Everyone's an IC Pro Now: The New Stakeholder Tension When Every Exec Has AI
Upcoming Webinar
Sign-off used to mean a few comments in the margin. Now a routine leadership announcement comes back carrying six sets of detailed, confident, strangely similar feedback—because somewhere between your outbox and theirs, half your stakeholders ran it through an AI. Executives aren't just reviewing comms work anymore. Armed with the same tools, plenty of them now believe they can do it. Stakeholder management was already the hardest part of the job; it wasn't built for reviewers with an assistant that never runs out of opinions. This session is about easing that tension—running a review process that still works, and keeping the final say where it belongs. What you'll learn: How to recognize AI-assisted feedback and weigh it for what it is—directional input, not a rewrite Ground rules for review cycles when every stakeholder has a co-pilot How to push back on machine-made opinion without damaging the human relationship behind it How to keep the final say with IC—not with the loudest AI-assisted opinion Plus: a live audience poll putting the first real numbers on how far this has spread. Bring your worst example. Who it's for: Internal comms leaders and senior practitioners who own the review cycle—and intend to keep it.
Upcoming Webinars
How Leading Manufacturers Are Connecting Every Frontline Employee
In most manufacturing organizations, 70–80% of the workforce never sits at a desk. They work across shifts, sites, and facilities—often without a company email address—yet most internal communication tools were never built with them in mind. How do you ensure every employee receives critical safety updates, operational changes, and company news? How do you empower local plant leaders to communicate while maintaining corporate governance? And how do you know important communications have actually been seen and acknowledged? Join us to see how leading manufacturers are rethinking how they connect with frontline employees, delivering critical information with confidence to enable safer, more consistent operations while reducing operational risk, improving efficiency, and driving better business performance. What you'll learn During this session, we'll explore how manufacturing organizations: Reach every employee—from the plant floor and warehouse to the front office—without relying on email, laptops, or shared devices. Deliver shift-relevant alerts, critical safety, operational, and compliance updates with must-read acknowledgments and tracking. Personalize communications by role, location, shift, and language so every employee receives information that's relevant to them. Use AI to help employees quickly find the policies, procedures, and business information they need. Replace ad hoc dissemination with centralized, structured communications ensuring every employee receives consistent updates regardless of shift, location, or manager Balance corporate governance with local flexibility, enabling plant leaders to communicate confidently while maintaining consistency across every site. Measure employee engagement and message reach, not just publishing activity. Join us at 10am ET | 3pm BST | 4pm CEST
How Leading Healthcare Organizations Reach Every Frontline Worker
Ask a hospital's communications team whether last week's safety alert reached every person who needed it—nurses, care assistants, porters, techs, cleaners, kitchen staff—and most can't tell you. The message went out, but who read it is guesswork. That blind spot is the real problem, and it starts with the staff. Most of the people keeping a hospital running have no company email and no desk, so an update reaches them through a manager who remembers to pass it on—or it doesn't reach them at all. When that message is a changed protocol or updated equipment guidance, a missed message is a patient-safety risk you never see. What you'll learn During this session, we'll show how healthcare organizations: Reach every clinical and support worker across hospitals, clinics, home visits, and community sites, without relying on email or a shared device. Deliver shift-relevant safety and compliance alerts with read tracking and must-read acknowledgment. Personalize communications by role, location, shift, and language, so people get only what's relevant to them. Use AI to help staff find the right policy or procedure in seconds. Replace scattered, manager-by-manager messaging with communications every employee receives, whatever their shift or location. Support wellbeing and recognition programs that help retain people in demanding roles. Let ward and department leaders communicate locally while central teams keep governance intact. See who opened and acknowledged each critical message. Join us at 10am ET | 3pm BST | 4pm CEST
How Leading Retailers Are Connecting Every Frontline Employee
