Transcript for The Corporate Digital Communications Index Snapshot 2025 webinar

Return to the Index Snapshot page to view the recording and download the report.

[Screen shows a slide with the event title: The Corporate Digital Communications Index Snapshot 2025. Now is the time: A blueprint for the future of corporate digital communications. A speaker thumbnail shows the current live speaker throughout. Liv Cadalbert is a young white woman with dark hair which is tied back] 

Liv Cadalbert   Hello and welcome to today's webinar about the 2025 edition of the Corporate Digital Communications Index Snapshot by Bowen Craggs. The Index Snapshot is our annual publication, and as the name implies, we look at the Bowen Craggs Index, but at a moment in time, and who the current leaders are right now. 

We also look beyond the top 10 companies in the Index, at which companies have been innovating the most over the past 12 months, and also what trends have been shaping the world of corporate digital comms, and especially the jobs of corporate communicators. 

My name is Liv Cadalbert, I'm Head of Events at Bowen Craggs, and it is my pleasure to be hosting you today. 

Joining me soon, or already on the call now, is Scott Payton, CEO and Senior Consultant at Bowen Craggs, and Caterina Sorenti, who is our Head of Editorial and Senior Consultant. They will be taking us through the presentation today, but before handing over to them in just a minute, I wanted to let you know that we have a Q&A chat function here, so there will be time for your questions at the end of this meeting. You can drop them in the Q&A chat as we move through today's session, and I will moderate them at the end. 

And I also wanted to let you know that today's meeting is being recorded and will be published on the Bowen Craggs website, bowencraggs.com. But now enough from me, and I'm really happy to welcome Scott and Caterina on. 

[Scott Payton and Caterina Sorenti replace Liv in the speaker thumbnail. Scott is a white man with very short hair and beard, wearing glasses. He is sitting beside Caterina, a young white woman with long caramel-coloured hair]

Scott Payton   Thank you Liv and hello everybody, and thank you all so much for joining us this morning slash afternoon slash evening.  

Right, so before we reveal the world's best companies for corporate digital communications right now and go through our blueprint for the future of online communications, we wanted to start by setting the scene, highlighting the big trends that we believe are shaping the lives of everybody in communications here in 2025. 

And no prizes for guessing what the first of these trends is. Yes, you've guessed it. It's artificial intelligence. 

[Screen shows a cartoon with a call and response over eight panels. Line one, one person to the left asks “Who are we?”; three people to the right reply “CEOs”. Line two, the person on the left asks “What do we want?”, right respond “AI!”. Line 3: Person on the left asks “AI to do what?”; right respond: ‘We don’t know!”. Line 4: Person on the left asks “When do we want it?”, crowd on the right respond: “RIGHT NOW!”]

And I saw this. This cartoon caught my eye on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, and I think it resonates with a lot of people in all departments right now, including corporate communications, because chief executives across the land want you to use AI to make miracles, even if chief executives are not always completely sure what sort of miracles they want you to make with AI.  

[Screen shows a headline: “CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs. Ford chief predicts AI will replace “literally half of all white-collar workers”] 

The other thing that chief executives are putting communications teams under a lot of pressure to do is to use AI to do more with less, and to use the one of the euphemisms of the year, to make operational efficiencies with artificial intelligence. And that often includes using AI to do more with fewer people, so a lot of anxiety as well as excitement about AI and its potential implications for the future of of our jobs, as well as our lives, our professional lives. 

[Screen shows another headline: “The 60% Problem – How AI Search Is Draining Your Traffic”]

Now, the other thing that AI is doing at the moment is it's triggered a big debate in the communications industry and also the technology sector, about what AI search means for future traffic to your company's web presence, because if people are increasingly getting answers to questions about your company from ChatGPT or Perplexity or Google AI mode, are they actually going to bother to click through to your company's website anymore? So that's a big question too.  

And we have some answers. We do have some answers about that, and it is more positive than this headline suggests.  

So, AI is big trend number one shaping the communications landscape run right now.  

[Screen shows a chart titled “The meteoric rise of TikTok: Number of select active social network users worldwide (in millions)”(June 2022 estimates/ Projections from 2023 to 2025. Source: Statista Advertising and Media Outlook). The chart shows Facebook at the top of the list, followed by TikTok from a very low base in 2017 to more than 2000m users in 2025]

So, trend number two is all about social media and how social media habits are transforming at the moment. 

