Internal
Communications
Conference
Learn how to inform, inspire and engage across three communications tracks: Internal, Integrated and Interactive.
- Elevate strategy
- Boost leadership
- Build mixternal synergy
- Harness AI
- Drive change
- Manage crises
- Optimize internets & tech
- Retain talent
- Strengthen employer brand
- Measure & maximize ROI
Shifting economic realities, AI disruption, political upheaval and constant uncertainty are rewriting the rules—leaving many communicators feeling like they’re navigating rough seas without a compass. Employees and stakeholders at every level look to you for clarity amid change, leadership transitions and the menace of misinformation. Meanwhile, you’re expected to help unify internal culture and external reputation under one evolving “mixternal” strategy.
The pressure is real—and so is the opportunity to lead.
That’s where our annual conference at Microsoft’s iconic HQ—a global hub of innovation—becomes your lighthouse in the storm where you’ll discover practical solutions for aligning internal and external messaging, integrating AI breakthroughs, orchestrating change and boosting your strategic leadership.
And because the demands on communicators keep growing, our new Integrated Communications track unites PR pros, marketers and internal communicators under one roof—unlocking fresh cross-functional strategies for consistent messaging, brand alignment and measurable results. For the networkers in the room, you'll love our community room, filled with activities like speed networking, birds of a feather meetups and roundtable discussions.
It’s time to stop treading water and chart a bold new course for your team and organization. Reserve your seat—and let this event be your guide to lasting impact, real influence and meaningful integration.
Register Today to Secure your Spot! Don’t miss this opportunity to:
- Connect with your peers.
- Access exclusive content and resources.
- Get the ideas & tools to stay ahead in today’s rapidly changing world.
Everything You Need to Elevate Your Communications Game—All in One Event
YOUR ULTIMATE INTERNAL COMMS LEARNING EXPERIENCE
- Choose your path with 30+ sessions, workshops, keynotes and fireside chats
- Access speaker presentations to revisit ideas and share with your team
- Unlock exclusive bonus content and post-event resources available only to attendees
- Connect with hundreds of internal comms peers to exchange ideas and solutions
- Explore the latest tools and tech from top industry partners
- Discover the Microsoft Visitor Center—immerse yourself in AI, gaming, innovation, and exclusive tech experiences
RECHARGE, RELAX & HAVE FUN
Kick off the conference by mixing and mingling with casual drinks and great company at the hotel bar.
Wrap up the day at our networking reception, where you can enjoy drinks, bites, and easygoing conversation.
Experience exclusive activations and highlights from our event sponsors.
Relax, recharge, and connect with peers in our welcoming networking lounge.
Meet our expert speakers and take the opportunity to dive deeper into the topics that matter to you.
Visit the Microsoft Visitor Center
Soar above the waterfront on the Seattle Great Wheel,perfect for sunset views and cityscapes.
Take in 360-degree views of Seattle’s skyline, from the iconic Space Needle.
Wander through Seattle’s most beloved Pike Place Market for fresh seafood, local crafts and performers.
Experience coffee innovation at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room.
Catch a Seattle Mariners game and experience the city’s passionate sports culture firsthand.
Sip and savor your way through Woodinville Wine Country.
Top reasons to attend
You’ll raise your potential at this event with these keys to INTEGRATED comms success:
I
Ignite “Mixternal” Momentum
N
Nurture Culture & Change
T
Transform AI Integration
E
Elevate Strategic Leadership
G
Grow Crisis Readiness
R
Reinforce Brand Trust
A
Align Channels & Content
T
Track ROI with Data
E
Engage Employees & Stakeholders
D
Develop a Future-Focused Roadmap
AGENDA
This conference is your blueprint for navigating the comms changes and challenges ahead—keeping your workforce engaged and productive, and your external stakeholders aligned and informed.
Poor communication costs U.S. businesses over $1.2 trillion annually (Harris Research) and the stakes are only growing. Hybrid workforces, AI-fueled misinformation and tighter 2026 budgets have widened the gap between what orgs say internally and what lands externally. That disconnect leads to eroded trust, wasted resources and missed impact. This hands-on workshop will give participants a modern, practical approach to creating true “mixternal” content strategy—where internal and external storytelling work as one seamless, strategic engine. Grounded in real-world examples and hands-on exercises, this workshop will focus on building an integrated framework that drives clarity, consistency and credibility across all channels.You’ll learn:
- The “Mixternal” Content Blueprint: How to craft an audience-first narrative that cascades from internal town halls to earned media to digital content.
- Breaking Down Silos: How to align teams around a shared goal and then determine best go-to-market integrated channel strategy and content approach.
- Smart Metrics That Matter: How to build dashboards that track more than vanity metrics, link engagement and influence to enterprise value and allow comms teams to calibrate vs celebrate.
- AI in Action: Examples of how and when to integrate AI tools to help experiment, simplify and streamlined a go-to-market timeline.
- Leadership Buy-In: How to position communications as a strategic investment versus a cost center—plus how to get (and keep) the attention of the C-suite.
+ Breakout Sprint: Collaborate with peers to build a “mixternal” content framework or pressure-test one you already have in place.
Note: This session will briefly reference the PESO model, created by Gini Dietrich and her team.
