Brandwatch Strengthens AI Leadership: Faster Insight to Action for PR and Communications Teams
Brandwatch has introduced a new wave of AI-driven features and expanded data coverage built to help communications teams move from signal to strategy with less friction. At the center is Iris AI - an intelligence layer woven through the Brandwatch suite that turns billions of posts, articles, and mentions into clear, defensible insights.
For PR leaders, the pitch is simple: fewer manual steps, richer context, and answers you can put in front of executives without second-guessing the source.
What's new and why it matters
- Ask Iris (Quick AI chat): Ask plain-language questions and get instant answers pulled straight from your data - no query or dashboard required. It auto-creates charts, summaries, and lets you keep the conversation going to probe the "why" behind a spike or sentiment shift.
- AI Query Writer: Generate full Boolean queries from scratch with suggested hashtags, keywords, and even subreddits. Useful for fast-tracking crisis monitoring or net-new market intel.
- AI Dashboards: Get narrative summaries that explain what changed and why it matters. Perfect for quick internal updates or exec-ready readouts.
- Expanded data coverage: Threads, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, search data via Trajaan, plus 70,000+ trending podcasts with transcript analysis. More signal, less blind spots.
- Social media management upgrades: AI influencer summaries, Iris AI content translations, and industry benchmarks to compare your performance with peers.
Built on a broad, trusted data foundation
Brandwatch continues to lean on one of the industry's largest data sets across real-time and historical social plus traditional media. Models are trained on real marketing and comms use cases, so outputs feel relevant, not generic. That means fewer manual reworks and faster approvals.
How PR and comms teams can use this today
- Morning pulse check: Ask Iris for overnight shifts by brand, product, or spokesperson and get a short brief with charts you can paste into Slack or email.
- Crisis prep and response: Spin up a monitoring query in minutes, spot source clusters, and get narrative context for leadership within the hour.
- Campaign readouts: Pull narrative summaries that highlight what resonated, what didn't, and where to double down - without spending half a day in spreadsheets.
- Executive reporting: Turn complex data into simple stories that answer "what happened" and "so what," backed by the original sources.
- Influencer selection: Use summaries to vet creators by audience fit and topic authority before you commit budget.
- Multilingual operations: Translate content and sentiment quickly to keep global teams aligned.
What's coming in 2026
- Expanded APAC data sources to deepen regional coverage.
- Bring Your Own Data integrations to blend brand-owned datasets with social and media signals.
- Smarter video and image analysis for visual trend detection.
- A new mobile app experience for on-the-go monitoring and reporting.
Why this move stands out
AI features are only as good as the data and workflows they sit on. Brandwatch's updates make exploration conversational and context-aware, while keeping transparency and control in the loop. That's critical for teams that need to defend a recommendation, not just generate a chart.
As Jim Daxner, Chief Product Officer at Cision, put it: "Iris AI is becoming a true digital partner for marketers - one that explains, guides, and accelerates how teams work."
Next steps
- See the new features and data coverage on the official site: Brandwatch.com.
- If you're upskilling your team on AI for comms and marketing, explore this practical certification: AI Certification for Marketing Specialists.
About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a social media management and consumer intelligence suite used by half of the Forbes 100. The platform blends AI insights with tools for influencer marketing and social media management so brands and agencies can run data-driven strategies at scale. Brandwatch is part of the Cision family, alongside CisionOne and PR Newswire.
Media contact
Cision Public Relations: CisionPR@cision.com
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