At last year’s CEIR Predict conference, Nicholas Johnston, Publisher at Axios, joined Dr. Sam Potolicchio, President of the Preparing Global Leaders Forum, for a session that challenged how leaders think about media, trust and attention.
In Power Shifts & Storylines: Navigating Global Change and Media Influence, Johnston drew on his experience building Axios and its Smart Brevity model to explain why the fight for attention has become existential. Dr. Potolicchio, who has spent his career training global leaders to communicate with clarity and purpose, pushed the conversation further by framing the erosion of trust and attention not just as a media problem but as a leadership one.
Let’s examine some essential takeaways from their session as we prepare for the upcoming CEIR Predict Conference on 10-11 September 2026.
INSIGHT #1: Smart Brevity isn’t a writing trick. It’s a survival strategy.
Johnston explained that Axios built its entire model around a simple truth: audiences give you seconds, not minutes, to prove a message is worth their time.
- Today’s target audience is saturated with distractions, making only concise, valuable and immediately clear content the attention grabber that breaks through the noise.
- Formats built for a slower media era are becoming obsolete as attention spans shrink and alternatives multiply.
- Leaders must evaluate every message for clarity and relevance rather than assuming length signals importance.
TAKEAWAY: If your content requires patience to find the value, most of your audience will never find it at all.
INSIGHT #2: AI is commoditizing content, which makes human insight more valuable, not less.
Johnston argued that as AI drives the cost of routine, replicable content toward zero, the things only humans can do become exponentially more valuable.
- AI will do most tasks far better than a human ever could, but the small subset that remains uniquely human will see its value rise sharply.
- Efficiency gains from AI free human talent for original insight, investigative work and relationship-building.
- Organizations that keep producing generic, replicable content will find themselves competing directly with machines on cost and speed.
TAKEAWAY: The organizations that thrive won’t be the ones using AI the most, they’ll be the ones that know exactly which tasks to keep human.
INSIGHT #3: Algorithms are engineered to reward outrage, and bad actors know it.
Johnston was candid about a hard truth of digital platforms: engagement-driven algorithms disproportionately amplify anger and indignation because that is what keeps people scrolling.
- Most people oppose political violence and value measured takes, but platforms offer no reward for expressing that sensibility.
- Foreign actors, bots and other bad-faith operators exploit this dynamic deliberately, spreading divisive content for financial or geopolitical gain.
- The absence of any reward for simply being informed entrenches division as a core feature of the digital experience.
TAKEAWAY: Understanding who benefits from outrage is now a prerequisite for building audience trust in any industry.
INSIGHT #4: Live, human connection is becoming the ultimate differentiator.
Even as digital platforms and AI reshape how information travels, the presenters emphasized that nothing replicates a genuine conversation between two people in a room.
- Technology can distribute information at scale, but it cannot replicate spontaneous dialogue or the real-time assessment of expertise live events provide.
- Legacy practices such as outdated press releases and rote event formats should be continuously questioned rather than repeated out of habit.
- Organizations that prioritize authenticity and human-centered design are best positioned to build trust that digital content cannot deliver.
TAKEAWAY: In a world flooded with AI-generated content, the room you’re standing in may be your organization’s single greatest competitive advantage.
Don’t Miss Out on this Year’s Predictions!
Sessions like Nicholas Johnston and Dr. Sam Potolicchio’s are exactly why CEIR Predict is the gathering executive leaders can’t afford to miss. Get the media intelligence and peer conversations that help you cut through the noise and build lasting trust, because at CEIR Predict, the industry’s leading voices don’t just describe how power and storylines are shifting, they show you how to lead through it.