Communicators are increasingly asked not just to measure activity and their internal communication wins, but to prove real business impact. This hands-on session will guide you beyond surface-level metrics to uncover the full story of how internal communications (as well as external) should drive organizational outcomes. You’ll learn how to approach measurement with rigor, connect insights to business priorities and craft narratives that resonate with executives. Together, we’ll explore best practices, discuss real-world case studies and challenges, and demonstrate how to best leverage AI in measurement and data science. You’ll learn how to:
- Understand best practices for creating the right internal communication framework that focuses on the right KPIs, integrating both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
- Craft compelling data narratives that move beyond Chapter 1 to the entire story to highlight true program and organizational impact—while building credibility with CEOs and leaders.
- Strengthen employee engagement and retention strategies by using measurement to identify gaps, track progress, and demonstrate impact on workforce culture and performance.
- Connect the dots between communication outcomes and business results by defining the right KPIs, avoiding “bad data” pitfalls and taking an insights-driven approach.
- Equip managers with data-driven insights that they can use to better engage their teams and cascade organizational priorities effectively.
- Look ahead to the future of measurement, including how AI, new research practices and emerging trends will reshape how communicators demonstrate their value.
- AI as a Daily Habit: Explore the basic ways AI can supercharge communications work—from faster drafting and summarizing to smart calendaring and content clean-up.
- Hands-On: We'll workshop these methods together to help you optimize your daily comms tasks with AI’s help—so come ready with specifics.
- AI as a New Team Member/Intern: Discover how AI can extend your team’s reach—creating visual content, generating audience insights, adapting content across channels and more.
- Hands-On: We'll practice writing precise, strategic prompts that get the best results—and you'll see why AI still needs a sharp human editor, and how clear direction can turn a basic output into breakthrough work.
- AI as an Agent: Learn how AI agents can manage tasks on your behalf—like drafting communications with your leader's voice, tracking employee sentiment over time, coordinating comms for an upcoming town hall or managing multi-channel campaigns.
- Hands-On: We'll share examples of real-world agents in action and offer guidance on when and how to build your own, always with a human-in-the-loop mindset.
For ServiceNow, the path to heightened communication isn’t just technical — it is deeply human. This fireside chat explores how the Global Employee Communications & Engagement team reimagined the company’s internal channel ecosystem, anchored by a comprehensive redesign of their My ServiceNow portal and seamless integration with “The Network.” Hear how they fostered transparency, connection, and trust through thoughtful design, strategic governance and cross-functional collaboration. The result: reducing the noise while keeping employees and culture at the center (beautifully in line with the company's purpose to make work better for everyone).
Attendees will get insight into how to:
- Lead with empathy while transforming internal comms.
- Break down channel silos and integrate tools into one ecosystem.
- Navigate a major platform migration with urgency and success.
- Use governance and analytics to drive consistency and alignment.
- Collaborate across comms, IT and business partners to elevate the employee experience while achieving organizational goals.
In a world where organizations are constantly evolving, the role of people analytics in driving effective employee comms has never been more critical. Dawn Klinghoffer, Microsoft’s VP of HR Business Insights, will reveal how data on topics like AI, inclusion, and career development can help comms leaders design messages that resonate and programs that deliver. You’ll leave with exclusive, behind-the-scenes insights—and practical ways to integrate HR data into your storytelling, strengthen your internal partnership with HR, and elevate the way internal comms drives clarity, connection and impact. What you’ll learn:
- Feedback That Brings Change: How to centralize and translate employee voice into visible action plans and follow‑up communications that reinforce credibility and trust.
- The Listening Advantage: How real-time employee sentiment is helping leaders shape smarter, more responsive communications.
- Partnership Models That Work: Proven ways to align HR-analytics and communications teams to drive stories that deliver measurable impact across engagement, retention, innovation and beyond.
- Thriving Is the Strategy: Key findings from Microsoft’s employee thriving research and how comms can amplify what matters most to people.
Internal comms can’t settle for “send this out.” To earn a seat beside the CEO, you must think like a strategist, speak the language of P&L and prove impact across the business value chain. This session blends “Exactly What to Say” influence tactics with measurement frameworks that tie messaging to revenue, risk and retention. You’ll discover how to help guide complex initiatives like leadership transitions, turn big ideas into reality and position your team as the connective tissue that integrates people, process and profits—so you’re finally seen as more than a cost center. Key areas you’ll master:
- Reframe the Role: How to swap order-taking for consulting by framing every request as a business problem with measurable upside.
- Map the Value Chain: Steps to identify where comms moves the needle—cost, revenue, risk—and then plug yourself in as a business integrator.
- Speak CFO: Exactly what to say when pitching campaigns in terms of EBITDA, productivity gains and cost-of-delay.
- Metric Makeover: How to build dashboards linking sentiment, speed-to-adoption and turnover drops to hard dollar impact.
- Presence Under Pressure: Influence and executive-presence drills that anchor you as the CEO’s go-to advisor during leadership transitions.
Your intranet was built to be home base—yet most workers treat it like a digital ghost town while execs gripe about data overload. Enter a new wave of AI-powered features and platforms that serve personalized content, curated analytics and everything in between. In this braintrust, comms leaders from healthcare, retail and high-tech reveal how they’re layering personalization, automation and real-time insights onto “good-enough” legacy sites—without ripping and replacing. Walk away ready to turn any dusty hub or EX interface into an always-on experience that anticipates employee needs and hands execs the metrics they crave. What you’ll learn:
- Cross‑Industry Makeovers: Snapshots from different industries showing how other orgs have reinvigorated their EX and even relaunched intranets to boost trust and engagement.
- Hyper-Personalization: Insights into AI-driven segmentation (role, location, interest) plus adaptive nav that surfaces the right content and pushes tailored dashboards to execs.