Retail moves fast. New promotions, pricing changes, operational updates, and company initiatives need to reach every store quickly and consistently. Yet many store workers don't have a corporate email address, and important communications often rely on managers to cascade messages. How do you ensure every retail employee receives critical safety updates, operational changes, and company news? How do you empower local managers to communicate while maintaining corporate governance? And how do you know important communications have actually been seen and acknowledged? Join us to see how leading retailers are rethinking how they connect with frontline employees, delivering critical information with confidence to improve operational execution, strengthen employee engagement and deliver a more consistent customer experience across every store. What you'll learn During this session, we'll explore how retail organizations: Reach every employee—from store workers to delivery drivers—without relying on email, laptops, or shared devices. Deliver shift-relevant alerts, critical policy, operational, and compliance updates with must-read acknowledgments and tracking. Personalize communications by role, location, shift, and language so every employee receives information that's relevant to them. Use AI to help employees quickly find the policies, procedures, and business information they need. Replace ad hoc dissemination with centralized, structured communications ensuring every employee receives consistent updates regardless of shift, location, or manager Balance corporate governance with local flexibility, enabling local managers to communicate confidently while maintaining consistency across every store. Measure employee engagement and message reach, not just publishing activity. Join us at 10am ET | 3pm BST | 4pm CEST
Everyone's an IC Pro Now: The New Stakeholder Tension When Every Exec Has AI
Sign-off used to mean a few comments in the margin. Now a routine leadership announcement comes back carrying six sets of detailed, confident, strangely similar feedback—because somewhere between your outbox and theirs, half your stakeholders ran it through an AI. Executives aren't just reviewing comms work anymore. Armed with the same tools, plenty of them now believe they can do it. Stakeholder management was already the hardest part of the job; it wasn't built for reviewers with an assistant that never runs out of opinions. This session is about easing that tension—running a review process that still works, and keeping the final say where it belongs. What you'll learn: How to recognize AI-assisted feedback and weigh it for what it is—directional input, not a rewrite Ground rules for review cycles when every stakeholder has a co-pilot How to push back on machine-made opinion without damaging the human relationship behind it How to keep the final say with IC—not with the loudest AI-assisted opinion Plus: a live audience poll putting the first real numbers on how far this has spread. Bring your worst example. Who it's for: Internal comms leaders and senior practitioners who own the review cycle—and intend to keep it.
How Leading Professional Services Firms Are Modernizing the Employee Experience
In most professional services firms, information is scattered, and valuable time is wasted trying to find it. Company news, policies, business updates, key documents—all in different places, and rarely in the first place you look. Now there's real risk on top of wasted time. Clients are questioning the value of professional advice at the same time AI is raising the stakes on quality and accuracy. As employees increasingly use AI to accelerate their work, firms need to ensure people are working from approved content, trusted knowledge, and the latest policies—not outdated or unofficial information. Keeping people aligned on standards, governance, and current policy is now part of how a firm can protect what it's spent years building. Join us to see how leading firms are building a modern digital workplace that gives employees one personalized place to find company news, documents, policies, people, and business applications—and see what's happening across the wider firm, so they spend less time searching and more time delivering work that clients trust. What you'll learn During this session, we'll show how professional services firms: Give employees a single place to find news, knowledge, policies, applications, and everyday resources. Keep people aligned on the standards, governance, and quality expectations that protect client work. Reach employees wherever they work, across mobile, Microsoft Teams, and digital signage. Make sure people receive only what's relevant to their role, office, or practice area, in their preferred language. Confirm critical updates are seen and acknowledged, with must-read communications and reporting. Connect colleagues across offices and practices, so local teams see the wider firm without losing their own focus. Use AI to help employees find the right policy, procedure, or precedent in seconds. Integrate with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365, so communications and knowledge sit inside the tools people already use. Measure real engagement and reach, not just publishing activity. Join us at 10am ET | 3pm BST | 4pm CEST
