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Issue 11 · 30 October 2026

The new policy messengers have followers, not mandates

On 19 October, Albertans voted on whether their province should remain in Canada or begin the process towards a binding vote on separation. Online, the result looked almost settled. A study by McGill's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy found that 114 influencer accounts had captured roughly half of all engagement on the referendum since January 2025, and that pro-independence voices took around 80% of the engagement on relevant posts. Then the votes were counted, and Albertans chose to remain by roughly three to one. So do creators matter or not?

01 Editorial Content

By Jacopo Garone, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Voice Strategic Consulting

THE NEW POLICY MESSENGERS HAVE FOLLOWERS, NOT MANDATES.

On 19 October, Albertans voted on whether their province should remain in Canada or begin the process towards a binding vote on separation. Online, the result looked almost settled. A study by McGill's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy found that 114 influencer accounts had captured roughly half of all engagement on the referendum since January 2025, and that pro-independence voices took around 80% of the engagement on relevant posts. Then the votes were counted, and Albertans chose to remain by roughly three to one. So do creators matter or not?

The comfortable answer is that they do not: online noise is not public opinion, and the ballot box proved it. I think that reading is half right, and the half it misses is the one that matters for anyone whose work depends on how their issue is understood.

A debate run without a mandate

Look first at who was speaking. On X, the influencers were 0.5% of the accounts in the debate and generated 61% of the engagement. No elected party campaigned on the leave side. Posts about secession earned these influencers about 3.8 times the engagement of their usual content, which explains why so many of them kept posting about it. And the researchers found "no evidence of a covert, coordinated or disproportionate campaign by the U.S. or Russia". This was not a foreign operation. It was a domestic attention market, working as designed.

Alberta is an extreme case, but not an isolated one. According to the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026, 27% of respondents across 48 markets came across news from creators or news influencers in the previous week. They find creators easier to understand and more relatable than traditional outlets, and also less trustworthy. More and more public debates, including the ones that end in regulation, now have messengers that nobody elected, nobody appointed and, quite often, nobody can say who pays.

What they win even when they lose

The creators lost the vote. They did not lose everything, and three things they won will outlast the referendum.

The first is the agenda. For more than a year they decided what the conversation was about, and with no elected party on their side, there was no one with a mandate to answer for it.

The second is the record. Images flagged as AI-generated in pro-independence posts on X rose from 4.4% to 15.5% between January 2025 and August 2026, figures the researchers treat as upper bounds. When they asked Google's AI Overview and ChatGPT the same questions six times each, on whether taxes, pensions and oil prices would rise or fall, only 28 of 60 combinations gave a consistent answer. AI Overview's top sources were YouTube and Facebook, and when it cited a Facebook group, it repeated that group's claim 44% of the time. What creators publish today is what answer engines serve tomorrow.

The third is trust. In the researchers' survey, only 59% of Albertans were confident that Elections Alberta would run the vote fairly. The referee lost credibility without any player winning.

Opportunity, with conditions

None of this makes creators the enemy. I see them as an opportunity, including for organisations in regulated sectors. They reach people that institutions and press releases no longer reach, and they can explain a biorefinery, a grid tariff or a capital requirement in a way most corporate communication cannot.

But the opportunity comes with conditions, and I see three.

01. The first is disclosure.

The Alberta researchers state that they could not observe paid placement. Neither can the audience. Europe has already seen where this goes: when Meta and Google stopped carrying political advertising in the EU, one researcher tracking the aftermath warned that political influence does not disappear but shifts into less transparent channels, including influencer campaigns with undisclosed payments. If a creator is paid to talk about a policy, a product or a company, that should be declared, every time. It is the principle I argued for last month: a message is worth what the name behind it is worth, and that includes the name that paid for it.

02. The second is alignment with the platforms.

Labels for paid content and for AI-generated material only work if they are applied consistently, and today they are not. When the rules are unclear, platforms tend to withdraw rather than adapt, and the activity does not disappear. It moves somewhere less visible.

03. The third, and the one I believe in most, is culture.

Last month I cited a study in which a single line warning people that an AI may be trying to persuade them halved its effect. Audiences that understand how content is made, and who is behind it, are harder to manipulate by anyone.

What changes if you operate in a regulated sector

Four practical consequences follow.

01. First, map creators as stakeholders, alongside ministers, officials and journalists. Know who shapes the conversation on your issue, who listens to them, and what they earn from it.

02. Second, measure opinion, not noise. In Alberta, around 80% of the engagement went one way and about three quarters of the votes went the other. Reacting to engagement alone is how organisations make the wrong decisions under pressure.

