Genie for Public Affairs

Why Public Affairs needs a new operating system

Public Affairs is no longer just about influencing policy-making. The function now operates as the organisation’s lens on its external landscape. The mission: Maintain continuous awareness of external developments, understand the stakeholders shaping them, and proactively manage the risks and opportunities that follow.

The problem: Public Affairs too often operates in a late-stage response mode.

Public Affairs teams are often pulled into issues only after positions harden and scrutiny intensifies, when room to shape outcomes is limited and the cost of action is highest.

In practice, this shows up as:

Issues becoming visible only after pressure consolidates
Engagement beginning after policy direction is already shaped
External dynamics moving faster than internal response cycles

The issue lifecycle: Influence declines as cost rises

External issues follow a consistent pattern.

Early in an issue’s lifecycle, influence is high and the cost of action is relatively low.As issues gain visibility and momentum, urgency increases, positions solidify, and the cost of response rises, while the ability to influence outcomes declines.

To operate earlier in the issue lifecycle, Public Affairs need a new operating system.

Learn more about issue model here.

Genie is the public affairs’ operating system that links

Issues ↔ stakeholders ↔ relationships ↔ engagement strategy in a single, continuously updated system. This allows Public Affairs to become more proactive, more informed and at the same time, allows them to embrace a system that takes cares of the previous fragmentation of information, tools and workflows, which allows for cross functional/ geographical teams to be more coordinated and aligned when dealing with the external environment.

This allows teams to:

Maintain a common understanding of priority issues
Identify who shapes each issue as it evolves
Coordinate engagement across teams and regions
Translate external complexity into clear, defensible decisions

That is the shift from late-stage response to strategic influence.

Core Capabilities for Public Affairs

1. Issue & policy intelligence

Public Affairs teams operate in fast-moving policy and regulatory environments where timing determines influence.

Effective teams maintain continuous awareness of policy developments, political signals, and narrative shifts across their priority themes and regions.

With Genie, you can:

Monitor the most relevant issue signals with a context-aware system
Identify negative sentiment spikes across geographies
Ensure everyone is working from the same view of what matters - across functions and regions

Explore issue intelligence here.

2. Stakeholder & influence intelligence

Know the real influencers and actors behind each issue. Influence in Public Affairs rarely follows organisational charts.

Each issue has its own ecosystem of policymakers, advisors, industry bodies, NGOs, experts, and intermediaries who shape outcomes behind the scenes.

With Geine, you can:

Discover and prioritise stakeholders dynamically, by issue
Identify hidden influencers and intermediaries
Automatically map stakeholders' ecosystem
Track targeted stakeholder sentiment

Explore stakeholder intelligence here.

3. Engagement & relationship intelligence

Move from stakeholder lists to engagement strategy.

Public Affairs effectiveness depends not only on who you engage, but how, when, and in what sequence.High-performing teams treat stakeholder engagement as a strategic discipline.

With Genie, you can:

Uncover relationships, affiliations, and influence pathways
Generate engagement insights and recommendations based on context and latest media signals
Build institutional memory; track interactions, and planning across teams

Explore stakeholder engagement here.

4. Decision-grade reporting & executive insight

Turn complexity into clarity with an AI-augmented workflow.

Public Affairs teams are routinely asked to brief leadership on complex, fast-moving external developments.

It’s pertinent to synthesise information into clear implications and recommended actions.

With Genie, you can automatically generate synthesised insights based on your business objective, stakeholders' engagement history, and media insights - thereby eliminating 70% of the workload.

Explore insight here.

Use Cases

Using Genie in different scenarios

Scenario 1 - Preparing leadership for an emerging policy risk

Context: A policy development is gaining traction externally, and leadership needs to decide whether it poses a material risk and whether early action is required.

What Public Affairs does:

Assess how the issue is evolving and whether momentum is accelerating
Use real-time issue tracking and trend analytics to detect changes in issues' visibility, sentiment, across sources, so you don’t miss early escalation patterns.
Identify the policymakers, advisors, and external actors shaping direction
Automatically discover the relevant decision-makers, committee leads, advisors, and relevant intermediaries using Genie’s stakeholder network graphs.
Snapshot influence and sentiment
Understand who are supportive, neutral, or opposing and who’s most vocal.
Build a concise briefing
AskGenie will help to draft a recommended action brief with clear implications and options for leadership.

Output:

Produce a defensible, executive-ready briefing in hours instead of days.

Scenario 2 - Launch an engagement campaign for a priority issue

Context: You need to activate coalitions and influence networks around an upcoming vote.

Steps you might take:

Discover influencers to engage
Genie will recommend stakeholders to engage for a particular issue/ campaign based on the business context, media signals, and past engagement history.
Uncover influence network connectors
Using automated stakeholder network mapping, automatically identify the key bridge stakeholders and coalition opportunities.
Strategise and plan stakeholder engagements
Leverage AskGenie to generate talking points for engagement with a stakeholder. The information will be based on stakeholder profiles, their connection with media signals, past engagement history and engagement objectives.
Track engagement outcomes
Document and track engagements and monitor engagement KPIs in one centralised platform.
Adjust strategy dynamically
Update the plan based on stakeholder movement and signal shifts.

Output:

Turn an engagement plan from static to dynamic and data-informed.

Scenario 3 - Ongoing stakeholder tracking

Context: You need to report shifts in stakeholder sentiment monthly.

Steps you might take:

Filter stakeholder signals by issue and region
Monitor stakeholders with Genie’s narrative tracker. Easily understand the narrative with comprehensive filters such as geographies, and issues.
Detect spikes in negative sentiment
Monitor negative sentiment spikes of the stakeholders. Automatically generate the context of the spikes to understand the narrative.
Automated alerts
Set automated notifications and newsletters for different stakeholders, relating to the issues that you care about.

Output:

Stay ahead of stakeholder movements and react before issues escalate.

Turn complex policy landscapes into strategic advantage