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Internal Comms at a Crossroads—Career Truths from Those Who Know IC Best
The internal comms profession is having a quiet reckoning with itself. Senior communicators describe their teams as strategically ambitious but operationally stretched, creatively capable but struggling to prove business value. Many of them are carrying those questions largely alone. This is not a crisis. But it is a crossroads. AI has moved from conversation topic to daily operational reality. Employee experience is beginning to shift from an HR-only remit to an organization-wide question—where IC is increasingly part of that conversation, but without a clear mandate to lead it. And the pressure to demonstrate business value has moved from background noise to a live performance review. The communicators who will thrive in this era—and help define it—will be distinguished by how clearly they can articulate what the business needs, and how directly they can connect their work to it. Not by the tools they use or the channels they run. In this live session— IC at a Crossroads: Career Truths from Those Who Know IC Best —Andrew Harvey, CEO of the VMA Group and Jennifer Sproul, CEO of the IOIC, join Poppulo’s Andrew Hubbard to dissect what they are seeing across the profession, and what it means for the people who have built careers in IC. Andrew Harvey has extensive Internal Comms recruitment expertise; Jennifer Sproul is at the centre of conversations about the profession in the UK and internationally; and Andrew Hubbard is a highly experienced comms executive with a unique perspective as Director of Communications for the world's leading employee experience platform. What we’ll cover: The Career Picture. An informed exploration of how the IC talent market is shifting—which roles are growing in influence, which are under pressure, and how the skills employers value most have changed in the last two years. The AI Reality. Beyond the rhetoric: where AI is genuinely changing the day-to-day work of communicators, where it is creating new leverage, and what it means for the skills that will define IC careers going forward. The Business Acumen Question. Why business acumen has become the dividing line between IC teams that are seen as strategic partners and those that are seen as a delivery function—and what closing that gap looks like in practice. The EX-Boundary. How the shift toward employee experience is reshaping IC's mandate, its relationships with HR and leadership, and the identity of the function itself. The Value Conversation. How the most credible IC leaders are framing and proving their impact in terms that resonate with the C-suite, not just communications metrics.
Poppulo + Sociabble: Delivering the Ultimate Employee Experience Platform for the Agentic Era
Poppulo drives connection with over 50 million employees every day—and now, together with Sociabble, we're taking employee experience to a whole new level. But don't just take our word for it. In this session you'll hear from Primark, one of the world's largest fashion retailers, with 80,000+ employees across 17 countries. Hear how they built a global employee hub that keeps colleagues informed, connected, and participating in company culture, delivering a more engaging employee experience wherever they are. The acquisition of Sociabble significantly expands what Poppulo makes possible for employee engagement and experience. We'll make that concrete—walking through how Sociabble extends Poppulo's capabilities with AI-powered intranet and digital hub experiences, employee advocacy, stronger mobile and frontline communication, and rewards and recognition. In this session we’ll also share: What this means for Poppulo customers today How these capabilities support better employee communication and engagement at scale How your organization can take advantage of them now .
Poppulo Experience Platform - April '26 Release Highlights
Our most recent product release webinar is now available on demand, giving you a guided walkthrough of the latest enhancements in the Poppulo Employee Experience platform. In this session, we highlight key updates from the April '26 release designed to help you move faster, gain deeper insights, and maintain stronger control over your communications. You’ll see what’s new, why it matters, and how you can take advantage of these new features.