03. Third, build the record. Answer engines and journalists draw on what is published, attributable and consistent. If your organisation is not in that record, someone else will be.

04. Fourth, if you work with creators, say so. The organisations that disclose first will be the ones still believed when the rules catch up.

At Voice, creators now sit on the same stakeholder map as ministers and journalists. The question we ask is the same for all of them: who listens to them, and why.

Who speaks for your issue

Alberta showed that followers are not a mandate. It also showed that you can lose a vote and still shape the agenda, the record and the trust that every future debate depends on.

So here is the question worth asking this month: when the debate on your sector moves online, will the people speaking for it be the ones your stakeholders trust, and will anyone know who they are speaking for?

Sources and further reading

Ross, C., Steel, B., Hobson, D. et al., Alberta's Referendum, Online: Influencers, AI Content, Foreign Interest, and the Attention Economy Ahead of the October 19 Vote, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, 10 September 2026 (mediatechdemocracy.com)

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2026, 16 June 2026 (reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk)

Elections Alberta, 2026 referendum results (elections.ab.ca)

Votta, F., What data reveals about Meta and Google's political ad ban in the EU, Tech Policy Press, 3 November 2025 (techpolicy.press)

Orchinik, R. and Rand, D., A light-touch AI literacy intervention helps protect against AI political persuasion, arXiv preprint 2609.16432, September 2026

02 Legislative Radar

By Thembi

01. ENERGY & FUELS: A METHANE DELAY THAT IS NOT YET LAW

In October, the Commission proposed to postpone certain import-related obligations and methane-intensity reporting under the EU Methane Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1787), citing concerns over energy supply. Parliament then backed longer delays, together with changes to the reporting deadlines for EU oil and gas operators. The changes remain subject to agreement between Parliament and the Council.

Meanwhile, the Commission is consulting on draft templates for emissions reports by EU operators and undertakings. Feedback is due by 6 November, and the Commission plans to adopt the templates by the end of 2026.

Why it matters: a proposed delay is not a delay. Until an amending regulation takes effect, the existing requirements apply, and businesses should keep preparing against them. The consultation is the place to flag unclear requirements and practical reporting difficulties.

Want to flag a reporting issue before 6 November?

GET IN TOUCH

02. AI & DIGITAL REGULATION: CLOUD SOVEREIGNTY LEVELS: PUBLIC PROCUREMENT FIRST, YOUR SECTOR NEXT?

On 17 September, the European Parliament announced the referral of the Cloud and AI Development Act (2026/0138(COD)) to its committees responsible for industry and energy and for the internal market. The proposal introduces four sovereignty assurance levels for cloud services, covering data location, independence from third countries and European control. Public procurement is the central focus: risk assessments would determine the levels required for sensitive public-sector activities.

For private businesses, Article 31 initially provides for voluntary assessments in the relevant sectors covered by the EU's NIS2 cybersecurity directive. Under specified conditions, the Commission could subsequently require assessments and mitigation measures through delegated acts.

Why it matters: energy, transport and other critical-sector businesses should scrutinise the triggers and safeguards for any future obligations. Supplier availability, migration costs and operational continuity are the concrete issues to raise during the legislative negotiations.

Want to know when voluntary could become mandatory for your sector?

EXPLORE THEMBI

03 News and More

Persuasion just became a commodity. Influence did not

In June, researchers from Oxford, the UK AI Security Institute, the LSE and Stanford published a result that our profession has been half-expecting for two years. Across 18,978 conversations with 6,923 people, AI systems were reliably more persuasive than the best human persuaders the researchers could find, from tournament winners and professional canvassers to world championship debaters. In a real-world test, AI was nearly three times as effective as professional fundraisers at raising money for Save the Children. If a machine can win the argument, what exactly are firms like Voice selling?

01 Editorial Content

By Jacopo Garone

PERSUASION JUST BECAME A COMMODITY. INFLUENCE DID NOT

In June, researchers from Oxford, the UK AI Security Institute, the LSE and Stanford published a result that our profession has been half-expecting for two years. Across 18,978 conversations with 6,923 people, AI systems were reliably more persuasive than the best human persuaders the researchers could find, from tournament winners and professional canvassers to world championship debaters. In a real-world test, AI was nearly three times as effective as professional fundraisers at raising money for Save the Children. If a machine can win the argument, what exactly are firms like Voice selling?

The easy answer is relationships. Relationships matter, and always will, but on their own they are an incomplete answer. I think the research says something more precise, and more useful, about where the value in influence is moving.