- Platform Mix-and-Match: How others are blending tools like Workvivo, Simpplr, Unily, Viva Connections, Firstup and more for seamless journeys without a ground-up rebuild.
- Automation Assist: Chatbots, auto‑tagging and smart digests—yep, powered by AI—that cut noise and free up comms bandwidth.
- Metrics and Dashboards: Real-time heat maps, pulse polls and scorecards that turn clicks into continual EX and UX gains.
Discover how internal communications can be a strategic engine for business growth, not just a supporting function. In this talk, Caroline Johns, Director of Corporate Communications at Saatva, shares how she built an internal communications function from the ground up to fuel the company’s rapid expansion. She’ll reveal how her team launched a new intranet to connect a fast-growing, remote-first workforce and leveraged data-driven strategies to boost engagement and adoption. Johns will also highlight her approach to bridging the gap between frontline retail employees and the broader corporate brand, and how these efforts directly advance Saatva’s overall business goals.
C‑suite videos at dawn, HR blasts by lunch, surprise IT alerts at 4 p.m.—sound familiar? When every team treats comms like an on‑demand content firehose, priorities blur, deadlines slip and burnout spikes. In this fast‑paced session, a comms director who runs Scrum stand‑ups will share an agile‑lite approach along with tips your team can adopt—without memorizing the entire Scrum manual or buying new software. Join us to learn:
- Why Agile, Why Now: Three pain points—request chaos, shifting priorities, approval lag—and how a time-boxed mindset can help you beat the endless to-do list.
- From Reactive to Value Driven: How to apply a “highest value for lowest effort” mindset to every ask so you can manage expectations and stop defaulting to yes.
- Scrum‑Inspired Starter Kit: Key mindsets, definitions, boards, cadences and other concepts you can borrow now—whether you’re in Trello, Jira or a simple spreadsheet.
- Live Exercise: Together, we'll...
- Pt. 1, Story Point and T-Shirt Size: Estimate the level of effort of a typical comms task and project.
- Pt. 2, Prioritize: Re-rank it against team capacity to practice saying “not now” with data.
- Next Steps: Quick takeaways, tool tips and even hiring/promoting cues that can help you prove the payoff and embed agile habits back at work.
As teams sprint toward every shiny new AI tool, engagement keeps sagging—because real traction still comes from modernizing the fundamentals. Relevant internal emails still pull 68% open rates and 37% of employees now tune into workplace podcasts (ContactMonkey, LinkedIn). Pair those numbers with the rise of real-time digital-signage dashboards and recognition walls, and you’ve got the perfect storm for breathing new life into “old” channels with fresh tech. In this fast-paced panel, comms innovators who’ve done the upgrades share their playbooks for re-wiring legacy channels. You’ll learn:
- Smart Newsletters: How others are turning static sends into segmented, analytics-rich touchpoints that hit 60%+ open rates using dynamic blocks and timed sends.
- Recognition Renaissance: How peer shout-outs, points, digital badges and micro-rewards are boosting retention and inclusion—plus the KPIs to prove it.
- Audio 2.0: Tips for baking podcasts and audio content into EX suites to humanize leaders and reach earbuds on-the-go.
- Screens and Streams: How to reimagine townhalls and digital signage as a single, hybrid experience—live polling all-hands, chat-moderated Q&A, real-time recognition walls and lobby screens that sync with your intranet for instant alerts.
- The Innovator’s Mindset: A repeatable audit framework for spotting hidden potential in any legacy channel—so you upgrade strategically instead of chasing trends.
Global engagement keeps sliding—only 21% of employees feel connected to their work (Gallup). Fragmented channels, five generations under one roof and cookie‑cutter personas don’t help. This session shows you how to refresh journey maps with live data, layer in generational insights and even employee Enneagrams (a system of personality types) then push hyper‑personal messages that meet today’s jittery workforce where they really are. We’ll cover:
- Live Journey Maps: How to plug pulse surveys, LMS stats and even help‑desk data into lifecycle touchpoints so maps update in real time.
- Dynamic Personas: How to cluster behavioral signals, generational preferences and even Enneagram overlays to build self‑refreshing personas—no more annual rewrites.
- Engagement Playbooks: How to craft channel and message variants for each persona to boost open rates, clicks and two‑way feedback.
- Smart Automation (yes, that’s the AI bit): How to use machine‑learning signals and autonomous nudges to spot disengagement days sooner and trigger timely manager alerts.
- Proof of Impact: Tips to track engagement bumps, retention gains and onboarding speed to show hard ROI on personalization.
Send anxiety – those feelings of apprehension or unease you may experience before sending an email – is a common phenomenon affecting people in both professional and personal settings. This session explores data-backed best practices for internal email communication, helping you craft messages that resonate and drive action. Learn how to optimize timing, tone and structure to boost engagement and minimize stress before hitting "send."
In this session, you will learn:
- What are the top causes of send anxiety, and how to manage them.
- How to apply data-driven email timing and frequency strategies.
- The performance of leading communicators regarding open, read and click rates.
- Using analysis from over 4 billion sent emails to design and write better content.
With over 90% of employees admitted multitasking through townhalls, many leaders assume the format’s broken. Not so fast! Over six months, an internal‑comms team rebuilt the experience from the ground up—layering live translation, DVR‑style playback and avatar‑assisted updates onto its legacy platform. The result: View‑through rates tripled, questions flooded in and execs finally felt heard across time zones. This case study unpacks every step of that turnaround so you can replicate the win without blowing up your tech stack. We’ll cover:
- Going Global: Flipping on built‑in interpreters and real‑time captions so every region feels heard.
