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Putting AI into Action for PR, Communication, Research & Insights

 (Please note: all session timings in the programme are subject to change due to speaker travel and availability)

APP OPENING ACTS – ON DEMAND SESSIONS

Integrated Stakeholder Intelligence: The Role of AI; Shahar Silbershatz – CEO, Caliber

Building an AI powered Integrated Evaluation Framework; Tim Bailey – Co Founder, Purposeful Relations

AI Measurement Benchmarks; Kelly Cutler – Associate Professor, Northwestern University

08.00 – 09.00 Delegate Registration

09:00 – 09:10 Delegate Welcome

Johna Burke, AMEC CEO & Mary Elizabeth Germaine, Chief Data and Strategy Officer, Ketchum and AMEC North America Chapter Chair

09:10 – 09:30 Context Engineering for AI. The Future of Social & Media Intelligence

Rob Key, CEO, Converseon – Keynote Session

AI is transforming social and media intelligence at astounding speed. Yet enterprise use is hindered by hallucinations, errors and bias. Context engineering – the process of structuring and “contextualizing” social and media data for trusted and accurate consumption will be a central demand for organizations looking to accelerate and elevate this data for trusted and accurate use within LLMs. This session will explain context engineering, key approaches, and show specific examples of how context engineering represents the future of AI within media and social analysis.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Identify current challenges of gen ai use for social and media analysis.
  2. Understand context engineering approaches and examples.
  3. Demonstrate how context engineering transforms AI into trusted and accurate “research grade” output.

09:30 – 09:50 What AI means for trust, reputation and PR research

Jennifer Sanchis, Insights & Consulting Director, CARMA West – Keynote Session

The rise of AI presents new reputational opportunities and risks for businesses and will inevitably reshape the role of PR researchers and measurement experts. In her session, PR measurement and evaluation expert Jennifer Sanchis will unveil findings from an exclusive study combining media and audience research to explore global perceptions of AI and reveal how and why people around the world trust or distrust it. She will also explain why human consultancy, not AI will ultimately safeguard PR research as a discipline, and share practical guidance on how to build what she calls your AI moat a strategy to future-proof your career in a world driven by AI innovation.

Key Takeaways:

1. Understand how reputational opportunities and risks around AI trust and risk signals are shaping media and public perception
2. Build your AI moat by investing in skills AI cant replicate such as critical thinking, context, ethics and strategic judgement.

09:50 – 10:10 – Turning AI reputation research into a practical GEO playbook

Anna Salter, SVP Data & Insights, Onclusive & Darryl Sparey, Co-Founder, Hard Numbers – Keynote Session

Building on “Reputation in the Age of AI” and “Category Recommendations in the Age of AI” Hard Numbers and Onclusive now offer a practical approach to improving your brand’s AI visibility. Together, they have analysed a wider range of Large Language Models (LLMs) beyond ChatGPT, with a particular focus on financial services and fintech brands. By harnessing Onclusive’s media monitoring capabilities, they provide rigorous analysis of earned media’s impact on AI-generated answers then show how one brand applied those insights to improve its AI visibility. Attendees will leave with a practical GEO framework they can use immediately to strengthen their own brand’s presence in AI search.

Key Takeaways:

1. The key findings from two major research studies into earned media’s influence on AI-generated answers with a focus on financial services and fintech brands
2. A practical GEO framework: the on-site and off-site actions that improve how your brand appears in AI search
3. Lessons from a real-world case study: how one fintech brand engineered citations to improve its AI visibility
4. How to build a prompt library that reflects how your customers actually use AI platforms to research products and services

10:10 – 10:25 – When Measurement Falls Short: Why AI-Enabled Change is no longer optional

Stefanie Francis, Founder, Hootology – Keynote Session

10:25 – 10:50 – Beyond Visibility: The New Answer Engine Era

Devon Bottomley, Head of Research & Analytics, Prosek Partners & Siqi Jiang, Senior Lead, Insights & Analytics, Codeword
Moderator: Amber Daugherty, Value & Impact Consultant, Big Valley Marketing

As search evolves into answer engines and AI increasingly shapes financial, corporate and brand narratives, communication professionals face a new mandate. Visibility alone is no longer success. If an AI model cites you but misstates your pricing, earnings outlook or value proposition, high exposure becomes high risk.
This panel brings together expertise from measurement, media and technology to examine how AI is redefining narrative control, market signaling and credibility. We will explore how to audit AI systems for visibility, citation and accuracy; how to use purposeful prompting to extract structured intelligence from black box models; and how predictive AI signals can strengthen financial messaging, earnings communications and investor trust.
The discussion will move beyond dashboards and vanity metrics to focus on integrity, regulatory nuance, journalist expectations and the shift from outputs to impact signals. The goal is to equip senior communication leaders with a rigorous framework to protect brand accuracy, anticipate media momentum and demonstrate value to the C-suite in an AI-mediated environment.

