#WPRD2026 | The golden age of strategic PR will elude government until leadership changes
It is an attractive proposition, as judgement, context and counsel become more valuable in an AI-enabled environment.
It is also incomplete unless that promise extends to institutions whose communications have the greatest consequences for society.If this golden age is real, it should be judged by whether strategic communication improves the relationship between institutions and the people they serve.
The country’s largest communicator
Government is the country’s largest communicator. Its communication affects whether citizens understand policy, access services and trust the institutions acting in their name.
In South Africa, we have had a name for that ambition since 1997: Batho Pele, meaning People First. Its principles remain relevant, but the systems that support them have not kept pace with how people find information and expect institutions to respond.
AI has transformed communication. The question is whether public-sector leadership will use it to put Batho Pele into practice.
What the 2026 Social Media Summit for Government told us
Earlier this month, Decode hosted the Prisa-endorsed fourth annual Social Media Summit for Government, in partnership with the University of Johannesburg Business School, during which Minister Solly Malatsi delivered the keynote address.
Four years on, one pattern is clear: government communicators have appetite and talent, but the systems around them often limit their impact.
Practitioners arrive eager to learn and candid about their constraints. What holds them back is rarely a lack of commitment. More often, it is how communication is positioned, structured and funded, particularly when leaders treat it as a support service that enters after decisions are taken.
AI-enabled communication presents both an opportunity and a leadership test.It can help government provide information in every official language, identify disinformation early, understand public concerns, and make service information accessible across communities.
That is Batho Pele made practical.
In government, the citizen’s experience is the state’s most powerful form of communication
Technology amplifies
Technology amplifies the system it enters. Introduce AI into a reactive, under-resourced function, and it will produce the same weaknesses faster.
Modern tools cannot compensate for unclear accountability, late involvement in decisions or leadership that sees communication as distribution rather than advice.I have long argued that PR is what an organisation does, not simply what it says.
In government, the citizen’s experience is the state’s most powerful form of communication. A broken portal, an unanswered complaint or a conflicting statement can shape credibility more decisively than any campaign.
AI may help repair such failures, but it can also reproduce them if the operating model remains unchanged.
5 interconnected issues
To realise the opportunity, the public sector must address five interconnected issues.
- Leadership
The deepest deficit in government communication is the attitude towards it at the top. Too many political principals, directors-general and senior managers involve communicators only after a decision has been finalised, expecting them to issue a statement or manage the response.
That reduces communication to a megaphone when it should operate as a management and advisory discipline.
A strategic communications function should be in place while decisions are being shaped, helping leaders understand public expectations, anticipate consequences and identify likely misunderstandings.
Communicators do not determine policy, but how a decision will be understood and experienced is part of the decision itself.
- Structure>
Many government communications units still reflect a media environment dominated by press offices, events and formal announcements. Those functions remain necessary but are no longer sufficient.
Few organograms adequately provide for data analysis, social listening, multilingual content, digital community management or counter-disinformation capability.
Structure determines capability. A unit built primarily around media liaison cannot deliver meaningful citizen engagement at digital scale, regardless of the talent within it.
Organograms should be reviewed against the environment they serve, rather than treated as fixed inheritances.
- Skills
Media relations and writing remain foundational, but they must now sit alongside analytics, verification, platform behaviour, AI-assisted workflows and public engagement.
Communicators need to know what to ask of a tool, how to test its output and when not to use it. Continuous professional development must be built into the operating model.
- Budget
Communication budgets are often among the first to be cut during austerity and the last to be considered during planning. The consequences arise when confusion weakens programme uptake, misinformation fills institutional silence, or public trust deteriorates, making corrective communication more difficult and expensive.
This is not a case for larger publicity budgets. It is a case for investing in the people, systems and tools that enable government to communicate credibly, respond early and operate at the scale citizens require. Weak communication eventually costs the state through failed implementation and avoidable distrust.
- Professional standards
Government communicators should work within a recognised ethical framework, supported by accreditation, continuing development and peer accountability.
Closer cooperation between the public sector and Prisa could establish shared expectations for competence and conduct, and strengthen those advising in politically complex environments.
As AI makes persuasive content easier to produce at speed, the most valuable safeguard remains accountable human judgement.
Ethical practice, professional independence and the willingness to advise against a course of action are central to whether strategic communication deserves influence within leadership.
The balance and the challenge
There is excellent work underway across government, often achieved with limited resources, outdated structures and uneven executive support.
Recognising this does not require us to overlook the conditions that constrain it.
AI is not a remedy for those conditions and, if poorly governed, could deepen exclusion and create risks to accuracy, privacy and trust.
Batho Pele turns thirty next year. It remains one of the most human-centred public-service doctrines this country has produced, and government now has tools to apply its principles responsively, multilingually and at scale.
The question is whether leaders will position communication close enough to decision-making to shape how institutions listen, explain and respond.
The challenge for cabinet members, directors-general, executive mayors and heads of communication is not simply to modernise channels or procure technology.
It is to reconsider communication’s role in leadership. The question is no longer whether government can afford to strengthen that function, but what weak communication already costs in terms of trust, participation and service delivery.
The golden age of strategic PR will not reach government through software alone.
It will take hold when leadership treats communication as integral to governing: present when decisions are shaped, connected to the citizen experience, and accountable for helping institutions understand the people they serve.
That is how Batho Pele becomes the way government operates.