- New Tech Plug-Ins: Examples of using auto‑recap and scheduled clip pushes to social or intranet feeds so employees can catch up fast.
- Engagement Analytics: Tracking rewind-while-live views, sentiment heatmaps and clickthroughs to prove the new format beats last year’s static one.
- Risk and Governance: Setting guardrails for deepfake detection, disclosure language and avatar reuse so innovation never outruns trust.
- Bonus Avatar Spotlight: A surprise example of capturing an exec once, then deploying avatars for multilingual updates—complete with disclosure best practices.
Trust gets shaky in periods of uncertainty—but people still listen. The Edelman Trust Barometer shows that public trust has shifted to peer-to-peer, valuing company experts and employees—essentially “people like themselves”—as honest and relatable sources on a company. But when your brand, executives and employees post on LinkedIn with disparate messages, that credibility fractures. In this session with Microsoft’s employee advocacy team, you’ll learn how to synchronize social narratives so your organization speaks with one voice and scales authentic content from the inside out. What you'll learn:
- Right Time, Right Channel: How to think about the unique but coordinated roles that brand, executive and employee voices play in a particular moment.
- Trust Pillars: How to develop themes and practices that anchor executive and employee posts—even during layoffs and leadership changes.
- AI Assist with Guardrails: How to use AI and other technology to draft and post thought leadership content faster without sacrificing voice and authenticity.
- Measurement Matters: How KPIs like reach and engagement can help your execs and employees maintain a healthy signal-to-noise ratio and prove the “ROI of trust.”
- Thought Leadership Examples: Snapshots of trust-building thought leadership posts—and tips for ensuring your thought leadership program drives results regardless of platform.
Over half of employees worry AI will hurt their job prospects, sparking fear, fight or flight across the org (Pew Research Center). Layer in that only 56% of Gen Z feel comfortable raising mental-health concerns with their managers, and generational friction goes from simmer to boil. Enter Speaker Hall-of-Famer Anna Liotta—past president of the National Speakers Association and author of "Unlocking Generational Codes." In this energizing keynote, she fuses her Five Generational Codes with neuroscience-backed self-regulation tricks to help communicators always keep a “human in the loop” amid AI workflow adoption, quiet the nervous system and turn tech turbulence into trust across all generations. You’ll leave with a high-touch playbook that boosts belonging, innovation and measurable results. What she'll share:
- Decode the Codes: What makes each workforce generation tick and what ticks them off—plus powerful strategies for reducing generational conflict, confusion and costly missteps.
- Human-in-Loop Guardrails: Insights for pairing AI with human oversight to protect ethics, culture and even job satisfaction for everyone from Boomers to Gen Alpha.
- Hi-Touch Channels: Comms approaches and channels preferred by each generation—from micro-video nudges to face-to-face rituals that deepen trust and curb turnover.
- ROI Dashboard: Metrics that tie engagement, retention and idea flow across generations to business impacts the C-suite respects.
- Bonus Anxiety Buster: A live 60-second vagus-nerve technique leaders can demo to defuse AI and other workplace anxieties before town halls, ERGs or even performance reviews.
In just 12 months, AI has transformed how internal communicators craft messages — but hype alone won’t fix every challenge. In this session, we’ll unpack the most meaningful lessons from integrating AI into comms, then explore how the right EX platform plays a vital role that no algorithm can replace. You'll leave with a clear vision of when to lean on AI and how the right tools, processes and human-centered strategy will drive engagement, efficiency and trust.
As employee expectations shift and AI becomes a core part of how work gets done, internal comms must evolve to meet the moment. At Microsoft, this evolution is underway—driven by a bold shift in mindset, a commitment to experimentation and a strategic embrace of AI as a partner in communication. This session explores how one of the world’s largest companies is reimagining internal communications through the lens of the “Frontier Firm” model—where AI agents work alongside humans to scale clarity, trust and impact. Attendees will gain a practical look at how communications teams are unlearning legacy habits, building trust with leader voices and using data to drive strategy in real time. What you’ll hear:
- Think Like a Frontier Employee: How mindset shifts are redefining comms roles and skills.
- Double Down on Data: Using insights to align with business strategy and earn trust.
- Scale with Agents: Real-world examples of AI-powered tools transforming comms workflows.
- Experiment Out Loud: Why trying, learning, and sharing is the new playbook.
- Lead with Trust: Embedding leader voices and external storytelling into internal strategy.
In today’s volatile landscape—where M&A shake-ups, ESG/CSR mandates and even language crackdowns collide—communicators are on the front lines of culture and change. Employees still crave belonging and clarity, but the way we deliver it has to evolve. In this candid panel, leaders share how they’ve anchored culture amid mergers, restructurings, RTO drives and AI disruption—while reframing culture comms as both risk management and growth strategy. Expect hard-won tactics for steering teams through transformation, breaking down silos and proving culture’s value when traditional DEI budgets or vocabulary are seeing pushback. We’ll touch on:
- New Changes: How orgs are tackling everything from M&A integrations to ESG/CSR expectations, RTO pushes and DEI pullbacks—while still building resilient culture.
- Culture Meets Change: How to align culture initiatives with business strategy so change comms becomes a growth lever, not just a defensive play.
- Real-World Examples: Fresh case studies of change comms done right, from merger integrations to ESG rollouts and policy pivots.
- Culture vs. Silos: Practical ways to embed comms, culture and inclusivity in other departments’ workflows and partner across HR, legal and strategy teams to drive unified change.
