Bad AI headlines = a permission slip to fall behind

I’m seeing articles asking if the “AI bubble” will pop in 2026. Some even muse about an “AI crash.”

At the same time, “slop” was Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” for 2025. More negative vibes for AI.

These brooding headlines hand a “permission slip” to AI skeptics and overwhelmed managers to pause.

That pause doesn’t look dramatic. It’s a bunch of small non-decisions:

• “We’ll hold off.”
• “Let’s see how this plays out.”
• “We don’t want to get burned.”
• “It’s not ready.”

The trap is that this gets framed as caution or discipline, “being responsible,” when it’s actually an affirmative decision to NOT build the habit.

The good news for you? In the meantime, AI-forward PR pros like you get further ahead.

If they skip AI, nothing immediately “breaks,” which is why the permission slip feels safe. The cost is that the upside goes to someone else. And over time, that adoption gap becomes the performance gap.

People decrying “slop” don’t matter to the PR pros skillfully generating content no one can tell was created by AI. Just because other people use a tool incorrectly doesn’t mean it’s not a useful tool.

Recommendation:

Commit to using AI for something every day. Something new every week. Find where it accelerates your work and where it doesn’t.

That’s how you stay on the right side of the performance gap while others use bad headlines as a permission slip to pause.

I talked in more detail about this and my other PR predictions for 2026 in a special training for my Inner Circle members this week. If you’d like access to this and every other training we’ve done, register for our Wait List so you can be alerted when we’re accepting new members.