COFFEE AND REGISTRATION

OPENING REMARKS BY CONFERENCE CHAIR

ROSS MONAGHAN
Public Affairs AI Lecturer, Deakin University

From promise to practice: how AI tools are actually being used

• Which regions are leading, and which are lagging, in uptake
• The inevitable next stage: from experiment to infrastructure
• Winners and losers in the AI-driven communications race

KATRIN MAURER
Head of Communications, Google

● How the foundations comms teams rely on, content strategy, brand voice and audience understanding, shape more consistent and reliable AI outputs, driving efficiency in our work
● The role of comms in AI delivery, exploring AI assistants and chatbots as communications channels that carry an organisation’s voice and reputation in every interaction.

HOST:

ANGELA CLOWRY
Director, Ernst & Young

HOLLY BADIOR
Assistant Director, Digital Atlas of Australia Delivery

● When speed outpaces verification: the crisis-communications dilemma
● Using predictive analytics to get ahead of disaster narratives
● Coordinating multiple agencies without producing chaos
● Balancing urgency with accuracy in public warnings

HOST:

MELANIE GIBBONS
Communications Director, ELM Communications

DEANNA EMMS
Assistant Director of Communications and Publishing, Parliamentary Library

10:40 NETWORKING BREAK & REFRESHMENTS

● How to adapt to the relentless change of the next two years
● Determining which resources are of value to help discern future direction
● The new role of trust in building strategies
● Practical uses of AI in current innovative coms

MODERATOR:

ROSS MONAGHAN
Public Affairs AI Lecturer, Deakin University

PANEL MEMBERS:

CRAIG THOMLER
Senior Business Analyst & AI Whisperer, Icon Water

JOEL WYSE
Communications Lead, AI Delivery, Department of Finance

LAURA JIEW
Marketing Communications Manager, Innovations, CSIRO

Large Language Models and their answers are becoming a critical reputational blind spot, yet existing communication measurement methodologies still haven’t been able to quantify their impact.
Join Amrita Sidhu as she unveils the methodology and learnings from Medianet’s pioneering Australian market first research on Generative Citation Analysis; a new service concept designed to bring the rigour of media analysis to this "black box" and gain a foundational understanding of how to measure an organisation's footprint in this emerging and influential channel.
In partnership with some of Australia’s leading brands such as Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, RACV and Victorian Govt,, this research aims to unlock the opportunity to interpretand identify the sources, narratives and sentiment surfaced by GenAI.

Key session takeaways for attendees:

● A framework for the black box: Learn about Medianet’s evolving methodology for brand measurement and analysis in unpredictable LLM environments.
● Unpacking the influencers of LLM outputs: Discover how we analysed citations informing LLM responses to understand what kinds of content and information has the most influence over a brand’s LLM visibility.
● Take control of your LLM reputation: See how our award winning framework can help you unpack the levers that your brand reputation and prominence in LLM responses, and that of your competitors - in LLM responses - and that of competitors. Actionable takeaways for the GenAI future: Tips and tricks for Public Affairs and Communication professionals on navigating LLM measurement using Medianet’s methodology.

AMRITA SIDHU
Member Board of Directors, AMEC & MD Medianet

12:30 NETWORKING LUNCH

● How to spot a genuine AI opportunity (and ignore the hype)
● Making integration work in the messy reality of government IT
● Why internal capability beats reliance on external vendors
● Measuring outcomes in more than just ‘likes’ and ‘clicks

CRAIG THOMLER
Senior Business Analyst & AI Whisperer, Icon Water

The way public communication is delivered hasn’t changed, but the way it’s received has. Increasingly, audiences are not engaging directly with original content, they are turning to AI systems like ChatGPT to interpret information, ask questions, and decide what to do next.

This shift affects all public-facing organisations, from government and emergency services to research, environment and community sectors, where communication is expected to be clear, accurate and trusted.

This session examines what happens when your message is no longer read directly, but summarised and reframed by a system. A live case study will show how accurate, consistent communication can still fail to provide clarity, guidance, or reassurance once interpreted.

It will provide a practical framework for designing communication that works not just at the point of publication, but at the point of interpretation.

CELIA HARDING
Founder, LEOPRD

This session explores how data-driven insights from the frontier of global innovation can be directly applied to public sector communications. We will cover three key areas:

● Mapping the Frontiers of AI: Introducing the Cosmos framework published in Nature's Scientific Data to map the complex AI landscape.

● Exclusive Data Previews: Get an advance look at the new Momentum 100 index of the world's hottest technologies, paired with our new Australian AI Diffusion Index to show which technologies are gaining the most real-world traction both globally and locally.

● The Science of Startups: Our Oxford University research on 21,000 global startups reveals that team personality and diversity predict success up to 5x more than product-market fit. We will apply these lessons to building agile, high-performing government communications teams.

PAUL X MCCARTHY
CEO, Research Leader, League of Scholars

15:00 NETWORKING AND REFRESHMENTS

PRERECORDED SESSION
● The danger of eroding human judgement through over-automation
● Where authenticity cannot be convincingly faked
● The limits of machine empathy in public messaging
● Cultural nuance as a final frontier for AI

PIA ANDREWS
Senior Policy Advisor, Innovation and Digital,UNDP, Bangkok

● AI literacy as a baseline skill, not a specialist niche
● Structuring teams to move at the speed of technology
● Change management without the buzzword bingo
● Setting realistic priorities in an environment of constant novelty

MODERATOR:

ROSS MONAGHAN
Public Affairs AI Lecturer, Deakin University

PANEL MEMBERS:

LAURA JIEW
Marketing Communications Manager, Innovations, CSIRO

DEANNA EMMS
Assistant Director of Communications and Publishing,Parliamentary Library

PAUL X MCCARTHY
CEO, Research Leader, League of Scholars

● The murky trade-offs between speed, accuracy, and fairness
● How to handle machine-made mistakes in the court of public opinion
● Creating frameworks that survive political turnover
● Why the hardest ethical calls will involve grey areas, not clear lines

ROSS MONAGHAN
Public Affairs AI Lecturer, Deakin University

17:10 CLOSE OF DAY ONE
17:10 – 18:10 NETWORKING DRINKS