- Candor and Inclusion: How to deliver transparent messaging on sensitive issues—from ethics training to restructuring—while still signaling respect, belonging and DEI principles, even when terms are under scrutiny.
Internal communications drive real business outcomes, but communicators often lack the strategies, data or insights to leverage comms for organizational-wide priorities, such as alignment or engagement. In this session, Axios HQ Senior Editor Kate Samano will share the data and strategies from her work with organizations big and small so you can increase your comms’ org-wide impact on business priorities like:
- Organization-wide alignment and clarity.
- Employee engagement and retention.
- Productivity and operational efficiency.
What if your employees cheered for their Monday standup like it’s the home opener? Only 31% of U.S. employees feel engaged—the lowest in a decade (CFO). Meanwhile Seattle’s sports giants keep fans (and staff) fired up season after season. In this fireside panel, integrated comms leads from the areas' leading sports teams share the locker‑room stories, rituals and metrics that transform game‑day electricity into everyday culture—and turn coworkers into die‑hard brand believers. Join us to hear:
- Inside Locker Room Lore: Candid stories of how Seattle franchises forge teamwork and a winning culture that steals hearts.
- Fan‑First Rituals: How to adapt hype videos, tunnel walks and even victory songs to spark pride across your own organization.
- Scoreboard Gamification: Ideas to roll out real‑time dashboards, leaderboards and playful incentives to keep wins visible.
- Coaching Coalitions: Explore ways to draft cross‑functional coaches to keep messages aligned across every channel.
AI is transforming how people search for and discover info about companies, brands and products. Gartner predicts that organic traffic from traditional search engines will decrease by 50% by 2028 as users turn to AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. This shift requires a new playbook for ensuring brand visibility but also for managing corporate, brand and employer reputations when LLMs don’t just return a list of results but provide authoritative, opinionated summaries in response to nuanced questions. This session will show how integrated and internal comms can help steer those summaries, protect accuracy and keep purpose-driven messages intact while optimizing visibility in the era of AI search. You’ll learn:
- AI Search Basics: The fundamental differences between LLM search and traditional search engines and what this means for the old SEO playbook.
- Implications for Communicators: How AI search is impacting not just brand visibility but also reputations.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): How a new discipline is emerging for monitoring and optimizing brand presence in LLM responses and the key channels influencing AI perceptions.
- Cross-Functional Strategies: Best practices for making your integrated comms approach AI-ready.
- Search Visibility Scorecard: How to benchmark your brand visibility and measure sentiment across key brand areas.
RTO mandates, DEI rollbacks, tariff ripples, CEO shakeups, AI job fears and employee activism continue to put internal and external stakeholders on edge. And when internal, external and policy messages around these issues diverge, trust (and share price) wobbles. Join four senior comms pros who will unpack the strategies their orgs and others are using to address these issues, gauge employee activism, align stakeholders and steady the ship. What you’ll learn:
- Top Issues Today: The most pressing disruptive topics today—from RTO mandates and DEI rollbacks to employee activism—and strategies for addressing each in real time.
- Rapid-Response Lessons: Candid pivots, success stories and practical fixes that helped keep teams onside and on-message during critical flashpoints this past year.
- Beyond Checklists: Why ADKAR and other step-by-step models stall at social-media speed—plus cross-departmental suggestions that can close the gap.
- Stakeholder Alignment Map: Best practices and new ideas to brief execs, managers, staff, investors and the press from one single source of truth—and why a “true north” matters.
- C-Suite Credibility: Ideas for turning workforce sentiment and risk intel into metrics and recommendations that execs respect and the board trusts.
Digital transformation isn’t just an IT project — it’s an employee experience project. And no one is better positioned to champion that experience than internal communicators. However, IC teams are often brought in late, handed a “finished” plan and asked to simply implement the change. Discover how IC can step out of the messenger role and into the driver’s seat of digital employee experience. You’ll learn how to:
- Lead the conversation around digital transformation and make sure IC requirements are heard from day one.
- Identify and reduce friction between HR, IT, Ops and other teams to boost engagement.
- Balance your comms priorities with the overall employee value proposition.
- Act as a mediator and translator, helping cross-functional teams speak a common language and focus on the employee.
Packed with practical strategies and real-world examples from leading organizations, this session will equip you to influence technology decisions, smooth interdepartmental tensions and deliver a digital workplace employees actually want to use.
A new Brunswick report flags a collapse in trust, AI's impact on job security, polarization, cyber breaches, data privacy lapses and even AI/bot swarms as today’s top brand nightmares—but when they strike, employees feel the first shock waves. This panel brings together comms and crisis experts to share how internal comms can prep the workforce, calm nerves and keep business moving when threats hit. Hear real-world tales of brand-impacting crises plus frameworks to hardwire resilience across internal channels and conversations. You’ll learn:
- What's Coming: Top threats impacting brands and employees now and in 2026, including how to mine rumor channels, dark web chatter and social listening tools to spot threats early.
- Organizational Trust: Why “trust” is your org’s #1 asset before, during and after a crisis—and how to build yours now through authentic executive comms.
- Panic-Proof Messaging: Tips for drafting crisis alert and response scripts in plain language, picking empathetic spokespeople and syncing with legal when crises hit.
- Tech Channels and Tools: How to disseminate global omnichannel crisis communications updates, responses and protocols across your employee tech stack and internal platforms.
- Measurement Matters: Tech tools and sample dashboards to help you stay on top of employee sentiment, emerging issues and even rumors and—so finance sees the “ROI on calm.”
