Rich editorial is back!
What does rich, authentic, and AI-search friendly, corporate storytelling look like in 2026?
Caterina Sorenti, Head of Editorial at Bowen Craggs, spoke to Max Karpf, Senior Corporate Affairs Manager at Glencore; Paul Burgess, Head of External Digital Communications at Aviva, and Sam Woods, Photography and Editorial lead at Aviva, about how they plan and produce rich, engaging, and authentic corporate storytelling.
The goal? Create content that prioritises the people at the heart of the company, while also feeding LLMs with key information.
Glencore's "At the core" video series showcases employees
1 Tell your story clearly and transparently – because AI will read it
AI bots are your newest and most influential stakeholder, which means that if you are not telling your own story on your corporate channels, then AI search bots and answer engines will find the information from other sources, which may not be accurate.
As Paul at Aviva said, "the organisations that will prosper in this era are the ones whose content is good enough to be quoted by AI, and not just indexed."
This marks a shift from traditional SEO: corporate reputation can now increasingly be meaningfully shaped by publishing clear, high-quality content across all priority topics.
It also means going big on transparency: because AI crawls everything, companies must address sensitive topics openly and directly. It's no longer possible to hide information on deeper pages, or not have a stance on a key reputational topic, because a machine is surfacing the information one way or another.
Max at Glencore emphasised the importance of having a “mantra of structural transparency built into your comms process” – and that effective editorial starts with acknowledging challenges, owning shortcomings and showing evidence of progress.
"Even if no-one is reading it, something is reading it"
– Sam, Aviva
2 Use authentic human storytelling to build trust
Even as AI provides instant summaries, and many organisations are reporting declining website traffic, corporate websites still matter. Rich editorial turns the corporate site into a destination in its own right, above and beyond what an AI summary can offer. This authentic approach is highly valued by jobseekers, investors, employees, media professionals and other key stakeholder groups.
As Caterina explains, "visitors now seek not just answers but reassurance – a sense of who they’re dealing with". Authentic storytelling builds trust in a way no AI-generated‑ snippet can.
Best practice: Glencore's "At the Core" video series (pictured above) tells the stories of the people at the heart of the company
3 Invest in high-quality, long-form video to feed both humans and LLMs
Long-form, documentary-style video signals depth, expertise and authenticity to large language models.
As Paul said, "Depth, context and expertise all increase the likelihood of that content being surfaced in answers."
As well as feeding LLMs, videos uniquely convey humanity, personality and emotion, as Sam pointed out - "Video is a really good way to tell those stories in a way that you know text alone can't do. It helps you make connections with people, and it’s the best way to tell human stories by getting across the humanity."
There is however a long-held assumption that people won't watch longer corporate videos. Max countered this with a great point: “I didn't want to believe that long-form […] wasn't going to work. I simply think that a lot of corporate video wasn't particularly exciting.”
"I think when you show real places, real conversations and real experts, it builds credibility, and it builds it fast. It's not about polish, but clarity, trust and depth"
– Paul, Aviva
Longer videos can also be repurposed, amplified across LinkedIn and used to showcase your employees.
Best practice: Aviva's long-form stories (pictured above) are a good example of rich editorial
Subscribers can watch a recording of the meeting and find further resources on the Bowen Craggs Hub (Login required)
Bowen Craggs advises companies on all aspects of their corporate digital communications. If you would like to learn more, please reach out to Tom at tgolden@bowencraggs.com