AI Track Sessions Report Out | 2025 Page Up Annual Conference

Elizabeth Owen and Jordan Rittenberry lead attendees through summarizing the real-world examples and peer insights that they uncovered in 3 concurrent sessions in our AI track, helping attendees learn to ride the AI wave with confidence—and avoid the wipeouts that come with rushing in unprepared.

AI Track: Key Takeaways

The AI tracks' collective message was about confidence, clarity, and capability.
Rather than treating AI as a compliance issue, communicators should lead cultural adoption—arming employees with understanding, agency and a shared sense of purpose.

1. Empower, Don’t Police

• Shift from monitoring to enabling employees’ responsible AI use.
• Provide approved tools, clear guardrails, and encourage safe experimentation to reduce fear and shadow AI.
• Capture internal tips and turn them into a simple AI playbook that evolves with practice.
• Core idea: Confidence comes from competence—equip people, don’t restrict them.

2. Meet People Where They Are

• Recognize that different segments of the workforce experience AI differently.
  • Early adopters need challenge and depth.
  • Skeptics need reassurance and visible proof of safety.
  • Non-technical staff need tailored examples of relevance.
• Tailor messaging by function and comfort level; use segment-based comms instead of one-size-fits-all training.
• Credibility grows when leaders validate concerns and acknowledge uncertainty rather than overselling transformation.

3. Own the Narrative

• If leadership doesn’t clearly define why AI matters and what it means for employees, they’ll fill in the blanks themselves.
• Communicators must explain both the business rationale and the personal benefit of AI—what it enables for productivity, creativity, and skill growth.
• Sustained transparency, clear safety boundaries, and trusted internal champions build trust faster than hype.
• Practical action: ensure each message links AI back to values, purpose, and people, not just efficiency.

4. From Pilot to Proof

• Move beyond pilots that showcase novelty—prove business value.
• Set measurable goals for pilots (time saved, quality gains, cost reduction).
• Integrate with core comms metrics to demonstrate ROI to executives.
• Adopt a mindset of “prove, don’t just pilot.”

5. Build AI Literacy & Culture

• Make AI part of everyday work habits—normalize it through meeting norms (“How did AI prep this?”).
• Encourage every communicator to build fluency, not mastery.
• Create safe spaces for learning, peer demos, and “ask me anything” sessions.
• Success = widespread comfort and curiosity, not universal expertise.

6. Governance & Risk

• Maintain guardrails and approved environments to prevent data leaks and model misuse.
• Centralize AI agents and prompt libraries to avoid fragmentation.
• Address emerging risks in video generation, likeness use, and misinformation before they hit reputation.
• Publish and regularly update a one-page AI policy covering tool approval, PII, escalation, and brand protection.

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Bottom line:

Build trust through transparency, empower with tools and training, and make the story of AI adoption about people—not technology.

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Transcript

AI-generated, some errors may appear

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As we come back from the track sessions,
I think

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if you're like me, you probably wanted
to attend all three of them.

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I think they each had their unique,

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alignment on different places
that you were in your journey around AI.

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So we wanted to take a minute and hear
from a few of those people

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that were in the groups
on what they talked about,

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what they learned about,
and maybe share out a little bit.

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I was in the AI game plan

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for comms function,
and really everything we covered was vast.

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We started with where organizations
really start on their journey.

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We talked about how they get over
some of those internal hurdles

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and executives
that might not always buy in.

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We talked
about some of the hiring challenges

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of how we're looking
at talent differently.

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So I really enjoyed that
and want to ask, Dave and Natalie

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if they wanted to just share a little bit
about, sort of their takeaways.

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I think they're running a mic to you

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Yeah.

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Sorry.

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Great.

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Thanks, everyone.

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Yeah. Really wonderful conversation.

00:01:03:09 - 00:01:05:35
I think the first thing that I think
we really learned of, what,

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Natalie, that you're focused on
and what you've been

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successful in is really securing
that senior level buy in.

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You have a gen AI council,
where you're running everything

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by, that council sometimes getting yeses,
sometimes getting no's.

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But I think the lesson
there was the fact that there really

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you've secured senior level buy
in, which is incredibly important.

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And I think also a big challenge for
for all.

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That was one one, I think key
takeaway of how critical that is.

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Yeah.

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And and the other one,

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we discuss a lot of conversation around
was the workforce evolution.

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We don't have all the answers today.

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But and AI is not an option for most.

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And so we need to figure out how
to make sure that that's being considered.

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As we look at talent and upskilling,
because that

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really needs to be a requirement.