- Bonus Focus on Wellbeing: Why it’s critical to protect and monitor your own wellbeing during crisis situations—plus how to ensure you’re leaning into soft skills and EQ in your crisis comms.
Forecasts are flagging slower global growth, more policy-driven volatility and increased recession risk—so 2026 comms budgets will certainly face the scalpel. Little surprise then that execs now want irrefutable proof that every message, townhall and trade story moves the business needle. This integrated ROI session shows how to unify data from media, web, CRM and even employee-sentiment sources, apply internationally accepted attribution models, and turn the insights into funding-ready stories—before next year’s cuts hit. What you’ll learn:
- Frameworks & Formulas: How to blend AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework with PESO weighting to trace connections from awareness to sales and talent pipelines.
- GenAI Search, GEO and Share of Model: How to tap into GenAI-driven search patterns and Share of Model analytics to uncover whitespace, quantify influence and tighten attribution across regions and campaigns.
- Insight Automation: A quick peek at the AI features inside today’s media-intel suites and data hubs that surface anomalies before leadership asks.
- Budget Blueprint 2026: How others are converting metrics into ROI scenarios and talking points to justify spend.
- Cross-Channel Clarity: How to connect all of these dots into one storyline that proves comms impact across every stakeholder touchpoint.
Internal comms isn’t what it used to be — it's evolving and fast! With hybrid teams, tighter timelines, and rising expectations, today’s internal communicators are doing more with less —and rethinking how they present themselves across the employee experience.
In this practical, people-first session, Jamie Bell will share a fresh perspective on where internal comms is headed — and how to keep your work impactful (without burning yourself out). You’ll walk away with real-world examples, useful tools and actionable ideas to bring back to your team.
She’ll cover:
- What’s changing in internal comms (and what it means for your role).
- How teams are using automation to streamline without losing the human touch.
- Ways to build employee workflows that align messages with meaningful moments.
When a leading health nonprofit prepared to launch a bold new brand and name, it wasn’t just a logo swap—it was a full-scale narrative shift across audiences, channels and touchpoints. Instead of siloed rollouts, the marketing and comms team built an integrated playbook that kept employees aligned, PR precise and social media energized. This session breaks down the strategy behind a unified rebrand comms campaign—from pre-launch embargoes to real-time amplification—so your teams can do more than manage a brand change: they can rally people behind it. You'll learn:
- Objective & Audience Map: How to set one macro goal, define audience segments and pick priority channels for each.
- Channel Strategy: How to lay out a schedule that feeds blog, intranet, email and social slots in lockstep.
- Content Creation: How to build out anchor content, then slice it into reels, graphics and even internal snippets.
- Distribution Details: How to arm staff and superfans with pre-coded share links, UTMs and a small paid-boost budget to extend reach for your message.
- Measurement and Fine-Tuning: How to pull sentiment, clicks, donation upticks and employee-share rates into one dashboard to adjust copy, spend and cadence in real time.
Economic headwinds, restructurings and a talent crunch mean every hire—or departure—now hits harder than ever. Candidates and customers alike scan Glassdoor, Indeed and even TikTok before they click “apply” or “buy.” In this candid session, Navistar’s comms leader reveals the organization’s enterprise‑wide One Voice Strategy, a framework that syncs recruiting, PR, social and marketing so every stakeholder hears the same clear story about the company’s vision, culture and strategy. Walk away with a playbook to safeguard reputation, speed hiring and keep customers confident—even when markets wobble. You’ll learn:
- Objective & Audience Alignment: How to link a single brand promise to hiring KPIs (application volume, offer acceptance rate, etc.) and business KPIs.
- Advocate Network Build: Tips to identify frontline “Voice Champions,” train them on disclosure rules and onboard them to an employee-advocacy platform like EveryoneSocial.
- One-Voice Content Hub: Steps to create a shared library of pre-approved blog snippets, social tiles and talking points that Marketing, PR and HR can pull from daily.
- Activation Toolkit: How to run monthly “share drives” (org-wide posting blitzes), supply ready-to-share captions with tracked UTM links and extend reach with small paid boosts.
- Reputation Dashboard: Ways to combine Glassdoor and Indeed review scores, social-listening sentiment and referral traffic to prove lower cost-per-hire and stronger trust.
As a communications leader at a top AI company, you're on the hook to get AI builders to use AI in their own jobs. But what if you’re a skeptic with more questions than answers about the technology's future? In this session, a Google strategic internal comms exec shares her candid journey from AI outsider to an active—if still cautious—user. She’ll walk you through the practical, human-centered approach she used to build an employee change management policy, share personal anecdotes about how she came around to the technology and offer a non-technical guide to bringing an entire organization along for the AI journey. You’ll leave with actionable advice on how to drive adoption and show impact—even if you're not a super user yourself. What you’ll learn:
- Why Use AI: An essential checklist of beginner-friendly AI tools to pique the curiosity of even the most skeptical comms pros.
- Audit & Align: Tips to map workflows, skill gaps and cultural touchpoints so every employee feels included and informed on your org’s AI adoption journey.
- Frame the Problems: How to build the right tools for the right outcomes.
- Champion Humans: How to promote what sparks delight or creates space for the work that humans are uniquely equipped to do and love doing.
- Measure What Matters: How to gather metrics and generate reports that link usage, sentiment shifts and brand-voice coherence to workforce value and bottom-line impact.
