Trust is the foundation of communication. Nowhere is this more evident than in crisis communications. But in a world where misinformation is rampant, audience engagement is declining, and AI tools are impacting ever-increasing parts of our lives, it’s getting harder to build trust—and easier than ever to lose it when crisis hits. The future of crisis communications will be built not on the tools we use as practitioners but on the human element: trust, empathy, and preparedness.
To help navigate the evolving world that is crisis communications in 2026, we’ve turned to Benjamin Morgan, MA, Senior Fellow at the Center for Risk Communication and Tom Ormsby APR, FCPRS, Principal at Tom Ormsby Public Relations.
As we look to the future, it’s important to understand where we’ve been. In the past, the information deficit model informed a large part of risk and crisis communication. This model assumes that public concern and resistance exist due to a lack of information.
“The model assumes that if experts simply provide more facts, data, and explanations, the public will understand the issue and accept the recommended action,” said Morgan.
This model has collapsed. Messages are now judged on the source’s credibility and empathy, not just the facts.
Trust
Public trust isn’t something that just happens in a crisis. Crisis-resilient organizations build relationships and credibility before problems occur. Morgan refers to this as the sentiment bank. Organizations with a healthy balance in the sentiment bank have the existing capital to draw upon when a crisis occurs.
Since communications professionals are often the voice and face of an organization, building and maintaining trust starts with us.
“As an industry…we need to adhere to a code of professional standards,” said Ormsby.
By adhering to professional standards and seeking professional accreditation, such as the CMP or SCMP, communicators build trust as spokespeople and advisors. Building from a foundation of professional trust, communicators can then work to credibly build organizational trust.
Empathy
In many crisis situations, it’s emotion that drives public responses, not information or hazards.
This response is explained by Public Outrage Theory, developed by Dr. Peter Sandman. Morgan said that the theory explains why public reaction to risk often doesn’t match the technical level of danger. At the core of Dr. Sandman’s theory is the idea that Risk=Hazard+Outrage where hazard is the technical magnitude of the risk and outrage is the social, psychological, and emotional factors that shape how people feel about the risk.
“Emotion drives risk perception. Research shows that when people are upset, they have reduced ability to process complex information,” said Morgan.
As communicators, we need to respond to our audience’s emotions with empathy. Emotional intelligence by leaders in crisis response is essential.
“Statements that demonstrate empathy will often reduce outrage,” said Morgan.
He recommends message mapping as the best practice to support spokespeople to ensure clear, consistent, and compassionate communications. By showing that you care, you can reduce outrage first and then start to provide information and next steps.
In a crisis, empathy isn’t just a soft skill. It’s a strategic one.
Preparedness
In 2026, it’s no longer acceptable to be reactive in crisis communications. Rather, communications need to be treated as integral to crisis preparedness.
“Research in risk communication shows that the organizations that perform best during crises are the ones that prepare in advance,” said Morgan.
Message mapping, spokesperson training, and crisis simulations need to become standard practices for organizations that want to succeed in responding to a crisis.
Ormsby believes that ethical and strategic preparedness is one of the key challenges for organizations in 2026, especially with AI tools, which can support crisis response as well as cause a crisis.
By investing in the people, tools, strategy, and messaging, organizations can ensure that they aren’t just ready to respond, but that they have the sentiment bank capital that trust depends on.
The future of crisis communications isn’t faster responses or better tools. It’s investing in the human element, the trust, empathy, and preparedness that turns outrage into understanding.
In 2026, preparing empathetic crisis response isn’t just best practice. It’s the standard organizations will be judged by.
Sources:
AI Assisted–Human Reviewed
AI was used to summarize primary interviews and other original source materials used by the human author as well as ideation and proofing before final publication review.
