI-powered tools to analyze large volumes of content, identify recurring themes, surface relevant case studies, and locate supporting data for media opportunities or executive communications. Tasks that once took hours of digging through folders, presentations, and documents can now be completed in minutes—freeing up more time for strategic thinking and higher-value work.
AI is also helping teams improve internal operations. Copilot helps us generate first drafts of project updates, status reports, and action items, creating greater visibility across teams while reducing administrative time. Rather than spending time documenting work, our teams can spend more time advancing it.
It’s easy to feel behind or overwhelmed, no matter where your organization is in its AI adoption. The key is to keep it simple. Focus on one or two workflow challenges rather than pursuing a broad AI strategy. Identify repetitive tasks that consume time but add limited strategic value. Build an internal knowledge library that makes institutional knowledge easier to access. Then experiment with tools that improve project management, research, and collaboration.
The organizations realizing the greatest value from AI aren’t replacing human expertise. They’re using it to remove distractions, streamline workflows, and create more space for the work that matters most: building relationships, solving complex problems, and delivering strategic insight. AI won’t create advantage on its own. How you apply it will. The teams that win won’t be the ones producing more—they’ll be the ones operating smarter.
6. Humanizing Thought Leadership to Build Trust and Engagement
Dana Eble, account manager at Airfoil Group
When every brand sounds the same, audiences stop listening. But more importantly, when brands feel impersonal, audiences stop caring.
The real opportunity isn’t just to differentiate messaging, it’s to reintroduce the human connection behind it.
Today’s most effective brands don’t communicate as abstract entities, they show up through real people with real perspectives. Thought leadership should not feel manufactured or overly polished. It should feel personal, informed by lived experience, and grounded in a point of view that audiences can trust.
That requires a shift in mindset. Instead of treating spokespeople as delivery vehicles for corporate messaging, they should be positioned as the voice of the brand itself. Every insight, opinion, and perspective becomes a way to humanize the business and make it more relatable.
This is where depth matters. The strongest brands build a diverse bench of voices—not just in the C-suite, but across the organization—each bringing a unique lens shaped by their role, experiences, and passions. Authenticity doesn’t come from hierarchy, it comes from proximity to the work and genuine belief in it.
Formats should also flex to match the person, not the process. Some voices resonate best in conversation, others in writing or on camera. The goal isn’t to force consistency in format, it’s to unlock authenticity in how insights are shared.
Equally important is consistency in presence. Platforms like LinkedIn give leaders and subject matter experts a direct line to audiences, making it easier to show up regularly, engage in real dialogue, and build familiarity over time. When done well, this turns employees into credible advocates and extends the reach of the brand in a way corporate channels alone cannot.
Ultimately, human connection is what makes thought leadership work. It’s what transforms messaging into meaning, and brands into something people recognize, trust, and remember.
7. Designing Events for Multi-Audience Reach and Brand Impact
Karl Siegert, vice president and chief operating officer at MVP Collaborative
One trend we’re seeing more often is the blurring of lines between experiences built for internal audiences, press audiences, and consumer audiences. In the past, these programs were often treated as separate efforts. A sales training event was for employees or dealers. A media event was just for press. A consumer activation was for the public. Today, many experiences built for one audience spill over into others.
And this is a good thing! Especially when there’s an eye for it from the start. A strong internal experience can build belief, energy, and understanding among the people closest to the brand. And when those people are inspired to share what they saw, learned, or experienced, the impact can extend much further – whether you ask them to or not! Employees, dealers, partners, and attendees are no longer just participants. They can become advocates, content creators, and credible voices for the brand.
MVP saw this firsthand with a 20-city training tour produced for Ram, Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler dealer sales teams. The program was built specifically to educate and energize dealer salespeople. But part of the experience encouraged them to think like influencers and share what they were learning. The result was a training tour that generated tens of millions of consumer impressions. An internal training experience became a consumer-facing brand moment.
For marketers, the opportunity is to think beyond the immediate audience in the room. A great experience should still be designed with a clear purpose, but it can also be built with shareability, storytelling, and audience crossover in mind. When internal teams, press, partners, and consumers all connect with the same brand story, the live experience becomes more valuable. The lines may be blurring, but that creates a bigger opportunity for brands that know how to use the moment.
8. Embracing Radical Focus as a Key Driver of Marketing Performance
Dana Lanham, executive marketing advisor, Polar USA
With more platforms, formats, creators and trends competing for attention than ever before, many companies feel pressure to be everywhere at once. The result is often what I like to call “random acts of marketing,” a constant stream of activity that creates little lasting impact and makes it difficult to understand what’s actually driving business results.
The smartest marketing teams are taking a different approach. Rather than chasing every opportunity, they’re embracing radical focus: identifying the channels, audiences and initiatives most likely to drive growth and committing to them consistently over time. Of course, focus is easier said than done.
Marketing leaders today are balancing competing priorities from across the organization while trying to keep pace with changing customer behaviors and emerging trends. Every week brings a new platform, a new tactic or a new stakeholder request competing for attention. Without a deliberate process for prioritization, even the best teams can lose sight of what matters most.
This is where strong agency partnerships become invaluable.
The best client-agency relationships create the space and perspective needed to identify where focus should be placed. Internal teams bring deep business knowledge, customer understanding and organizational context. Agency partners contribute an outside-in perspective, helping teams spot emerging opportunities, identify overlooked audience segments and separate meaningful trends from distractions.
Just as importantly, agencies help teams stay focused once priorities have been established. While internal marketers are often pulled into day-to-day business demands, a strong agency partner provides continuity—maintaining momentum, reinforcing strategic priorities and ensuring important work doesn’t get sidelined by the latest urgent request.
For marketers feeling the mid-year chaos building, consider a mid-year strategic check-in with your agency partners. Step back from campaign updates and performance dashboards and ask a few simple questions: What’s actually driving impact? What has become noise or busy work? Where are the biggest opportunities for growth? The goal isn’t to add more to the plan. It’s to identify what deserves greater focus and what can be left behind.
In today’s fragmented marketing landscape, focus is a competitive advantage. The strongest client-agency partnerships help organizations not only determine where to focus, but maintain the discipline required to see that strategy through.
Final Takeaway
The most effective organizations aren’t chasing every new trend. They’re making smart, intentional choices about how they build trust, create real connections, and focus their efforts.
Success comes from pulling these ideas together into one cohesive strategy, not treating them as separate initiatives. As you look ahead to the second half of the year, the goal isn’t to do more. It’s to focus on what actually matters for your business and your audience, and stick with it.
The brands that win are the ones that follow through. They align their teams, elevate credible voices, and show up consistently in the places their audiences already trust.
Not sure where to start? We’re here to help. Reach out to the Airfoil team to talk through how these trends can translate into a strategy that drives real, measurable growth.
