Effective crisis planning evaluates your reputational risk and resilience. Fewer than half of U.S. businesses have a formal documented crisis communications plan. And most of those outline what to do when a crisis hits. To survive a crisis today, you should have started planning years ago.
I spent a full day of learning and discussing the state of crisis communication in 2026 at the PRWeek Crisis Communication conference in Washington, D.C. Here’s what you need to know.
Brand equity must be built in advance
You may be able to survive, but you can’t truly thrive after a crisis if you haven’t established baseline trust and credibility. That starts years before.
Roughly half of a company’s overall reputation is now attributed directly to the CEO’s personal reputation, according to the CEO Reputation Index 2026.
Your CEO must be regularly communicating with stakeholders, internal and external. They should have an active LinkedIn presence (the number two most cited source on AI search platforms.) They should be sharing thought leadership on industry trends in earned media interviews, blogs and authored articles. Your company and your leaders should be nominated for awards. There should be regular communication and access.
Employees should be treated like the influencers they are. They can be your biggest advocates publicly if you let them be. Empower them to share authentic insights online.
You need to understand who your key audiences are and where they get their information. Currently, the number one source of news today is social media. What is your current standing with your stakeholders?
One of my favorite lines from the conference was this, “Reputation is more important than ever. It gives us strategic freedom.”
Crisis planning is understanding reputational risk
Planning for a crisis today requires preparedness and readiness, and there is a difference. Preparedness is the ability to anticipate crises. Readiness is the ability to react to a crisis.
Anticipating a crisis is a whole new ballgame. It requires continuous monitoring. Reddit and Discord conversations can be early indicators of a crisis. So can reading comments online. Employees may also be on the frontline of brewing crises. The earlier you can identify a crisis, the more opportunity you have for control and strategy.
The big lesson: Misinformation runs rampant today, and with a fractured media landscape, it is critical to know where your risks lie and start building reputational armor.
AI is fueling crises and determining the impact
The Media Minefield team anticipated a rise in deepfake and bot-fueled crises this year, and this conference further confirmed our predictions. There was a lot of talk about deepfake scenario planning and bots that are always on and trained to engage in highly controversial topics online.
We must understand how and where a crisis is gaining momentum in order to best respond. The line that I can’t get out of my head, “The number one stakeholder in a crisis may be a LLM.”
It’s important to know what information AI search platforms are surfacing during a crisis and what outlets will best ensure your message and response are included in the narrative.
Emotions drive a crisis and your response
Emotional intensity now determines which issues ignite into full-scale crises. Understanding the emotions at the outset of a crisis, and responding appropriately are critical.
We must lead with empathy. The public makes decisions based on a combination of logic and emotion. Eighty-nine percent of people say a business can regain their trust if it admits to a mistake and is transparent about the steps it will take to resolve the issue. In crisis, a tone error is often more dangerous than a factual error.
Speed still counts in crisis response, and the timeline is shrinking. As one of the panelists said, “Hesitation is a liability.” Hesitation used to be 24 hours, now it is 20 minutes.
Recap
- Brand equity must be built in advance, years before a crisis
- Your CEO’s reputation is directly tied to the company’s credibility and trust; ensure you have a plan for amplifying their voice
- Planning for a crisis today requires preparedness and readiness
- AI and LLMs are fueling crises
- Crisis response must lead with empathy