The Misalignment Tax: Closing the Strategy–Performance Gap with Comms + HR
Employee use of the word “misalignment” to describe leadership increased 143% last year. Nine in 10 leaders say strategic alignment matters, but less than one in 10 employees feel it. That gap has held for seven years and it’s becoming a bigger, more urgent problem. In a time of constant change, eroding trust, and AI-accelerated everything, misalignment spreads faster, slowing decisions, duplicating effort, distorting priorities, and eroding the bottom line. This is the Misalignment Tax—a silent, compounding drain on productivity, performance, and ultimately profitability. Every organization pays it, unseen and unquantified. In this live webinar, Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland of Clear Leaders share what their latest global research reveals about why alignment fails, what it truly costs organizations, and what it takes to turn around. It is a strategic opening for Communication and HR to lead the fix—together. These functions are uniquely positioned to make it happen, but most aren’t doing so yet. This session is about changing that. What You’ll Gain: A Clear Understanding : Why the gap persists, and the two paradoxes that sustain it. The AI Multiplier : How AI amplifies clarity in aligned organizations—and chaos in misaligned ones. A Practical Framework : The leadership conversations required to close the gap, and how Comms + HR can shape them. Tangible Actions : Specific moves Communication and HR leaders can initiate immediately. The Research Behind the Session: Zora and Wayne’s research - their third global study - draws on interviews with more than 50 CEOs, Chiefs of Staff, and senior leaders across communication, HR, strategy, and operations - and points to three conversations that determine whether strategy actually moves, or simply sits on a shelf. It also explores the cross-functional enabling work that must happen before any of them can.
Top Employee Communication Trends & Strategies for 2026
Internal comms is heading into 2026 with more uncertainty about its role than at any point in recent memory. AI is changing the work at speed. Trust is slipping. Managers are stretched thin. Employees are tuning out. And the expectations placed on IC keep widening into work that falls well beyond its traditional scope—often without the structure or support to match. The familiar models aren’t holding, and the function is being pulled into a new order that still isn’t fully defined. 2026 will ask big questions of IC: what it stands for, where it fits, and how it leads through a year marked by uncertainty and shifting expectations. To understand what this means in practice, we’re bringing together four leaders who are working at the sharp end of these changes: Stephanie Cornell, Head of People Communications & Marketing, WPP Annabelle Gordon, Director of Employee Communications, Super Regine Nelson, Director of Internal Communications, Couchbase Stacie Barrett, Former Director of Internal Communications, Domino’s Moderated by Joss Mathieson of Change Oasis, this 60-minute session, including time for your questions, will get into the real pressures facing IC in 2026 and how teams can work through them. Expect to Explore: The shifting identity of internal comms and what it means to play a deeper role in shaping the employee experience Where AI is genuinely changing the work of internal comms, and the risks that emerge when speed increases but understanding doesn’t How IC can work alongside leaders and other functions when old command-and-control habits no longer hold up How IC can rebuild trust and strengthen resilience by creating communication that feels human, transparent, and genuinely meaningful in a year defined by ambiguity The emotional and practical load on IC practitioners, and how to stay steady when you’re communicating through the same uncertainty as everyone else
IC Measurement Masterclass: Ditch Vanity Metrics to Prove Impact
Clicks, opens, and views might look impressive on a dashboard, but they don’t prove whether your communication made a difference. And that doesn’t cut it anymore. Today, especially in the age of AI, internal communicators who can’t demonstrate business impact risk seeing their value questioned by executive leadership. This 45-minute masterclass with Poppulo’s Senior Director of Communications, Andrew Hubbard, will show you how to move beyond vanity metrics and start measuring what really matters: outcomes that align with business goals and prove the strategic value of your internal communications role. Drawing on his leadership at Poppulo, partnerships with leading global companies, and senior comms experience at Rolls-Royce, Santander, and National Grid, Andrew will share hands-on strategies and tactics you can apply immediately to make that impact. What You’ll Learn Why vanity metrics (opens, clicks, views) fall short and what leaders actually care about Practical methods to measure outcomes: understanding, alignment, behavior change, business results How to link comms measurement directly to organizational goals Using internal benchmarks to track progress and demonstrate continuous improvement Quick-win tools like pre and post campaign surveys to capture impact What You’ll Take Away A framework to shift your measurement approach from outputs to outcomes Confidence to link communications directly to business priorities Inspiration from top organizations already proving their impact Practical steps you can apply immediately to strengthen your IC credibility This is your chance to gain the tools and confidence to demonstrate true impact and elevate your role, before AI forces the question.