What the machines are actually good at

The detail that matters is not that AI won; it is how it won. The authors found converging evidence that its advantage came from "rapidly deploying larger quantities of information". When the AI was forced to write human-length messages at human speed, its lead over the best coached debaters fell to zero.

The humans tried to compete on the same ground. After practising against the AI that had beaten them, elite debaters wrote longer messages and used 54% more fact-checkable claims per conversation. Their persuasiveness did not significantly improve. Volume is a contest humans cannot win, and the study shows it.

This fits an earlier and larger result. In December 2025, a team led by the same first author published in Science the findings of nearly 77,000 conversations with 19 language models. The most persuasive systems were those that produced information-dense arguments, packed with claims that can be checked. Read this way, persuasion is less a talent than a throughput problem, and throughput is what machines are for.

The price of volume

Two further findings complicate the picture, and both matter to anyone whose reputation is exposed.

First, the same Science study found a trade-off: the more persuasive a model is, the less accurate its information tends to be. Optimising for conviction erodes the very thing that makes a claim safe to repeat.

Second, in September, Reed Orchinik of Carnegie Mellon and David Rand of Cornell tested a single warning on 3,208 Americans: that language models can be prompted to persuade or manipulate, and may present information selectively. It cut the persuasive effect of AI by roughly half (48%) without denting general trust in the technology. One line of disclosure, and half the effect is gone.

Read together, these results suggest that the argument was never the whole of persuasion. Who is speaking and whether they can be trusted to mean it carry a weight that no volume of information can replace.

The industry has already noticed

The commercial response is already visible. In August, Burson, part of WPP, acquired Limbik, whose platform predicts "the virality and believability of messaging to determine impact before it reaches the market" across more than 60 markets. It will run across the WPP network. Large groups are turning persuasion into infrastructure: tested, scored and deployed at scale.

That is a rational move, and it will work for mass audiences. But it confirms the point. If persuasion can be pre-tested, generated and optimised by software, it will be priced like software. Anyone whose offer is "we build the strongest arguments" now competes with a machine that builds more of them, faster, for less.

The wrong reflex

AI has already transformed advocacy and influence, above all in digital spaces. The real question is how institutions respond, and the early signs worry me.

When the EU tightened its rules on political advertising last autumn, the largest platforms did not adapt. Meta and Google stopped carrying political advertising in the EU altogether, citing legal uncertainty. Bad actors lost a channel. So did every legitimate organisation that wanted to make its case openly, with its name on it. Researchers tracking the aftermath have already seen political influence shift into less transparent channels. A rule written for transparency ended up shrinking the most transparent form of paid advocacy there is.

The Orchinik and Rand study points to a better answer. One line telling people that a machine may be trying to persuade them halved its effect, and left their trust in the technology intact. That is not a case for silencing the messenger. It is a case for educating the audience. Citizens who understand how persuasion works, and who is behind a message, are harder to manipulate by anyone, human or machine. Restricting legitimate professionals does the opposite: it leaves the field to those who never intended to sign their work.

What remains scarce

So what does not become a commodity? I see three things, and none of them is sentimental.

01. Vision: choosing the argument, not just winning it

In these studies the goal was fixed in advance: move this person, on this issue, now. The AI was very good at that. Nobody asked it which argument was worth having, how to frame it, when to raise it, or whether to raise it at all. That is strategic vision, and the creativity that goes with it: seeing the fight before it starts and choosing which one to pick. It also includes knowing what not to say. A system optimised to convince will trade truth for effect unless someone decides it should not.

02. Access: the relationship and the room

The studies measured members of the public, in text, in paid online sessions, and the largest of them is still a preprint awaiting peer review. The authors say so themselves. That is not where the decisions that matter in regulated sectors are made. Those happen in small rooms, with small, informed and sceptical audiences: officials, regulators, investors, journalists who have read the file and know the people making the case. What opens those rooms is a relationship built over years; what keeps them open is competence. In those rooms, information is the least scarce thing on the table.

03. Attribution: a name that answers

A message is worth what the name behind it is worth. When people know a machine may be arguing a brief, they discount it by half. A named person or organisation that will answer for a claim, next month and next year, is the one thing an AI cannot supply on anyone's behalf.

Persuasion is winning an argument. Influence is being the party whose word still counts after the argument is over. The first has just become a commodity. The second has not.

What changes if you operate in a regulated sector

Three practical consequences follow.

First, separate the two. Much of what organisations call communication is argument production: briefings, Q&As, position papers, social copy. Much of it can and will be automated. The part that cannot is the mandate: who decides the strategy, who signs, who speaks, who answers. That is where the investment should go.