10:50 – 11.20 – NETWORKING BREAK

Delegate refreshments and networking opportunity

11:20 – 11.40 – Orchestrating Integrated Intelligence: How AI Agents Transform Fragmented Communications Data into Real-Time Strategic Insights 

Geoffrey Sidari, Founder & President, Airadis – Keynote Session

Communications, PR, and marketing teams navigate an average of 5-7 analytics platforms from 3rd party media monitoring and research tools to 1st party enterprise solutions yet 68% of enterprise data remains unanalyzed due to fragmented silos. This session demonstrates a production-grade architecture using Model Context Protocol (MCP) and multi-agent orchestration to transform disconnected platforms into a unified “Integrated Communications Intelligence” Through real-world implementation patterns and live demonstrations, attendees will learn how agentic AI orchestration connects external signals (media monitoring, social listening, audience insight, mis/dis, trends, research) with internal behaviors (CRM, customer data) to deliver campaign intelligence, competitive analysis, and customer enrichment in minutes instead of days while reducing agency analytical services spend by 30-50% and eliminating 70-80% of manual data wrangling workflows.

Key Takeaways:

1. Unified Intelligence = 10-50x Faster Decisions You already have 70% of the data you need; MCP orchestration connects it. Campaign briefs go from days to minutes.
2. Real-Time Activation = Competitive Advantage Stop reacting days later. Detect competitor moves, crises, and audience shifts in real-time and activate response within minutes.
3. Analytics Team Transforms from Reporting Analysts to Strategic Insights Partners Eliminate 70-80% of manual data work so your team focuses on insights, strategy, and business impact.
4. Transparent AI = Trust & Adoption When leadership can see why the AI recommended something and measure the business outcome, they trust it and scale it.
5. Scale Intelligence Without Scaling Headcount Your 5-person team can now serve 500 stakeholders. Handle 10x campaign volume during peak season without hiring 10x staff.
Each takeaway focuses on concrete business value rather than technical implementation, which is perfect for a general AMEC audience (CMOs, CCOs, comms leaders, agency heads) who care about ROI, speed, and competitive positioning.

11:40 – 11.55 – Surfacing the AI Narrative: GEO as a Measurable KPI in Media Intelligence

Natan Edelsburg, Chief Partnerships Officer, Muck Rack – Ted Talk

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming the rise of generative AI from a monitoring problem into a repeatable measurement and consulting input. Using headline findings from our What Is AI Reading? December 2025 research to set the scene, Natan Edelsburg, Chief Partnerships Officer at Muck Rack, will discuss how to discover which sources, outlets and journalists are actually shaping LLM answers, how brand visibility and tone evolve across models, and which coverage and content drives AI citations. He will then walk through a practical playbook for embedding those signals into regular insight reports and client consultancy using Generative Pulse: new dashboards and visual KPIs, attribution approaches that link PR activity to AI-driven outcomes and how to use AI visibility as a strategic input for targeting, messaging and campaign timing.

Key Takeaways:

1. Make AI visibility a KPI: add board-ready metrics (Visibility or Share of Voice score across LLMs) to your monthly report so AI outcomes are tracked side-by-side with traditional and social media mentions.
2. Prioritize outreach for AI impact: use GEO data to identify the most influential journalists and outlets shaping LLM answers and build a targeted media list aimed specifically at shaping AI narratives.
3. Translate AI signals into actionable recommendations: convert visibility and attribution data into concrete actions – adjust content formats, repurpose earned coverage into FAQs for AI discovery or shift pitching cadence. Measure proactively to prove impact with before/after snapshots in insight reports.

11:55 – 12.15 – The Manipulated Media

Jonathan Sperber, Chief Operating Officer, Gudea – Keynote Session

Using our work in the rolling stones tracking a manipulated attack on Taylor Swift, bringing in targets on companies and corporates as well. The importance of understanding measurements.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Track everything, not just one social media. The who/why is just as important as the what. Measurement is only as valuable as the legitimacy.

12:15 – 12.30 – Synthetic Audiences in Action

Kaitlin Hileman, VP Data Innovation, Ketchum

We will walk through a number of different synthetic audiences weve deployed for clients including a live demo.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Better understanding of the dos and donts. And seeing synthetic audiences in action.

