Oxford-GlobeScan survey: Corporate Affairs faces geopolitical, AI and governance pressures in 2026

The 2026 Oxford-GlobeScan Global Corporate Affairs Survey has found that geopolitical risk remains the leading short-term concern for Corporate Affairs practitioners, while AI and technology risks have risen sharply.

The seventh annual report captures the views of 294 senior Corporate Affairs professionals across 51 countries surveyed between February and March 2026. The survey covers issues and themes relevant to the Corporate Affairs function, including business risk, opportunity, ESG, corporate purpose, reputation, measurement and the future of the function.

Key findings from the 2026 Corporate Affairs survey

Geopolitical risk remains the top short-term risk

Geopolitical risk was cited by 76 per cent of respondents as the most significant short-term risk for global businesses over the next two years. The report says geopolitics has remained at the top of the list of perceived short-term risks for the past seven years. In 2026, it continued to dominate across every region.

The report also says the definition of this risk has evolved. What was previously a broad category is now being driven by more specific factors, including supply chain disruption, affordability, economic uncertainty, protectionism through tariffs and energy costs.

The report describes this as a return to geoeconomics, where political aims are pursued through economic means.

AI and technology ranked second among short-term risks, cited by 44 per cent of respondents. This was up from 17 per cent in 2025.

Macroeconomic risks ranked third at 34 per cent, followed by climate change at 19 per cent. Data privacy and cyber risk, and the rise of populism / social divide, were each cited by 15 per cent of respondents.

AI is both a risk and an opportunity

Innovation, digitalisation and AI were cited by 71 per cent of respondents as the greatest short-term opportunity for global companies. The report says this strong focus mirrors the sharp rise in perceived technology risk, suggesting that Corporate Affairs practitioners see the same forces as both disruptive and opportunity-generating.

Stakeholder engagement and building trust ranked second among short-term opportunities, cited by 23 per cent of respondents. Sustainable growth / strategies / ESG ranked third at 17 per cent.

The report also notes that upskilling and attracting talent grew by seven points, reaching 10 per cent in 2026. It says this reflects recognition that the benefits of innovation, AI and digitalisation depend on human capability as well as technology.

The report also identifies preparedness for AI-driven misinformation as a weakness.

Only 18 per cent of respondents said their Corporate Affairs function is prepared to manage a deepfake or AI-driven misinformation incident. A further 30 per cent said they were somewhat prepared, while 43 per cent said they were not very prepared.

The report says significant gaps are seen across all regions and sectors. ICT and media entertainment reported the highest preparedness at 35 per cent, while consumer products / retail reported the lowest at eight per cent.

Governance has become the top ESG reputation risk

The report found that climate change mitigation and adaptation remain the top ESG issue for businesses, cited by 40 per cent of respondents. However, this was down from 51 per cent in 2025.

Governance and ethics ranked second at 34 per cent, up from 20 per cent in 2025. Regulation / policy uncertainty ranked third at 16 per cent.

The report says these shifts suggest a recalibration rather than a rejection of ESG concerns. Climate remains important, but governance-related issues linked to compliance, oversight and regulatory exposure are becoming more pressing.

The report says governance is increasingly seen as the primary source of reputational vulnerability, encompassing ethics, accountability, transparency, disclosure, regulatory compliance and the organisation’s ability to demonstrate effective oversight in volatile conditions.

Political advocacy remains part of the Corporate Affairs agenda

The report found that 33 per cent of practitioners said their organisation had increased its level of engagement in political advocacy in the past year.

This was down from 44 per cent in 2025, but the report says increased political advocacy remains most visible in Asia-Pacific at 52 per cent, North America at 39 per cent and Europe at 36 per cent.

According to the report, similar geopolitical, regulatory and societal forces can lead organisations either to increase advocacy or become more cautious. The difference depends on leadership appetite, strategy and capability.

The report says Corporate Affairs plays a central enabling role in both cases, supporting leadership judgement, assessing external risk, shaping engagement strategies and ensuring advocacy activity is coherent, credible and aligned with corporate values and governance frameworks.

Purpose is under pressure, but expectations remain high

The report found that 82 per cent of respondents said their organisation has a stated corporate purpose in place. A further 11 per cent said their organisation is in the process of defining one.

However, only 32 per cent of respondents said discussions with their executive committee about corporate purpose had increased in the past year. This was down from 45 per cent in 2025.

The report says this suggests a cooling of senior-level focus, even as purpose remains formally embedded within organisations.

When respondents were asked about the biggest challenges in delivering purpose and corporate commitments to society, they most frequently cited political context, lack of an integrated plan to embed purpose and organisational complexity.

The report also says more than a third of respondents believe societal expectations for purposeful organisational leadership will be significantly higher in three years’ time.

Corporate Affairs is still seen as creating business value

Almost 80 per cent of respondents said Corporate Affairs has a high impact on creating and protecting business value. The report notes that this has softened over the past two years.

The top three areas where Corporate Affairs is seen to create business value are:

• effective forecasting in terms of risk, crisis management and political risk, cited by 32 percent of respondents;

• protecting and promoting reputation / reputation management, cited by 30 percent;

• building internal alignment behind strategic goals, cited by 21 percent.

Impact measurement remains limited

The report found that just under 49 per cent of Corporate Affairs practitioners formally measure the impact or success of their function.

Among those using metrics, the most common measures were:

• media performance, cited by 75 per cent;

• reputation / trust tracking, cited by 65 per cent;

• stakeholder sentiment / engagement, cited by 65 per cent;

• employee engagement / internal alignment indicators, cited by 60 per cent;

• issues / crisis outcomes, cited by 50 per cent.

The report, however, says Corporate Affairs teams will need to broaden their intelligence scope beyond media monitoring and informal stakeholder conversations to include more structured assessments of reputation and trust.

Key takeaways

The 2026 Oxford-GlobeScan survey shows that corporate affairs is already seen as a high-impact business function, but the report suggests its current model needs to evolve. The priority is to embed corporate affairs more closely in business strategy, strengthen insight-led planning, improve measurement and build the skills needed to respond to geopolitical volatility, AI and reputational risk.