Second, treat accuracy as capital, not compliance. If the most persuasive systems are the least accurate, the organisations that keep their claims checkable will be the ones still believed when a claim is challenged, whether by a journalist, a regulator or an activist.

Third, disclose before you are asked. Audiences discount what they suspect is machine-made. Saying clearly where AI is used, and where it is not, turns a vulnerability into a signal of confidence.

At Voice, we use AI every day to read more, and faster, than any team could. We do not let it decide what a client should say, or to whom. That is where our work begins.

On whose behalf

The authors close their paper by noting that the question is no longer whether AI can out-persuade humans, but how, where and on whose behalf this capability will be exercised. For those of us who advise organisations on how to be heard, that last clause is the job.

So here is the question worth asking this month: if a machine can make your case better than you can, will anyone still believe it is yours?

Sources and further reading

Hackenburg, K. et al., AI systems out-persuade expert humans, arXiv preprint 2606.16475, June 2026

Hackenburg, K. et al., The levers of political persuasion with conversational artificial intelligence, Science, December 2025

Orchinik, R. and Rand, D., A light-touch AI literacy intervention helps protect against AI political persuasion, arXiv preprint 2609.16432, September 2026

Votta, F., What data reveals about Meta and Google's political ad ban in the EU, Tech Policy Press, 3 November 2025

Burson, Burson acquires cognitive AI company Limbik, 12 August 2026

02 Legislative Radar

By Thembi

01. ENERGY & FUELS: WHAT COUNTS AS EUROPEAN?

On 11 September, the European Parliament's committees responsible for international trade, industry and energy, and the internal market published a draft report on the Industrial Accelerator Act (2026/0068(COD)), a fresh step in work on the file. Parliament's position remains under development.

The Commission's proposal would use public procurement and support schemes to strengthen demand for European and low-carbon industrial products, including clean technologies. Requirements vary by sector, with specific low-carbon criteria proposed for steel.

Why it matters: for energy and industrial businesses, the practical stakes are procurement eligibility, sourcing flexibility and investment decisions. Origin requirements could support European manufacturing while creating difficulties for projects that depend on international suppliers. Engagement should therefore focus on product coverage, workable origin definitions and compliance evidence. Concrete examples of supply constraints and cost implications can help shape these provisions while negotiations remain open.

Want to know how origin rules could affect your procurement eligibility?

GET IN TOUCH

02. AI & DIGITAL REGULATION: CLOUD SOVEREIGNTY: PROCUREMENT FIRST, PRIVATE OBLIGATIONS LATER?

On 17 September, the European Parliament announced the referral of the Cloud and AI Development Act (2026/0138(COD)) to its committees responsible for industry and energy and for the internal market. The proposal introduces four sovereignty assurance levels for cloud services, covering data location, independence from third countries and European control. Public procurement is the central focus: risk assessments would determine the levels required for sensitive public-sector activities.

For private businesses, Article 31 initially provides for voluntary assessments in the relevant sectors covered by the EU's NIS2 cybersecurity directive. Under specified conditions, the Commission could subsequently require assessments and mitigation measures through delegated acts.

Why it matters: energy, transport and other critical-sector businesses should scrutinise the triggers and safeguards for any future obligations. Supplier availability, migration costs and operational continuity are the concrete issues to raise during the legislative negotiations.

Want to know when voluntary could become mandatory for your sector?

EXPLORE THEMBI

03 News and More

Does Europe deregulate by conviction, or by competitive pressure?

On 17 July, the European Commission unveiled its long-awaited banking reform package - a sweeping attempt to free roughly €225 billion in capital and €250 billion in liquidity currently trapped inside national ring-fencing rules. The bonus cap that has limited banker pay to twice base salary since 2014 is back on the table. The 2015 deposit insurance scheme, stalled for over a decade, has been quietly shelved in favour of a new framework. On paper, this reads like housekeeping. It isn't.

Editorial

The Commission has been explicit about the trigger: US deregulation under the current administration is reshaping the competitive playing field, and European banks - still operating under compliance requirements calibrated at subsidiary level, market by market - are absorbing a structural cost their American counterparts no longer carry. Brussels' answer is to shift capital and liquidity requirements to the parent entity level, dismantling two decades of ring-fencing logic built after 2008 precisely to contain cross-border risk.

This is where the real story sits, and it is not really about banking. It is about how Europe decides when to loosen its own rules. Three elements are worth watching, whatever sector you operate in:

Sequencing. The Commission must deliver concrete legislative proposals by end of March 2027 - meaning the political fight over what "simplification" actually means happens over the next eight months, not in the abstract. Anyone with a stake in the outcome has a narrow, defined window to shape it, not an open-ended one.

