If you work in corporate affairs, PR, or communications, you have probably spent the past eighteen months watching the rise of generative AI with a mixture of fascination and dread. The fascination is easy to understand: these tools can draft statements, summarise reports, and even help personalise outreach. The dread, however, is becoming much harder to ignore. According to major new research from the University of Oxford and GlobeScan, the vast majority of corporate affairs teams are dangerously unprepared for the one AI threat that could unravel their reputation in a matter of hours: deepfakes and AI‑generated misinformation.
The numbers are sobering. When researchers surveyed nearly 300 senior corporate affairs specialists earlier this year, they found that less than one in five teams – just 18% – feel ready to manage a deepfake or AI‑driven misinformation incident. Meanwhile, 43% admit they are “not very prepared,” and another 30% say they are only “somewhat prepared,” which often means having partial plans rather than fully tested response mechanisms. Only 10% were genuinely unsure. In other words, the vast majority of organisations are flying blind into a storm that is getting faster, more credible, and more damaging by the month.
What makes this particularly urgent is how quickly AI has risen up the corporate risk agenda. Back in 2025, only 17% of respondents cited AI and technology as one of the biggest risks facing global business over the next two years. By 2026, that figure had leapt to 44%. That is not a gradual increase. That is a shockwave. And yet, as the Oxford‑GlobeScan report puts it, there is a “widening gap between the growing prominence of AI‑related risks and organisational readiness to manage them.”
For anyone who has ever tried to manage a brand crisis in real time, this should send a chill down your spine. Traditional crisis communications already tests the limits of even the best teams. Now imagine that the attack is not a misquoted executive or a faulty product review, but a synthetic video of your CEO making inflammatory remarks, distributed across social media before your team has even finished their morning coffee. By the time you have drafted a holding statement, the deepfake has been viewed millions of times. That is the reality that corporate affairs teams are now staring down.
So what does this have to do with press release distribution, media contact databases, and the tools you use to send press release alerts? Everything, as it turns out.
The report makes clear that closing the preparedness gap requires moving from confidence to capability. That means having clear escalation protocols, defined decision rights, and – crucially – tested response playbooks that extend well beyond the communications team to include legal, cybersecurity, and senior leadership. But it also means rethinking the fundamental workflows that underpin how you communicate under pressure.
Consider your current approach to press release distribution. Most traditional press release distribution models assume that you control the narrative and that you have time to craft, approve, and push out a message through standard channels. Deepfakes break that assumption entirely. By the time your team has gone through a normal approval chain, the false narrative has already hardened. What you need instead is a distribution system that can operate at digital speed – with pre‑approved holding statements, segmented journalist lists, and the ability to push alerts within minutes, not hours.
That is where your media contact database becomes a strategic asset rather than just a Rolodex. In an AI‑driven misinformation crisis, not all journalists are equal. Some will be fact‑checking the deepfake in real time. Others will be amplifying it uncritically. Your database needs to allow instant tagging and segmentation so that you can reach fact‑checkers, cybersecurity reporters, legal affairs correspondents, and key industry analysts within the same initial alert. A static list of 5,000 contacts is useless if you cannot dynamically filter it under pressure.
And when you finally decide to send press release updates, timing is everything. The report suggests that many organisations are still stuck with “partial plans or early‑stage capabilities” – meaning they have thought about the problem but have not actually run a drill. In practice, that hesitation translates into delayed responses. Every extra hour that passes without an official statement allows the deepfake to become more entrenched. The window for effective rebuttal is measured in minutes, not days.
The research also reveals fascinating differences across sectors and regions. Unsurprisingly, the ICT and media entertainment sectors are comparatively more confident – around one‑third say they are prepared, which makes sense given their proximity to digital platforms and AI‑related risks. In sharp contrast, only 8% of those in consumer products and retail feel ready. That is a remarkable vulnerability for sectors that depend entirely on brand trust and high‑visibility consumer communications. Imagine a deepfake of a well‑known food brand’s product causing illness, or a retail CEO making offensive remarks during a holiday campaign. The reputational damage would be catastrophic.
Regionally, the picture is equally mixed. Europe has the highest proportion of respondents who say they are “not very prepared” at 46%, while North America comes in slightly lower at 37%. Interestingly, Latin America leads the way in terms of confidence, with 26% stating they are prepared – although the report notes that this may reflect optimistic underestimation rather than genuine capability.
So what should you do between now and July, when the full Oxford‑GlobeScan report is published? The preliminary findings offer some clear guidance. Start by treating voice, video, and email as untrusted for any high‑risk action – payments, supplier changes, credential resets – and require out‑of‑band verification for anything that could cause material harm. Run AI incident scenarios with your team, including contested authenticity situations where you have to decide whether to engage or wait. Update your fraud and reputational risk assessments to cover synthetic media and document fabrication. And crucially, rehearse your response in practical detail: who leads, who sits on the incident response team, and who has the authority to pause or push a statement.
For PR and communications professionals who rely on tools like Presswire to distribute their messages and manage their media relationships, the message is clear. The next generation of press release distribution cannot simply be about reach and speed; it must also be about verification, segmentation, and real‑time adaptability. Your media contact database should not be a static archive but a living, taggable, drillable asset that can support split‑second decision‑making. And when you send press release updates during a crisis, you need to know that your platform can handle tiered distribution – first to verified fact‑checkers and key allies, then to broader media, and finally to public channels.
As the Oxford‑GlobeScan report concludes, all of this “elevates the management of AI‑driven misinformation into a foundational Corporate Affairs capability.” In other words, this is not a niche concern for cybersecurity teams or legal departments. It is a core function of modern corporate communications. And right now, most teams are not ready.
The good news is that the tools to become ready already exist. What has been missing is the sense of urgency – and the understanding that traditional press release workflows are not equipped for the age of synthetic media. That sense of urgency has now arrived. The only question is whether your team will be among the 18% that are prepared, or the 82% that are still catching up when the next deepfake hits.
Presswire provides modern tools for press release distribution, intelligent media contact database management, and reliable platforms to send press release campaigns to verified journalists worldwide. Built for the speed of digital news, Presswire helps communications professionals stay ahead of emerging threats like AI‑generated misinformation.