What Is Narrative Intelligence, and Why 45% of CCOs Will Adopt It by 2029?

Narrative intelligence is the capability to track how stories originate, mutate, and propagate — including from fringe areas of the internet — before they become reputation crises. It does something fundamentally different from what most organisations are currently running.

Traditional monitoring tools answer two questions: how many people are talking, and how do they feel? Useful, but limited. Narrative intelligence answers a harder question: what story is forming, where is it coming from, and is it being driven by human stakeholders or synthetic forces such as coordinated bot networks?

Gartner's Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies makes the limitation of legacy tools explicit: "The legacy listening and monitoring tools that CCOs rely on to monitor mentions, keywords, coverage, and conversations miss the early warning signs of damaging narratives." The document goes further, noting that AI now serves as both an accelerator to disinformation — making sophisticated narrative attacks accessible to an increasingly wide range of bad actors — and as the CCO's best hope for detecting and quantifying those attacks early. (Gartner, 2026, https://www.gartner.com/en/communications/research/communications-predictions/unlocked)

The difference matters operationally. By the time sentiment turns negative and volume spikes, the narrative has already crystallised. The window for redirection has closed.

Only 14% of Communications leaders intend to invest in narrative intelligence platforms in the next 12 to 18 months — by February 2027 at the latest — despite Gartner forecasting that 45% of CCOs will have adopted these technologies by 2029. The gap between what the data demands and what organisations are actually planning is the central problem in crisis communication preparedness as of 2026.

This pattern holds consistently across emerging threats. Crisis communication professionals recognise the risk — in surveys, they rate AI-generated misinformation as critical — and then delay investment until that risk materialises as an actual incident. The competitive advantage of early adoption evaporates precisely at the moment it would have been most valuable.

The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report ranked misinformation and disinformation as the single greatest global risk over the next two years, for the second year running. Not cyberattacks. Not climate events. False narratives. Yet most organisations are still running volume-based monitoring systems designed for a different era.

Gartner identifies three core failures of current monitoring approaches that narrative intelligence is designed to address.

The first is speed. The timeline for sensing and responding to a narrative attack is faster than ever. CCOs who rely on traditional monitoring will consistently arrive late — after a narrative has accumulated enough momentum to be difficult to redirect. Narrative intelligence platforms are built specifically to shorten that detection window, and to help CCOs decide when to respond and, critically, when staying silent is the more strategically sound choice.

The second is source discrimination. Current tools largely cannot distinguish whether an emerging narrative is being driven by genuine human stakeholders or by coordinated synthetic actors — bots, automated accounts, or AI-generated content farms. In today's disinformation environment, that distinction is operationally essential. Responding to a bot-driven narrative as if it were organic risks amplifying it. Ignoring a human-driven narrative as if it were synthetic is equally damaging.

The third is translation. Narrative intelligence generates data. But data without interpretation has no value to an executive team facing a reputational decision. Gartner is explicit that adopting a narrative intelligence tool is not sufficient — organisations must simultaneously build the analytic capability to synthesise monitoring outputs into insights that leadership can act on. The technology and the human capability must develop together.

When your crisis breaks, ChatGPT and Perplexity won't surface your carefully prepared holding statement. They'll surface whoever built the strongest earned media presence before the crisis began.

The numbers from Gartner's Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies are unambiguous. More than 95% of links cited by AI platforms are nonpaid mentions and coverage, with 27% originating directly from earned media. Press releases receive the fewest citations of any content type.

When a search implies recency — "what is this company's most recent position on sustainability?" — almost half (49%) of citations returned are news coverage. Gartner predicts this structural shift will drive a 2x increase in PR and earned media budgets by 2027, as organisations realise that AI-mediated discovery has made earned authority a core business asset, not a communications nicety.

The competitive implication is uncomfortable. If your critics have accumulated more earned media authority than your organisation has, AI systems will cite them first during your crisis — shaping the initial narrative before your communications team has issued a single statement. Earned media authority must exist before the incident. There is no way to build it reactively.