12:30 – 13.00 – From Signals to Strategy: Turning Fragmented Intelligence into Strategic Advantage

Kate LaVail, Segment General Manager for PR, Communications, Media, and Government & Nicola Johns, Principal Product Manager, Lexis Nexis – Keynote Session

Communications teams are expected to anticipate risk and guide leadership through volatility, yet most are still operating reactively. In this forward-looking session, LexisNexis leaders will use real-world examples around regulatory risk, executive reputation, and influencer vetting to show how AI enables communications professionals to detect early institutional signals before they become crises. Attendees will gain a practical framework for moving from fragmented monitoring and dashboards to true decision intelligence, learning how to aggregate diverse data, identify meaningful patterns, classify signal strength, and translate insight into proactive strategic action.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Understand why major reputational crises are rarely sudden and how early institutional signals often surface well before headlines or social amplification.
  2. Learn how AI detects risk by identifying subtle language shifts, stakeholder alignment, analyst questioning patterns, and cross-market replication.
  3. Adopt a practical Signals-to-Strategy framework that moves from aggregating diverse intelligence to classifying signal strength and translating insights into clear decision pathways.
  4. Move beyond monitoring to decision intelligence, shifting from reporting on what was said to advising leadership on what to do next.
  5. Operationalize anticipation inside your organization through cross-functional alignment, predefined escalation triggers, and stronger AI fluency within communications teams.

13:00 – 14.00 – Networking Lunch

Delegate lunch and networking

14:00 – 14.30 – Marketing to Machines: From Tracking Visibility to Driving It

Jonny Bentwood, Global President Data & Analytics, GOLIN & Louis DeCosmo, Sr Director, Corporate Brand Reputation Strategy and Insights, PepsiCo

PepsiCo needed to ensure their brands were not losing the GenAI visibility battle to competitors, with up to 90% of their AI citations coming from earned media. This insight drove a complete strategic pivot – making GenAI visibility a CCO-tracked KPI and implementing targeted optimisation tactics across owned, earned and social channels that delivered measurable improvements in AI response quality.

Key Takeaways:

1. How to sell the importance of measuring Gen AI visibility to your colleagues
2. Getting away from the hype, what are the key measurement KPIs that you should adopt
3. A how-to guide to understanding your GenAI visibility
4. Ten tips that everyone can adopt now to improve their position

14:30 – 14.50 –  Case Study – How to Monitor and Manage Your Brand’s AI Visibility

Dino Delic, Strategic Customer Advisor and Head of the Data Driven Communication Lab, Meltwater

62% of consumers now use AI assistants for brand discovery yet most communications teams have no idea what ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity say about them. This session presents original research on how comms professionals are (or aren’t) monitoring LLM visibility, combined with findings from 250+ brands using Meltwater’s GenAI Lens. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for adding LLMs as a 5th channel in their measurement stack.

Key Takeaways:

1. Add LLMs to your monitoring stack today. Run 5-10 prompts your target audience would ask (e.g., “What’s the best [category] for [use case]?”) across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. Document where you appear and where you don’t.
2. Track the sources, not just the responses. LLMs cite specific publications and content. Identify which sources are shaping your brand narrative and add them to your media outreach strategy.
3. Shift from brand-focused to product-focused content. Research shows product-led, fact-based content ranks in top 20 LLM citations while brand mentions rank around #100. Adjust your content mix accordingly.
4. Establish a weekly LLM visibility check. Build a simple protocol: same prompts, same models, same cadence. Track changes over time just like you would media coverage or social mentions.
5. Brief your team on the 5-channel reality. Audiences now discover brands across News, Social, Search, LLMs, and Surveys. Update your measurement framework to reflect all five.

14:50 – 15.15 – Authority Intelligence: A New Category for Understanding How AI Interprets You

Erin Lanuti, Co-Founder, CEO, Lilypath – Ted Talk

15:15 – 15.35 – Networking Break

Delegate refreshments and networking

15:35 – 15.50 – Text Captures Words when Speech Carries Intent

Erik Bjorkman, CRO, All Ears AI – Ted Talk

All Ears will briefly present three customer use cases how audio data from Tiktok, Podcasts and Youtube has meant a difference to the insight work at customer’s side.

Understanding what our clients want to see in:
1. Influencer discovery (Swanson health case)
2. Handle Community management – how to reach and engage fans outside your “registered” community (Swanson health case)
3. The impact of audio-data from podcasts in decision-making (Brunswick case)
4. Tracking political sentiment in Tiktok on aggregated scale (411 agency case)

15:50 – 16.05 

Maria Pashi, Principal Solution Architect, SimilarWeb

16:05 – 16.40 – Evolving Workforce in the Face of AI

Rob Bernstein, Chief Innovation Officer & Mary Elizabeth Germaine Chief and Data Strategy Officer, Omnicom – Ending Keynote

Overview of how AI is changing the needs of the workforce across types of companies touching the communication industry. What are the new skill sets companies need to consider to remain competitive in todays environment.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Attendees will have a better understanding of types of trainings, hires, etc they need to make to remain competitive. Includes how to best upskill current talent and what new talent to be on the hunt for.

16:40 – 17.00 – Closing Remarks

Johna Burke, CEO AMEC