Corporate affairs comes of age as the boardroom’s growth engine
Deloitte’s fourth Corporate Affairs Report finds a function being recast as a growth driver, but the gap between ambition and operational maturity is stark.
The operating models that have served the corporate affairs function for two decades were built for an era of institutional trust, a healthy media and slower information flows. That era has gone.
Geopolitical volatility, a disintermediated and fragmented media ecosystem, declining trust and the rapid advance of AI have all stress-tested legacy models and found them wanting.
The function is being pulled upstream into management work at exactly the moment that organisations are becoming harder to govern and predict.
Deloitte’s fourth Corporate Affairs Report, The Road to 2030, draws on interviews with 42 communications leaders, largely from FTSE 100 companies, conducted between December 2025 and February 2026.
Performance and the retreat on purpose
The most striking shift is the recasting of the mandate. Since 2024, the share of corporate affairs leaders who describe themselves as growth drivers has more than doubled to 43%. Almost seven in ten leaders believe that their CEO or board shares that view.
The flipside is the retreat from purpose. Deloitte records what’s rising and falling:
Rising: Geopolitical advisory, AI, measurement rigour, owned media and podcasts.
Falling: Media relations, purpose and ESG, social issues campaigning, and AVEs (about time).
It mirrors the USC Annenberg findings I wrote about last month. Purpose has slipped down the priorities, and performance now sets the agenda. CEOs want favourable operating conditions for growth, quantified policy and regulatory risk, and support for shareprice growth.
The maturity gap
The function has been handed a commercial mandate that it isn’t yet equipped to deliver. The strategy gap is the proof.
Only 36% of functions have a clearly defined strategy statement. A remarkable 28% have none at all. Just 24% have a formal AI strategy. Measurement still leans on reputational metrics (69%), with economic indicators used by barely a quarter of teams (26%).
You cannot claim to be a growth driver and then measure yourself with reach or sentiment scores. One respondent nails it: good counsel is now the baseline, and proving impact is what differentiates. Measurement maturity has become a driver of the function’s trust and influence.
Change is the day job
Transformation is the present reality: 83% of leaders said their function was undergoing significant change at the time of the interviews. Two-thirds are restructuring their operating model, and roughly half are chasing cost efficiencies or resetting capabilities.
Headcount is broadly static and so the burden falls on productivity. Centralisation is the dominant response, with control of strategy, narrative and spend now a premium commodity in an unpredictable market.
There is a warning sign in the governance data. The proportion of leaders with a formal seat on the executive committee has fallen from 73% to 64%. Deloitte is careful not to read this as a loss of influence, citing continued proximity to the CEO.
AI is the defining variable
Asked to complete “2026 is going to be the year of...”, leaders most often answered AI, followed by delivery. The investment data backs it up: 69% are prioritising AI training, 55% better ways to measure value and 52% new capabilities.
But adoption remains largely tactical. The barriers Deloitte identifies are cultural and organisational: no clear strategy, fragmented data, governance concerns and scepticism within teams.
What it means for your job
If your function is among the 64% without a clearly defined strategy statement, that is the single highest-value piece of work you could do.
The move from reputational to economic indicators is the price of admission to the growth driver conversation. Fix measurement before someone fixes it for you.
Governance, data foundations and training, will determine whether AI becomes a scaled operating advantage or a perpetual pilot. Deloitte.
None of it this is revolutionary; it’s all good management practice, but all of it is hard.
Further reading
This article was originally posted on my Substack. The Wadds Inc. newsletter is read by more than 5,500 communications and public relations practitioners. We take a slower, critical perspective on the research, evidence and developments shaping the field.
