The “new year, new me” energy that many people embrace when the calendar flips to January doesn’t manifest only in diets, pledges to amp up personal savings or campaigns to organize every closet. Businesses and corporate teams often use the occasion to trim fat, boost the budget and bring order to unwieldy projects.

For communications and marketing teams, the first couple of months of the year are an opportune time to reimagine and re-energize their efforts. Here are some of the trends that researchers, pollsters and industry associations expect to shape internal and external outreach in 2025.

AI marches on

No surprise here: Its influence will continue to grow. If your team isn’t exploring generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and experimenting to learn how it can streamline and enhance impact, make 2025 the year that changes.

Leveraging GenAI in meaningful ways can be a game-changer for your organization’s communications programs. Failure to do so risks being left behind in a rapidly changing business landscape. There’s plenty of room for us all to level up, as a Gallup poll found that only 25% of U.S. workers currently use AI in their jobs.

The trick is ensuring that AI is used ethically and intentionally. Organizations must create — and communicate — policies for how they use AI. They need to stay vigilant for misuse; we’re already seeing AI “deep fakes” in popular culture. And they need to do some crisis communications planning, since we don’t yet know what inevitable reputation-damaging issues could be created by fakery and bad actors.

Most of all, they need to experiment and have fun. From automating tasks to mining data, monitoring media to optimizing outreach, we’re all only beginning to understand how AI will impact corporate communications. This list of AI tools gives you a place to start — or accelerate.

But the human touch isn’t going anywhere

More than ever, consumers and clients demand a human touch from companies. Personalization — including in marketing emails, pitches to reporters, internal messaging and in-person events for stakeholders — elevates your communications and lets customers and employees know they’re more than just one of the masses.

People expect to make personal connections with brands. Great storytelling, compelling narratives and genuine, transparent communications build trust and help your organization maintain credibility.

Prioritize interactive opportunities, methods and channels that allow your customers to show their personalities and share their authentic selves — and vice versa. Lego’s “Rebuild the World” campaign, featuring animated short films and digital content, perfectly illustrates how brands can creatively convey their values and humanize their communications.

New approaches, old favorites

Keeping communications fresh in 2025 means trying new things, such as the use of wearables, which some industry experts predict will gain ground in public relations. Coca-Cola, for example, handed out branded silicone RFID wristbands at an event in Israel, giving attendees a one-tap opportunity to share their experiences on Facebook. RFID key fobs, cards and jewelry offer a relatively low-cost way to raise brand awareness and boost engagement.

Expect to see more brands experiment with virtual reality experiences and augmented reality games in the year ahead, too. These all-too-real simulations can build excitement and loyalty in a variety of internal and external communications — VR tours of your overseas R&D lab or new resort hotels, product launches, simulated crises to hone your team’s communications response plan, and much more. These immersive adventures promise to keep evolving, as do the social media and PR opportunities they’ll create.

But don’t discount the tried-and-true, either. Email is still king when it comes to internal communications and a powerful tool for reaching customers and prospects, too, according to researchers. And more communications teams are turning to podcasts as another option for engaging, given the venerable format’s appeal. According to Edison Research, 34% of Americans ages 12 and older listened to at least one podcast per week in 2024, up from 26% in 2022.

It starts at the top

If your organization’s CEO keeps a low profile, maybe 2025 will be the year your communications team persuades her to reconsider. Great executive communications can accomplish many things — build stakeholder trust, deepen relationships with the community, bolster employee morale, stabilize tricky situations, generate business and so much more.

Some industry observers predict we’ll see more CEOs stepping up their game and embracing the responsibility, and opportunity, of authentic communication. There’s plenty of room for growth here. A Gallup poll found that only 20% of employees say they “strongly agree” that their top leaders communicate effectively.

As always, the efforts must be authentic and, when possible and relevant, interactive. Check out our related story “Ramping up CEO communications” for more.

The bottom line: Stick with it

Pledges to implement changes in the new year are famously tough to uphold (anyone out there still on that diet?). But when it comes to embracing PR and communications trends in 2025, the potential payoff — in employee engagement, customer loyalty, brand reputation and more — is ample reward.