Katie Clift, founder of may:be agency and Gay Flashman, founder of Formative, share five key takeaways from the Inaugural Comms Lunch Club Roundtable in London.

In today’s fast-moving landscape, the need for senior communications leaders to connect, collaborate and shape strategic approaches across PR, content, digital and marketing has never been more critical.

That’s what inspired us – as Founders of may:be and Formative – to co-host the first in a new series of invitation-only roundtables for senior comms leaders in London.

The inaugural Comms Lunch Club took place earlier this month at Soho House in London under Chatham House rules, bringing together 12 cross-sector communications experts from public and private sectors, spanning PR, marketing, strategy and content.

Here, we share five key takeaways and insights from that conversation – a look at what’s keeping top communicators up at night and how we can come together to future-proof the industry.

1. Fear has become a dominant driver of communications strategy.

From the debate on DEI to the relevance of the climate change narrative and integrating sustainability reporting into communications, most of us around the table cited fear as an underlying driving force – no matter the topic – on what organisations and brands are choosing to communicate about publicly.

A common experience across nonprofits and private sector brands was the fear of putting a foot wrong with commentary on equity and inclusion or sustainability practices. Many organisations are pushing to ‘play it safe’, — but that could hold them back from bold, innovative comms and PR strategies, leading to messaging that feels generic, clichéd and forgettable over time.

Those that do the hard yards to strike the balance between being proactively bold as a brand, but not overstepping the mark, will come out as winners. 

2. AI is here, but has a long way to go.

All of us around the table could share personal tangible experiences of ‘AI in practice’ across various platforms – from social media to PR pitching, generation of content and creation of strategy – and there was a shared emphasis that – although the technology is here and impacting us, our clients and teams already – it still has a long way to go.

Current applications can be clunky, copy generation is less-than-perfect and still requires a lot of manual tailoring, but the development in deep search and how it can impact both communications strategy and content development is impressive.

Distinguishing between the human element in comms and generative AI will be key to ensuring trust and transparency now and into the future.

How exactly that should be done remains a topic of ongoing conversation and will vary across platforms. But the consensus in the room was that it’s critical, in tandem with the need for communicators to continue to upskill and reskill. Many of us around the table were ex-journalists (across print, broadcast, social and digital), and there was an echoing of the need for broader skillsets to future-proof careers in the context of the rise of AI technology.

3. Geopolitics is dominating the global narrative, making it harder to cut through.

The ongoing turbulent geopolitical landscape and trade wars are dominating headlines – not only across traditional media (TV, print and radio) but digital, new and social media. The lack of time and space across platforms is making our job as communicators and PRs harder – and we discussed the need to reframe client expectations on cut-through and coverage.

Niche, trade publications will become more relevant to specific industries and messaging as mainstream media becomes ever-more crowded with geopolitical noise. We also noted the rapid trend of listeners and viewers shifting from old-school media absorption to the new (think: TV and radio to podcasts, and users moving from X to Substack, or just giving up socials altogether), meaning a pressing need for innovative strategies to achieve desired results.

4. Face-to-face human connection is severely underrated. 

We all came away from the lunch more convinced that face-to-face, human connection has become severely underrated.

None of our attendees had crossed paths before the lunch, giving way to an underlying theme throughout our conversation of the incredibly positive impact of being connected in person with new people, the obvious effects of COVID, rise in ongoing remote work and unfortunate lack of growth of industry networks in recent years.

Prioritising in-person events to build camaraderie among staff and teams was highlighted as an uphill struggle for many leaders to manage, but also a necessity, and the importance of pushing to be face-to-face to meet, pitch and show value to new clients was highlighted. Many people agreed more events like our roundtable lunch were necessary to bring together likeminded, smaller-knit communities to facilitate true and deeper connection.

5. The future of comms is dependent on small communities of purpose.

We believe the future of communications is bright – not the least because of intimate connection opportunities like this first Chatham House Comms Lunch Club roundtable.