One off-brand post can now spark lawsuits, fines or employee walkouts in minutes—especially as new privacy mandates, AI content and activist workers rewrite the rulebook daily. Yet waiting weeks for Legal, HR or IT approval kills relevance and revenue. In this session, legal and comms insiders reveal how they collapse silos to greenlight high-stakes comms at speed. You’ll see the governance rhythms, trust-building rituals and shared risk dashboards that let communicators move fast without tripping regulatory tripwires—or tanking culture. What you’ll learn:
- Silo-Busting Blueprints: Clear decision rights, shared checklists and office-hours channels that cut approval cycles from weeks to hour.
- Rapid-Response Pods: How to quickly create ad-hoc review squads for hot issues like privacy laws, generative-AI launches and labor activism.
- Unified Risk Matrix: Tips to create a high-viz dashboard that ranks legal, reputational and workforce threats—so every function speaks the same “risk language."
- Trust Rituals: What's working for other teams—from red-team simulations to post-mortems that build rapport long before the next issue hits.
- Futureproof Training: How to equip Comms, Legal, HR and IT to spot AI deepfakes, data-flow gaps and regulatory shifts—before regulators (or employees).
Internal communications is in the middle of a major paradigm shift. We’re moving away from static, top‑down messaging — one‑way emails, PDFs and text‑heavy slide decks — toward dynamic, people-centered communication that fosters dialogue, connection and inclusivity. In this fireside chat, Chelsey Louzeiro, Senior Internal Communications Manager at Heifer International, and Gabriella Susz from PlayPlay will share how Heifer is reimagining its internal communications strategy with video as a foundation for engagement, alignment, and culture building.
You’ll learn:
- The shift from legacy to modern comms — what’s driving it, and why now.
- Why video is the perfect vehicle for modern comms: putting a face to the message, making content more engaging and trackable and connecting distributed teams.
- Practical examples from Heifer International’s global workforce — including how they scaled video creation without a big production team.
- The measurable impact: higher engagement and retention rates, clearer alignment across teams and regions, and improved productivity and employee loyalty.
Whether you’re starting your shift to modern communications or looking to elevate your video strategy, you’ll leave with actionable ideas to make your messages stick — and your employees feel seen and heard.
Kick off the conference with 180-second peer-to-peer intros—just enough time to trade names, roles and one fun fact (see our hashtag challenge below) before the timer dings. Treat it like speed-sampling: Snag bite-sized contacts today, then decide who to circle back with tomorrow. Our facilitator will keep the conversation flowing with one-word prompts sure to spark lightning replies.
Disengagement is costly, and only 1 in 5 employees believes their feedback leads to meaningful change. This interactive session demonstrates how to transform that dynamic by hosting internal “hackathons for culture” that empower employees to share their ideas and produce actionable solutions.
Participants will learn the building blocks of a successful internal hackathon, from defining challenges that spark ideas to structuring cross-functional teams, pitching and prioritizing concepts, and piloting quick wins. You’ll discover tactics to turn abstract cultural goals into tangible projects and explore how technology — from surveys and social tools to recognition platforms — can power every stage of the process.
By the end of this workshop, you’ll walk away with a ready-to-use framework and a downloadable Hackathon Toolkit to implement inside your organization.
Continuing Education Credits: SHRM, HRCI and GCCC® eligible (Activity IDs provided).
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the building blocks of a successful internal hackathon for culture.
- Learn how to define challenges that engage employees and spark innovation.
- Explore tactics to turn abstract cultural goals into actionable projects.
- Discover how to build cross-functional buy-in and participation.
- Walk away with a framework and toolkit you can implement immediately.
When it comes to learning and development, Ragan has your back. Join L&D Director Justin Joffe in a casual, peer-led roundtable discussion as we break down strategies to make learning and upskilling fun.
Need a quiet space to crunch out a CEO memo, or answer emails? This body-doubling session, filled with your peers who are seeking the same quiet space, will let you keep on track. The only rule we share with libraries: No Zoom calls!
When it's time to brainstorm, your peers are the best minds out there. Join one of four peer‑powered roundtables where you'll crowd-source fixes for your biggest comms challenges and network while you're at it. You’ll enjoy four topics to choose from: org charts, crisis playbooks, CEO transitions or layoff comms.
Couldn’t make yesterday—or ready for deeper dives? This five-minute rotation round picks up where the sprint left off. Swap real challenges, scan LinkedIns on the spot and bank allies before the morning breakout begins. You'll meet new colleagues fired up for learning.
This peer-to-peer roundtable, led by a Center for AI Strategy professional, will break down the top five AI-related challenges comms professionals face--and workshop peer-suggested solutions.
Here’s your chance to ask Anna Liotta your burning questions about the Five Generational Codes she shared in her keynote. She’ll also give a quick peek at her new book "Vagus Nerve Reset Decoded"—a must-hear if you're a stressed leader looking for simple ways to reset, refocus and recharge or a communicator helping teams manage pressure and stay resilient.
SPEAKERS
INTERESTED IN SPEAKING?
Please reach out to Director of Event Programming
Alyssa Smith.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
- Strategic Leadership & Influence: Elevate your value and secure a permanent seat at the table.
- Mixternal Integration: Unite internal comms, PR and marketing for a more consistent 360° brand, culture and comms strategy.
- Change Comms & Management: Discover proven frameworks for guiding teams through restructuring, M&A, layoffs and other disruptive transitions.
- Crisis Preparedness: Stay ahead of AI-driven misinformation, cybersecurity attacks, deepfakes and other emerging threats to protect your brand and workforce.
- AI in Action: Go beyond basic prompts to adopt agentic AI that dramatically improves workflows, content creation and audience engagement.
