The New Rules of Public Affairs: Managing Your AI-Driven Reputation

Governance is expensive and labour-intensive. At a time when trust in our policymakers around the world is wearing thin, voters are calling on their governments to address overspending and government inefficiency, maximising every tax dollar, euro and pound.

Against this backdrop, public servants are experiencing higher workloads and being tasked with processing requests with as few labour resources as possible. Naturally, governments and elected representatives are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) as an effective tool to support research, analyse and evaluate information and boost efficiency. Consider these data points:

• 37% of people in Government use AI once a day and 68% of people use it weekly, according to a new Thomas Reuters Institute report.
• Gartner predicts at least 80% of governments will deploy AI agents to automate routine decision-making by 2028.
• In the UK, Whitehall departments had to answer almost twice as many questions from MPs and peers in 2025 as the year before, with speculation that AI tools are being used to generate written questions.

As AI becomes embedded in policymaking processes, it is also beginning to shape how organisations and brands are understood, assessed and prioritised. This shift carries significant implications for public affairs leaders who may not realise that AI systems increasingly act as an intermediary between their organisations and decision-makers.

The Engagement Blind-spot: AI Reputation

An organisation’s AI-driven reputation has the power to derail the most air-tight of public affairs engagement strategies. AI reputation refers to how an organisation is represented, summarised and judged by AI systems. While most seasoned public affairs specialists will consider public opinion and media coverage of their organisation when developing an engagement strategy, not paying attention to AI reputations can have significant ramifications.

Without careful stewardship of their AI reputation, organisations risk having outdated, incomplete or misleading narratives define their positioning in policy and business landscapes. For all its merits, AI is also not without its own limitations. Generative AI has a mixed record on hallucinations and inaccuracies, when a chatbot creates seemingly authoritative but inaccurate or fabricated information which, if left unchecked, could erode credibility and trust built up over years. Similarly, asking AI a specific question, such as about the reputation of an organisation, may prompt it to amplify and resurface a crisis that took place years ago without providing the nuance or remediation that followed.

When combined, these challenges risk shaping how governments, civil servants, policymakers and regulators view your organisation through the lens of AI, including its reputation and policy stance. Consequently, not managing your AI reputation could be the difference between being consulted about the next policy or regulatory change, securing that ministerial visit or consideration in bilateral trade deals.

What Must Public Affairs Leaders Do Now?

First, recognise the importance of how AI is shaping your reputation. Even when a user is not asking AI a question about your reputation, it may be learning about it. Research found 80% of search users now rely on Google AI overviews at least 40% of the time, reflecting how public servants may research you when seeking timely context. Your AI reputation is as important as your media and digital footprints and needs to be considered in your engagement strategies.

Second, perform a risk-identification exercise of your organisation. This should focus on understanding how AI models characterise your organisation across different contexts and for varied decision-maker audiences within the policymaking ecosystem, assessing whether this reflects your intended positioning. Reviewing outputs across multiple AI models can help identify emerging reputational, policy or regulatory risks, including how your organisation is being framed by AI systems and what guidance is being offered to policymakers and other stakeholders about engaging with you.

Third, develop a proactive strategy to enhance your public affairs reputation positioning, amplifying narratives you want public servants to see and crafting counter-narratives to manage any risks. From publication targeting to story positioning to content development, the age of AI requires organisations to rethink every communication and explore outside traditional content controls.

Through our leading offering, RepGenAI, APCO stands ready to support your organisation investigate and transform reputational concerns into effective and actionable insights to increase the resilience of your public affairs strategy. In a fundamentally changing public affairs landscape, organisations that understand and manage their AI-driven reputation will thrive.