Precedent. A framework built to contain systemic risk after a crisis is now being partially unwound in the name of competitiveness. The justification - "we must match what others allow" - is a template that other regulated sectors should expect to see again, and soon.

Optics versus substance. The EBA has simultaneously opened four consultations to strengthen depositor protection under the revised Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive. Loosening capital rules while tightening depositor protection is not a contradiction - it is how the Commission intends to sell deregulation as still being about safety. Whether that framing holds through Parliament and Council negotiations is the thing to track.

For any organisation operating in a highly regulated, reputation-sensitive sector, the lesson isn't about banks. It's that Brussels has just demonstrated, in public, the conditions under which it is willing to reopen rules it once called non-negotiable. Knowing what those conditions are - competitive pressure, a defined political window, a safety-adjacent counter-narrative - is worth more than knowing the detail of this specific package.

This is also our last issue before the summer break. We'll be back in September - and this file, along with the ETS Phase 5 negotiations, will be near the top of what we're watching when the institutional calendar restarts. Enjoy the pause. Brussels won't be idle for long.

Jacopo Garone is Co-Founder of Voice Strategic Consulting.

Legislative Radar with Thembi

Industrial accelerator act: The real fight isn't about industry, it's about foreign capital

Council talks on the Industrial Accelerator Act (2026/0068/COD) turned political in late July. Technical work on "Made in EU" and low-carbon requirements for strategic sectors has moved forward — but Member States still haven't reached a General Approach.

The blocker: Foreign Direct Investment conditionalities. How far should the EU go in using industrial policy to shape who gets to invest? That question, not the technical detail, is now driving the timeline.

Why it matters: the proposal links public procurement and public support schemes to EU-origin and low-carbon criteria — effectively building lead markets for decarbonised industrial products. For energy, fuels and strategic manufacturing players, this will shape market access and public contract eligibility for years, not months.

Digital networks act: From copper to a single EU passport

The Digital Networks Act moved into a decisive phase in late July, with fresh Council discussions and continued Parliament scrutiny. The goal: a genuine Digital Single Market for telecoms, via an EU "Single Passport", and a managed transition from copper to fibre.

The debate has shifted from ambition to detail: spectrum coordination, cross-border authorisations, and the terms of the copper switch-off.

Why it matters beyond telecoms: this sets the resilience and security baseline for Europe's digital infrastructure for years to come — relevant to any reputation-sensitive sector that depends on it, not just operators.

In case you missed it

Understanding Europe's next generation, one dataset at a time

We supported eGroup Italy, MondoIULM and IULM Alumni in launching the University Network Observatory — a research initiative built with Ipsos on a sample of over 600 students across 35 Italian universities, mapping purchasing behaviour, money management and leisure habits within the university-age audience. It's the kind of structured dataset that's been missing from the Italian market at this scale — a reminder that understanding any stakeholder group starts with data, not assumptions. Results will be presented on 17 September at Università IULM in Milan, across three thematic panels moderated by Francesco Oggiano. We'll be there — join us if you're curious what a generation actually spends its time and money on.

Eighty years representing Lombardy's industrial backbone

Our client A.P.I. — Associazione Piccole e Medie Industrie — marked its 80th anniversary this month, and we helped shape the visibility around it. Founded in Milan in 1946, the association now represents almost 2,000 SMEs across five districts between Milan and Bergamo, generating €9.5 billion in combined turnover. Lombardy alone hosts nearly a quarter of Italy's SMEs — the engine behind 61% of the country's revenue. The campaign caught the attention of Lombardy's President Attilio Fontana, who reshared it on his personal Instagram profile. A good example of sector-specific advocacy travelling well beyond its immediate audience.

Where the Energy transition actually begins: The farm

Our client Adamant Group has launched Adamant Agro, a new business unit dedicated to sourcing and certifying low-carbon-intensity agricultural feedstock for bioenergy, renewable fuels and SAF. Headquartered in Buenos Aires, the unit will connect agricultural producers with the global energy industry and advise on the shift toward regenerative, low-emission farming. "Agriculture is where the energy transition begins," said Founder and CEO Riccardo Marchetti. "We are building the missing link between the farm and the fuel." Worth watching as the SAF feedstock conversation increasingly starts upstream, not at the refinery gate.

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Issue 08 · 19 June 2026

From noise to influence: Building a strategic impact

There is one figure that should give anyone working in communications pause: only 39% of Italians say they are genuinely interested in the news they consume every day. Ten years ago, that figure stood at 74%. This is not about a lack of attention; it is about a structural collapse in perceived relevance.