ChatGPT traffic grew +608% year-over-year between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Perplexity grew +262% over the same period. Google and Bing, meanwhile, saw traffic decline by 1% each. The audience is moving. The authority signals that matter are moving with it.

By 2028, 75% of employees will rely on chatbots to obtain relevant internal communications, replacing traditional channels. This isn't a distant forecast — the underlying behaviour is already established. Gartner reports that 75% of employees already use AI tools at work, with 55% doing so regularly, and 85% of managers believe their teams' work could be meaningfully improved with AI. (Gartner, Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies, 2026)

The information overload problem driving this shift is also a crisis communication problem. Employees experiencing high information overload are 52% less likely to report wanting to stay with the organisation, and 30% less likely to report strong strategic alignment. During a crisis, when accurate, timely internal communication is most critical, you're communicating to an audience that is already tuned out.

Mass emails assume human readers who open, read, and act. That assumption is becoming less reliable with every passing year. Crisis content now needs to be structured for AI delivery: modular components, clear metadata, role-based routing. Gartner recommends that CCOs begin scaling down less-engaged channels — newsletters, static intranets — in favour of conversational AI systems that deliver personalised, contextually relevant information on demand.

If your current crisis communication plan is a 47-page PDF, your internal communications strategy is already obsolete. The employees who most need clear, accurate information during a crisis will be asking their AI assistant. What that assistant returns depends entirely on how well your content is structured for extraction and delivery.

Communications functions currently allocate just 2.9% of their budgets to measurement and monitoring. Marketing commits 8%. Gartner predicts Communications' data and analytics spending will double to 6% of the function's budget by 2029, specifically to deliver the decision-making speed that modern crisis environments demand.

The urgency is real. Nearly half (47%) of CCOs report difficulty demonstrating the impact of their function, while 34% say their teams are still viewed as cost centres rather than value drivers. Data and analytics investment is simultaneously how the Communications function protects its strategic position and how it builds the operational capability to detect, quantify, and respond to narrative threats.

The shift is not solely about technology. It requires parallel investment in talent — data specialists who can bridge analytics and communications, translating narrative intelligence outputs into insights that CFOs and CEOs can act on.

Start deliberately small. Pick one crisis scenario your organisation is genuinely likely to face. Map the predictable narratives that could form around it — not just the obvious ones, but the storylines that might emerge from fringe areas before reaching mainstream coverage. Identify whether your current monitoring stack would catch those signals early, and time the gap between emergence and detection.

Then audit your earned media position honestly. Search for your organisation in ChatGPT and Perplexity the way a journalist or regulator would search during a crisis. Note who gets cited. Note whether your desired narrative comes through — or whether critics, competitors, or uninformed third parties are shaping the first draft of your reputation in AI-mediated environments.

The business case is increasingly clear. Gartner's data shows only 14% of organisations investing in narrative intelligence right now. That means early movers gain a measurable competitive advantage — not just in crisis response capability, but in the AI-mediated information environment where reputation is won or lost before a single official statement is issued.

Most organisations will read these Gartner predictions, acknowledge the gap, and do nothing until the board asks why they weren't ready. The pattern is consistent. It has held across every major emerging threat in crisis communication.

The evidence is unambiguous. A 2025 survey of 102 crisis communication professionals found 77% have no protocols for AI-generated misinformation, despite rating it a critical threat. (Borremans, P. Why Crisis Communication Teams Aren't Ready for AI Deepfakes: Survey Reveals Critical Gaps. Wag the Dog Newsletter, January 8, 2026. https://www.wagthedog.io/p/why-crisis-communication-teams-aren-t-ready-for-ai-deepfakes-survey-reveals-critical-gaps) Gartner notes directly that the people already using narrative intelligence capabilities aren't waiting for industry consensus — they're building competitive advantage while their peers debate the business case.

