AI Misuse Tops Corporate Reputation Risk Ranking
The Balance Sheet
Hidden in a Phone A phone lies face-down on a desk, and the screen lights up anyway. The sentence costs almost nothing to produce, and that is precisely what makes it interesting. Every promise kept is a deposit, every careless answer a withdrawal, and the balance is what customers, investors and employees all read at the same time. In October 2026, the people who spend their working lives defending that balance were asked what they fear most.
The new edition of the quarterly ranking of the biggest threats to a company’s good name was released on Tuesday. It places the misuse of artificial intelligence at the top of the list of threats to corporate reputation. That single risk outranks accusations of putting children in the way of mental, emotional or physical harm. It also outranks the reputational damage exposed by the US-Israel war on Iran. The ranking rests on a survey of more than 150 public affairs leaders. Those leaders were asked to weigh the risks against one another, and the misuse of AI came first.
The index is published by the Global Risk Advisory Council, which was created by the Global Situation Room, a public affairs firm based in Washington DC. Its respondents are drawn from the ranks of former heads of state, former government ministers and senior executives. They come from more than 20 countries on five continents. All were invited to take part after establishing their credentials in responding to crises.
An Old Worry With a New Warning
The council acknowledged that misuse of AI is not a particularly new concern in its area of focus. Misuse of the technology has been identified repeatedly as a top concern since the index’s first edition in April 2025. What is new is the advisory attached to the latest survey. It urges business leaders to “take immediate and decisive action to mitigate potential long-term brand damage.” [1] The stated reason: the technology has “become a clear and present danger to public confidence for many corporations.” Earlier editions reported the worry; this one attaches an instruction to it.
Isabel Casillas Guzman chairs the Global Risk Advisory Council. She said in a statement:.” [1] Then comes the commercial consequence: “In this environment, AI use or overuse can quickly damage a company’s standing with customers, investors, or other key stakeholders, making it essential for companies to deploy preventive tactics now.” [1] The findings came on the heels of more dire warnings from leading tech figures. Their argument is that AI in the wrong hands could precipitate existential threats on a mass scale. The scenarios named include nuclear war and destruction by bioweaponry. The survey measures something narrower and more immediate: what a company loses when the public stops believing it.
Behind misused AI, the index ranks actions or accusations of putting children at risk of mental, emotional or physical harm. Respondents collectively perceived the technology to have shown great promise in creating organizational efficiency. They credited it with great promise for “organizational efficiency.” They also described it as “accelerating safety and data concerns, hacks, fraud, straining privacy protections, upending the workforce, and dragging companies into court as lawsuits increasingly link AI products to real-world harm.”
Faded Shocks and a New AI Czar
By the latest survey, those anxieties had eased as the conflict dragged out, even as it remained unresolved since it was launched in February.
Guzman put out her message two days after the Trump administration named a new AI czar: director of national intelligence Jay Clayton, who the president said would oversee an entity coordinating the federal government’s engagement with consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers and AI tech companies.
The creators of the index name the preventive tactics they have in mind: removing or reducing the use of AI content and relying on humans for customer service.