Artificial Intelligence is increasingly moving into the world of global communication. Marcus Reubenstein argues it has its advantages and pitfalls, what it needs is a governance framework to ensure AI works for humans and not the other way around.
In the United States for every one journalist there are seven public relations consultants; in Australia there are three PR consultants for every journalist. Today they are a major source of content for the media, a lifeline to media organisations that lack the resources and to journalists who lack the skills.
These public relations agents also lack skills — those of journalists — so they are going to be relying on AI to do a lot of their work.
In effect it’s AI communication by proxy, global communication will, for the foreseeable future, continue to rely greatly on traditional delivery but a lot of the content will be AI generated.
While traditional media audiences are getting smaller, they will set the public agenda. Once a social media story makes it to BBC, CNN or Fox News it has a life beyond the online world, it gets raised in the board rooms and across cabinet tables.
Decline of traditional media
AI is set to play a crucial role in global communication because of the rise of social and independent media. A serious independent media channel like The Diary of a CEO, which conducts lengthy in-depth interviews – along the lines of traditional media – has a weekly audience of 30 million.
More than 100 times as many people watch one of their YouTube interviews than buy the New York Times; it’s more than 250 times the circulation of Britain’s The Times.
In the West — for a variety of reasons — traditional media has been the architect of its own demise.
Self-censorship; clearly biased reporting – while claiming to be balanced; caving in to corporate interests; ignoring new media or treating it as a content threat rather than an opportunity.
It’s helped to fracture the media landscape and has now invited AI in the front door.
AI means different things to different people — but right now it is a goal-driven intelligent tool to help humans achieve outcomes that have a human mission.
Ultimately, humans must take responsibility for defining the meaning of AI. I’m sure most of us in this room use AI… but with the achievable goal of making life easier not making ourselves obsolete.
Global communication is directed by different value systems across the world’s 195 nation states… but the goals of prosperity, stability and certainty are universal. These should be used to create a framework… and then governance can be discussed.
A place for governance
So, who polices what AI generates and how AI is used?
Right now, it’s individual nations, their governments, regulatory bodies and in many countries the courts who decide the flow of information.
Ultimately, history has shown us that the human race always manages to meet its challenges.
From religion… to famine… disease… war… geopolitical threats… the rise of robotics and automation in the 1980s and 90s… the Y2K bug, if you remember that… and the degradation of our environment.
Since the Biblical ages, the end of times has always hung over the heads of humanity and ultimately the threat was proven to be wrong… or it was a challenge overcome.
With AI the challenge will be embracing the opportunities. Then defining the problems posed by it — and that day will come. Then finally finding the solutions
This is my 22nd trip to China extending back over more than 15 years… and the one thing I’ve learned is that China is overwhelmingly a nation of finding solutions not creating problems.
China — thanks to its culture and own governance frameworks — is good at planning for the future.
The value systems of those in the West are different. The flow of communication and its content is prized… but the consequence of short-sighted policy — or lack of policy — may come back to bite.
There is a clear future in meeting this global challenge:
Alignment of ideas and values — while accepting differences — and making the right decisions will lead to good outcomes for global governance of AI.
Summing up
AI will not replace humans, history showed humanity that the “threat” of robotics, automation and the rise of computing in the 1980s and 1990s did not supplant us. It was an opportunity for the global economy to move away from manufacturing based production to service economies.
People will still need to travel, fly, eat, meet face-to-face, farm, transport goods and many other things. AI will not be the end of us.
I will leave you with the thought that AI presents great opportunities for global communication. Finding a governance framework is a challenge but no doubt that challenge will be met.
The right framework will bring us — as humans — closer together not push us apart.
This is an edited version of an address delivered by Marcus Reubenstein at the World Media Summit in Beijing on 5 November 2026. He travelled there as a guest of the event organisers.