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And then also,

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the considerations
for those new capabilities,

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as you're looking at talent and new hires.

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And then I think the last,

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key takeaway that we had was,
don't just pilot.

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Prove it.

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So what we mean by that is it's important
to execute as many pilots as you can.

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Successful failure. That's okay.

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But make sure that you're measuring them

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against that, business
objective that you really focused on.

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Really use the language
of executives, of your executives,

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and their business objectives
so that we can actually show

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what is successful,
what is not successful, and why.

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So those are a couple couple key
takeaways.

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Awesome. Thank you guys. Thank you.

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I went to the, persona workshop.

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And again, it was one of those things
where was incredibly engaged.

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We talked about everything from, you know,

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different use cases, you know,
how can you create these?

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What are some of the use cases?

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I just said that
I think I'm getting tired. Sorry, friends.

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Ethical considerations.

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The impact of,
like, Kurt on critical thinking.

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And what is the role that this plays?

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And I think
that it was one of those things

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where many of us were like, I know about,
how do I do it?

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Like, what is next?

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So I anticipate, we'll have
a lot more conversations on that.

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But can I ask somebody either
one of the presenters or somebody that,

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also participated in that session

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to share with us
a couple of the key takeaways and

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what you heard

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looking at this table right here.

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Just because you guys were

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chatty.

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You can call on your panelists.

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So yeah.

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So I let the the conversation around.

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I personas
and it was a really rich conversation.

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And again, we're all still in that early
stage of how we use it and, and apply it.

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And so I was fortunate
enough to have three,

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really knowledgeable individuals
talk through.

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And, and so there's some key takeaways.

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One, building out these,
synthetic audiences.

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I really like when he was saying
that Mike was saying that,

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good data going in
and to create these realistic,

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personas
to use them to benchmark messaging,

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to help with some early decision
making that

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that was a really big one.

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Also,

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Deborah talked about,
you know, using it internally,

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to start to benchmark how to best engage
employees and that, that kind of thing.

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So there was some good,
good conversation there.

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We also talked about agents,

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and I don't see Michael Kissel
as Michael Kissel in the role.

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He may not be in the room.

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Oh there he is.

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But really a real good discussion
around the rise of AI agents

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and how we're going to use them
and how that applies to comms.

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And we talked through,
you know, do you have an assistant?

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Something happens overnight.

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Does that AI agent
draft a message for you?

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Draft a strategy for you.

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So when you come in in the morning,
it's all it's a first draft.

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You don't use it, but it's a first draft.

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So some really interesting things
around application around it.

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And so good discussion.

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So there's there's so much more
we talked about. We went over time.

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But that's all I can remember right now.
Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you John.

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And did anyone attend the
the final session on Geo.

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And where we are
the new rules of reputation.

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Did anyone attend
that that wants to share out.

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We'll be shy late in the day

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I spoke.

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Perfect. Please.

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Yeah.

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Love it.

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Hey, guys.

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So. Yeah, we talked about GEO, which,
if you haven't heard about it, it's

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basically just, you know, people
are talking in ChatGPT right now, right?

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Actually,
this very minute around the world

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and they're talking
about all of our brands.

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Our brands are being mentioned by ChatGPT.

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So how does it know what it knows?

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That's kind of what we talked about.

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I shared a stat that said,
there was a study just a couple months ago

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that said, I think about 68%,
if I remember offhand, of Americans

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have said that when making a purchase,
they have consulted an AI somewhere

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in making the purchase.
So this is a real phenomenon.

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People are consulting with these
AI systems to learn about brands.

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We talked about how,
the way that these AI systems get

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their information is oftentimes
through earned media or owned media.

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We talked about how,

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you know, they have preferences
towards some types of journalists,

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some types of media outlets,
some types of, press release wires.

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We talked about how,
some of the press release wires

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are more open to being crawled and cited,
which for us, for our brands

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is is a good thing.

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We want these press releases
to be crawled.

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So an actionable step
was to, talk to your newswire

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and ask them if they are open
to being crawled by ChatGPT

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and make them prove to you

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that they are being crawled by ChatGPT,
because that's to all of our net benefit.

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And then a couple of other resources
were shared

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on, like, you know, actionable steps
you can do to check that your own website

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is well structured
for being cited by ChatGPT

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and how you might study like
which journalists or which media outlets

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kind of in your niche
are the ones that ChatGPT is listening to.

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Awesome.

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Thank you and I appreciate everyone

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for being a part of those sessions
and sharing so much.

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With that, we're going to shift
into our final session of the day.