Experts Urge Organisations to Invest in AI Tools, Cultivate Community Trust to Build Brand Visibility

Emma Okonji

Communication experts have stressed the need for organisations in Africa, Nigeria inclusive, to invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and to cultivate trust among communities, through transparent communication, in order to build strong brand visibility.

They were of the view that AI has become a transformative, necessity-driven force in global brand visibility, shifting from a marketing tool to a core strategic component that defines how brands are discovered, perceived, and engaged with.

The experts stated this during a webinar organised by Newmark Group, a leading Pan-African Integrated Marketing Communications firm, which was moderated by Country Lead, Newmark Nigeria, Lovelyn Okafor.

As businesses begin operations in 2026 with new strategies as top priorities for business owners and managers, they said there is need for businesses to effectively communicate in a transparent manner that will build trust in customers and communities, adding that the best way to achieve such influence is to invest in AI tools.  

CEO, Newmark Group, Gilbert Manirakiza, said organisations must invest in AI tools because groundbreaking technology such as AI would require trust at a massive scale for it to be adopted responsibly, since communication itself would affect AI and vice-versa.

“So for me to be able to accept the trade-off that a tool takes over what I’m known for, what I do for a living, is going to require a lot of trust, and a lot of trust building.
If the tech innovators that are developing AI systems do not build the trust needed across the world to have humanity to support AI adoption, in my view, AI will have a serious setback because humanity is going to turn against AI. We are already seeing countries regulating against AI in different ways. So I believe that it’s in the interest of those big companies that are building AI systems to actually work with the communications landscape and professionals to make AI understood, to make it part of the national, international discourse, to ensure that there is consensus about some of the things the world is concerned about. Communication is equipped to lead on this, and I believe it’s very important that communication experts are allowed to assist on this,” Manirakiza said.

Giving further details how AI itself will affect communications, Manirakiza said: “A lot of communication experts are using AI in different ways to do what they do on a day-to-day basis. So I see a couple of positive and negative influences in the use of AI tools. On the negative influence, newer generations of communication professionals might actually find it hard to get junior roles because the research work, and data crowdsourcing that they were hitherto recruited to take up, will be done by basic AI systems. However, that’s also a challenge for universities to adapt, and to retrain young people. On the positive influence, the young ones that have been trained on AI skills can jump from being a junior skilled employee to being someone with executive-level abilities just from learning how to use AI accurately.”

Regional Vice President, Public Relations Global Network (PRGN), EMEA, Marisa Toro, stressed the need for trust and transparency in any organisation that wants to build brand visibility.

“So all of us look forward to brands, look up to leaders to take us towards a good destination, to help us become better at what we do, and to have good information and good products. Such brand must show high level of trust and transparency,” Toro said, adding that authenticity is a key factor for a consistent track record of keeping promises.

Founder, China Advocate, Shawn Jiang Xiaofeng, spoke about how organisations could navigate cultural and regulatory differences in Asia-Pacific in order to build influence and brand visibility effectively.

According to him, to understand the influence in Asia-Pacific, organisations have to realise that it is not about one single Asian market we are talking about because Asia actually is a combination of different countries, hence the need to build community trust among product consumers.

“Look at the traditional Western market, influence is often a very straight line from brand to consumers, but in Asia-Pacific, actually, it’s more complicated and it’s more about a circle of trust,” Xiaofeng said.

According to him, communications is not really about a translation of local languages. It’s actually to translate the brand values to different people’s local festivals, and local social norms.