Three Predictions for Where Media Is Headed in 2026

“Content is king,” as Bill Gates famously said, and in today’s media landscape, context is queen.

At Stacker, as Director of Client Strategy & Insights, I think a lot about that balance — how to help brands earn attention and build authority in ways that are sustainable, credible, and measurable.

And I’m not the only one thinking about this, especially with the new AI frontier.

Our CEO, Noah, recently told Ad Age how brands and agencies will need to adapt to AI, and how AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is reshaping brand discovery.

He’s right, and I see those same shifts in my work every day. If you want to be visible in search or AI-driven results tomorrow, you need more earned media signals today. The challenge is how to get your brand’s content to generate more of these signals, which would then feed the algorithm and help LLMs understand and cite your brand.

It can feel overwhelming.

Yet, it’s worth digging into.

My team’s role is to translate those media landscape shifts into insights and strategies that help brands act now. With that in mind, here’s what I see coming in the next 5–10 years:

#1: A double-down on storytelling

Journalists want stories with context, data, and insight — and readers do too.

Historically, PR and Comms teams led the charge here, but now the shift is broader. Companies are switching their ethos to go beyond press releases and focus on telling the stories only they can tell.

LegalZoom is a great example. Six months of distributing their own high-quality stories to publishers through Stacker was all it took to get 2,900 new and unique websites linking to their website. As industry leaders, this helped their overall search rankings climb, which is very hard to do once you’re already a household name.

Brands like Square, Freddie Mac, and Upwork are also ahead of this trend. With Stacker’s earned reach platform, they are already leaning into narrative-driven content that meets journalism standards while still showcasing brand expertise.

For all of them, that’s authority, visibility, and a halo of editorial trust no ad spend can replicate.

The takeaway: The future is less about “placements” and more about branded storytelling as strategy. The brands and agencies that master this shift, distributing high-quality stories that publishers like MSN actually want, will stand out.

#2: Trust will become a competitive advantage

Though it seems that the internet is riddled with bias and unreliable information — with some platforms even abandoning fact-checking — this trend won’t last. Consumers are interested in trustworthy, vetted content, and brands and publishers will rise to meet that demand.

We’re already seeing this shift for fact-checking, with some organizations embracing transparency by openly sharing their editorial process, just like we do at Stacker. And as traditional media warms up to branded stories done right, brands won’t have to white-knuckle their way to publishers’ trust.

In this newly forged relationship between brands and publishers, both will find even more ways to innovate and make their stories more trustworthy, which is at the crux of journalism and modern commerce.

Meanwhile, AEO’s emphasis on citations will raise the bar even further. Sites that prioritize larger volumes of earned, high-quality backlinks will win in AI-generated results, signaling authority and credibility in ways “built” links simply can’t.

#3: Online media will become a better experience for everyone

In a revitalized media ecosystem, all sides benefit:

1. Brands won’t have to flood screens with ads or chase audiences across the internet to be seen. Instead they’ll prioritize meaningful engagement across social platforms focused on connection and community-building.

2. Publishers will thrive by republishing quality, trust-worthy content — even if produced by in-house brand teams. Earned media models like Stacker make this possible, giving publishers free, credible stories to share with their audiences.

3. Audiences will get more of the information they want, without having to machete their way through noise and misinformation.

This is the potential of earned media at scale, and what excites me about Stacker.

We’re taking these ideas a step further. We’re democratizing earned reach by giving thousands of brands the control to scale their content through our platform. They get more ownership of the narrative, while maintaining the integrity that journalism has built, and gaining their trust.

We’re not just predicting where media is headed, especially since a lot of these hypotheticals that predict how the media is created, distributed, and consumed are already happening. The rest isn’t far behind, and as this new media model takes shape, every brand will face a choice to either adapt or risk falling behind.

Our challenge (and goal) is how we can continue pioneering approaches to make for a more sustainable, resilient, collaborative, and quality media ecosystem that solves the problems publishing is facing across the industry, while scaling the reach of quality brand content.

And we’re already on our way.

Tamara Sykes is a strategic communicator specializing in content strategy, PR, and brand storytelling. As Director of Client Strategy & Insights at Stacker, she helps brands achieve earned media success through journalist-crafted content strategies. With expertise in digital PR, media partnerships, and audience engagement, she’s passionate about elevating brand visibility and driving meaningful impact.

Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva