Most organisations adopting AI have focused on what the technology can do. Far fewer have thought seriously about what they will say when things go wrong. That gap between deployment and accountability is widening, and in communications terms, it is becoming one of the more consequential blind spots in this region.
That is what a major new study has now put data behind.
CARMA, one of the world’s leading media intelligence firms, partnered with IPREX, the global network of independent communications agencies, to analyse AI coverage across 500 tier-one media outlets, survey more than 6,300 members of the public across 19 markets, and gather direct input from practitioners in 14 countries.
The findings were presented at the recently concluded 2026 edition of IPREX Annual General Conference in Singapore. Watermelon Communications is IPREX’s partner in the UAE, and the findings align directly with what we are seeing with clients across this region.
The headline picture from the research is one of sustained optimism. Global media coverage of AI remains strongly positive, framed primarily by productivity, efficiency and economic growth. The apocalyptic narratives that dominated earlier public debate have not taken hold. Audiences, broadly speaking, are more curious than afraid. But that optimism rests on softer ground than most organisations realise, and the data points to important shifts beneath the surface.
Concern about AI systems operating without meaningful human oversight grew by 63 per cent between the first and second half of 2025. The fear driving that number is not of robots or science fiction scenarios. It is about losing control of systems that are increasingly embedded in decisions affecting people’s lives.
At the same time, public concern about cybercrime, fraud, misinformation and election interference consistently outweighs the governance narratives that the media tends to focus on. Audiences are worried about practical, immediate consequences. Many organisations are still communicating about long-term capability and vision.
Closing that gap is a communications job, and it is not one that most organisations have fully taken on.
The research offers a revealing look at who is shaping the AI narrative in the media. CEOs account for 43 per cent of the commentator share in global AI coverage and are the most consistently positive voice across all groups surveyed. That reflects a significant investment by organisations in putting their leaders at the forefront of this story. The problem is that a CEO articulating what AI can achieve is different from an organisation demonstrating that it has thought carefully about what happens when the technology falls short.
The study’s public trust data make this distinction clear. When audiences were asked what builds their confidence in AI, safety and misuse prevention ranked higher than accuracy and reliability. People want to know who is accountable, how decisions are made, and whether human judgement remains part of the process.
That is not the conversation most AI communications in this region are having. The focus tends to be on announcements, investment figures and claims of regional leadership. These are not unimportant, but they do not answer the questions that are actually forming in the public mind.
The GCC has genuine grounds for confidence in this space, and the UAE’s position in the conversation is worth noting specifically. Among all markets covered in the study, the UAE ranked second only to the United States in media interest around AI testing and governance progress. That is not a peripheral detail. It reflects a market that is not just enthusiastic about AI adoption but increasingly attentive to how it is managed and validated. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, sits among the most strongly pro-AI markets globally in the public opinion data, alongside India, China and Brazil, with public excitement levels among the highest recorded anywhere.
That the UAE leads in governance interest while its neighbour leads in public enthusiasm suggests that the region as a whole is moving in the right direction. The public appetite is real, but so is the expectation that organisations will demonstrate they are in control of what they are deploying.
What makes this particularly relevant for communicators is that such positive sentiment is not self-sustaining. The study makes it clear that coverage spikes are event-driven, tied to model launches, investment announcements, and major conferences. Between those moments, the underlying anxiety does not dissipate. It accumulates quietly. Organisations that have built their entire narrative around capability tend to discover this only when something goes wrong and they realise they have no credibility reserve to draw on.
The practitioner findings in the report are equally instructive. Across 14 markets, the most common AI communications challenge was managing trust, risk and regulation. Clients are moving faster with adoption than with governance, and the gap between what they are doing internally and what they can credibly say publicly is widening. Many have not yet defined how AI fits into their communications approach, leaving their external messaging reactive and inconsistent.
This is where the profession offers something that goes well beyond media relations. At its core, communications has always been about building and protecting trust between organisations and the people they serve. That has not changed. What has changed is the terrain.
The communicator’s role in the AI conversation is to help organisations work out what they actually believe, what safeguards they have in place, and how they will account for decisions made with or by AI systems. That requires internal clarity before external messaging, and it requires organisations to have genuinely worked through their position rather than defaulting to announcements.
An organisation that cannot answer the basic questions around accountability and oversight has not earned the right to talk about leadership.
The organisations that emerge from the next phase of AI with their reputations intact will not necessarily be those with the most advanced technology or the largest investment commitments. They will be the ones who recognised early enough that trust is not incidental to what they are building. It is the foundation. And building trust deliberately, consistently and honestly is precisely what communication is for.
By Pradeep Kumar, Director–Public Relations at Watermelon Communications.