Proactive narrative cultivation. Continuous monitoring that can distinguish human from synthetic sources. Response frameworks that move at the speed of AI-accelerated disinformation. That's the operating model now. The leaders who build it first will set the standard. Everyone else will be studying their case studies.

What is narrative intelligence in crisis communication? Narrative intelligence is the capability to monitor, analyse, and predict how stories form and spread — including from fringe internet communities — before they become full-scale reputation crises. Unlike keyword monitoring or sentiment analysis, narrative intelligence can identify whether emerging narratives are human-driven or synthetic, and predict how quickly they'll reach mainstream audiences.

How is narrative intelligence different from sentiment analysis? Sentiment analysis measures how people feel about your brand. Narrative intelligence maps what story is forming, where it's originating, whether it's being amplified by human actors or bots, and how quickly it's likely to escalate. Sentiment is a lagging indicator. Narrative intelligence is a leading one.

Why does Gartner predict 45% of CCOs will adopt narrative intelligence by 2029? According to Gartner's Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies, narrative intelligence is a direct response to the failure of legacy monitoring tools to detect early-warning signs of damaging narratives — particularly as AI makes disinformation tactics accessible to a wider range of bad actors. The prediction reflects both the growing capability of these platforms and the widening competitive gap between early adopters and reactive organisations.

Why does earned media matter so much for crisis communication now? AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite earned media overwhelmingly over paid content — more than 95% of cited links are nonpaid, with 27% coming directly from earned media. If your critics have more earned media authority than you do, AI systems will cite them first when users search during your crisis. Earned authority must be built before an incident occurs.

How fast is AI search growing compared to traditional search? ChatGPT traffic grew +608% year-over-year between the first half of 2024 and first half of 2025. Perplexity grew +262% over the same period. Google and Bing each declined 1%. (Gartner, Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies, 2026)

What does the shift to chatbot-based internal communications mean for crisis response? By 2028, 75% of employees will rely on chatbots for internal communications, replacing newsletters, intranets, and email broadcasts. Crisis content must be modular, metadata-tagged, and structured for conversational AI delivery — not written as documents that assume a human opening an attachment.

How much should communications analytics budgets increase? Gartner predicts Communications' data and analytics spending will double to 6% of function budgets by 2029, up from the current 2.9%. The rationale is decision-grade intelligence that enables predictive crisis response, and demonstrates measurable Communications value to executive leadership.

What is a narrative redirection playbook? A pre-approved response framework that specifies which spokesperson statements to activate, which third-party validators to engage, and which counter-narratives to publish — along with timeframes for each action — when a specific type of storyline begins forming. Pre-crisis preparation, not reactive improvisation.

How can organisations close the narrative intelligence gap now? Start with a detection simulation: pick one likely crisis scenario, identify the fringe and mainstream narratives that could form, and time your current team's ability to detect and triage an emerging storyline. That gap analysis provides both the business case for investment and a clear baseline for measuring improvement.

Why does the disinformation threat rank above cybersecurity in global risk assessments? The World Economic Forum has ranked misinformation and disinformation as the top global risk for two consecutive years. Unlike cyber threats, which typically target systems and data, disinformation targets trust and perception — assets that, once damaged, are far harder to restore. Narrative intelligence is specifically designed to detect and address this category of threat early.

Philippe Borremans is a crisis, risk, and emergency communication specialist with 25 years of experience and founder of RiskComms. He advises organisations on communication strategy, AI-augmented crisis response, and the frameworks that determine whether organisations lead or follow during reputation-critical moments.

Primary sources: Gartner. (2026). Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies. https://www.gartner.com/en/communications/research/communications-predictions/unlocked | Borremans, P. (2026, January 8). Why Crisis Communication Teams Aren't Ready for AI Deepfakes: Survey Reveals Critical Gaps. Wag the Dog Newsletter. https://www.wagthedog.io/p/why-crisis-communication-teams-aren-t-ready-for-ai-deepfakes-survey-reveals-critical-gaps | World Economic Forum. (2024). Global Risks Report 2024.