- Doing More with Less: Learn how to tighten budgets, maintain morale and position internal comms for success during 2026 budget planning.
- Internal Comms Toolbox: Get updates on email, intranets, newsletters, town halls, collaboration suites and more—keeping employees connected and informed.
- Brand Storytelling & Thought Leadership: Infuse compelling narratives across everything from newsletters to executive social media, ensuring consistent, authentic messaging.
- Winning Workplace Cultures: Craft and deliver messaging that resonates with on-site, hybrid and dispersed teams—while tackling RTO rollouts and other roadblocks along the way.
- Organizational Impact: Forge cross-functional alliances, navigate complex org structures and drive enterprise-wide collaboration that broadens your influence and reach.
- Dashboard Confessionals: Explore measurement best practices, new KPIs and real dashboards from other organizations to prove—and improve—your impact.
- Future-Focused Roadmaps: Develop near-term tactics and long-range plans for emerging tech adoption, culture-building, channel optimization and strategic leadership.
PRICING
| ADVANCED | EARLY BIRD | VIP | REGULAR RATE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference All-Access Pass includes the Pre-Conference Workshops | ||||
| Standard | $3,495 | $3,595 | $3,695 | $3,795 |
| Nonprofit/Gov | $3,395 | $3,495 | $3,595 | $3,695 |
| Ragan Insider | $3,345 | $3,445 | $3,545 | $3,645 |
| Conference Registration - Individual | ||||
| Standard | $3,095 | $3,195 | $3,295 | $3,395 |
| Nonprofit/Gov/Edu | $2,995 | $3,095 | $3,195 | $3,295 |
| Ragan Insider | $2,945 | $3,045 | $3,145 | $3,245 |
| Conference Recording On Demand | ||||
| Includes pre-conference workshops and conference sessions | $1,999 | $1,999 | $1,999 | $1,999 |
| Vendor Registration | ||||
| $4,999 | $4,999 | $4,999 | $4,999 | |
For those who can’t attend the conference live, an on-demand option of the conference recordings is available during the registration process. The recordings will be delivered 10 business days after the conference ends.
Download this letter to convince your boss you should attend The Internal Communications Conference.
Group Discounts
Would you and your team like to attend? Group pricing for 3 or more is available when going through the registration process!
RAGAN COUNCIL MEMBER DISCOUNTS
Membership includes free registration passes. Contact Shallon Blackburn for more information on becoming a member.
RAGAN INSIDER DISCOUNTS
Insiders save on all Ragan events. Not a Ragan Insider? You can become one during registration for this event!
Building 92/Learning Center
Microsoft
15010 NE 36th Street
Redmond WA 98052
Top Things To Do in Seattle:
Take some time to enjoy Seattle while you are in town! Here are our top things to do:
- Space Needle
- Pike Place Market
- Washington State Ferries
- Seattle Great Wheel
- The Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour
- Woodinville Wine Country
- T-Mobile Park and Lumen Field
- Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room
- The Guide for Ethical AI Usage in Communications
- Measurement Guide to Proving Internal Comms Value
- Internal Meetings Handbook and Facilitator Guide
- LinkedIn Executive Thought Leadership Guide
- Six Steps for Change Communications in a Volatile World
- How to Run an Internal Communications Audit
SPONSORS & PARTNERS
Premium
Want to become a sponsor? Get in touch with our team to discuss sponsorship opportunities.
WHO ATTENDS
Communications professionals from these organizations have attended the Internal Communications Conference:
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
You should attend if you spend at least a quarter of your time in any of these areas:
- Corporate Communication
- Employee Communications
- Executive Communications
- Manager Communications
- Change Communications
- Crisis Communications
- AI Integration
- Brand Management
- Brand Journalism
- Public Relations
- Marketing
- Content Creation
- Social Media
- Storytelling
- Writing and Editing
GET RECOGNIZED!
Each registration comes with a personalized "Internal Communications Conference" Certificate of Completion for attending.
REGISTER NOW
Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.
This program is valid for 16 PDCs when using Activity ID: 25-2E2SN.
WONDERING IF YOU SHOULD ATTEND?
Here’s what past attendees are saying about Ragan and PR Daily Events!
I had an incredible experience at the Ragan Internal Communications Conference. It was a rare and valuable opportunity to learn and connect with fellow internal communicators from a wide range of industries. The sessions were insightful and provided me with intense knowledge, reaffirming my passion for internal communications. I walked away with great insights that I could immediately take back and apply to my team. This conference truly stands out as a highlight in my professional journey.
I thoroughly enjoyed attending the Ragan Internal Communication Conference. As a communication specialist responsible for internal communications at the Panama Canal, everything I learned was incredibly valuable, useful, and enriching. The speakers, sponsors, moderators, emcees, the punctuality, and the networking opportunities all exceeded my expectations. I can't wait to attend again—this was the first of many. Ragan rocks!
Ragan provided the perfect opportunity for fellow communicators to listen to experts and share insights into what is going on in our field. I left with a renewed vision and sense of excitement!
This conference was absolutely worth the trip! The Ragan folks are very well organized and prepared. I learned a ton.
We left the conference energized with new ideas, empowered by peer validation, and inspired to pursue deeper learning and engagement through Ragan’s CLC. This is already a valuable investment for our team and the employees and communities we serve.
Wow! The 2024 Internal Communications Conference at Microsoft Headquarters was an invigorating experience. There were so many lively discussions and dynamic sessions that left me feeling energized and inspired. I cannot wait to see what Ragan plans next year.
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