We're seeing the meteoric rise in popularity of short form video through TikTok and YouTube shorts and other channels and me and Caterina, we went to see Nick Clegg do a talk in London a few weeks ago. Nick Clegg is the former president of Global Affairs at Meta, and also former Deputy Prime minister of Britain before that. And Nick Clegg said, social media isn't that social anymore, and the big social platforms are now essentially competing as mass entertainment feeds, awash with synthetic content. So, changes in social media is our kind of second big trend that we wanted to flag up as really kind of changing the corporate communications landscape at the moment. 

And trend number three is ongoing, deepening cultural and geopolitical shifts. 

[Screen shows a picture of President Trump addressing the UN]

Now, President Trump on Tuesday last week, went to the United Nations Headquarters in New York and gave a speech to the General Assembly, the UN General Assembly, and he declared that, and I quote almost exactly, he said, “…climate change was the biggest con job ever in the world”. And there were gasps in the room and that kind of, really, it was a kind of stark reminder of wider, deepening, strident disagreement and polarisation among your stakeholders about what companies like yours should and shouldn't be saying on their online channels about topics like diversity and inclusion, climate change and other social and environmental and ethical issues. 

[Screen shows three headlines: “Paramount Pulls Back on D.E.I Policies”, “The F.C.C Is Pressuring Companies to Drop D.E.I. It’s Succeeding, Too.”, “It Isn’t Just the U.S. The Whole World Has Soured on Climate Politics.”]

And right now, as we speak, we're seeing a US government shutdown, which again, is a result of a bitter and polarised debate about the role of governments in society, and that's kind of reflecting the bitter and polarised debate about the role of companies in society and what they should be communicating about. 

[Screen shows a slide that reads: “A new epoch in corporate digital communications is beginning”]

So, the upshot of all of these shifts, all of these trends, is, and I genuinely believe this, that we are right now, here in early October 2025, we are the dawn of a new age in corporate digital communications. A new age is just beginning. 

I started my career in 1998 and it's crystal clear to me that corporate communications is changing right now, more quickly and profoundly than any other time since the birth of the web in the 1990s.  

[Screen shows a slide that reads: “The role of the corporate website as the “mothership of truth” has never been more important”]

And the good news for anybody involved in online corporate communications, corporate digital communications is, as a result of all this, AI search and related trends, the role of your corporate web presence as the "mothership of truth" about all relevant topics related to your business, genuinely has never been more important than it is now, and it's going to continue to rise in importance as we go into 2026. 

I was having a conversation with clients in the US just last week, and they work for one of America's biggest brands, household name, one of America's biggest companies. And she said: I've been working in corporate communications for more than 20 years and she's never known the senior executive team at her company more interested in the corporate website as they are right now. The corporate senior leadership team is more interested in the corporate website now than they ever have been before, and so they should be. 

So, what you do has never been more important, more strategically important for your business.  

[Screen shows a slide that reads: “But corporate web and social channels must transform to succeed in 2026 – and beyond”]

But as we move in towards 2026 as a result of AI search and other trends, it's clear that corporate web and social channels, they must transform if they're going to thrive and succeed to meet your company's objectives next year and beyond, and we're going to give you a blueprint for what you should be doing to achieve this in just a moment, but first I'll leave Caterina to give the big reveal.

[Screen shows a slide that reads: “The Index leaders”]

Caterina Sorenti   Okay, so it's the moment I hope you've all been waiting for, especially if you're Bowen Craggs clients. If you're not, I'm super excited to introduce you to our Index leaders for 2025. 

So, all year, we've been busy benchmarking and reviewing at Bowen Craggs and having a look at your corporate web estates and your social media channels. And we've compiled this definitive Snapshot of what the best, the very best, looks like in corporate digital communications right now. 

Just for some context, the Bowen Craggs Index of Corporate Digital Communications ranks and rates the effectiveness of the 100 biggest companies and their corporate web estates, according to Forbes. 

[Screen shows a slide titled “Index leaders as of September 2025. Top scores out of a possible 280 points across eight metrics”. A thumbnail of the homepage of each site, along with the score and rank, appears as Caterina announces each position.]

So here they are: 

• at 10th place, we have Nordea at 211 points. 
• Next, we have Aramco at ninth place, sitting at 213 points. 
• We have a joint seventh place this year with HSBC and Verizon at 215 points. 
• A triple fourth place, which is slightly unusual, but hence, we have Aviva, BP and Unilever all sitting on 219 points. 

Moving on to the top three…

• So we have GSK. GSK are at third place with 226. 
• And we have joint first. So we have Bosch and Nestle, who have topped the index this year at 229 points. So a huge congratulations to both. 

In particular, Bosch, it's their first time top of the Index, and that's owing to constant innovation changes, listening to stakeholders and the general drive of the Bosch team. So big congratulations. 

And Nestlé has been an industry forerunner for a very, very long time, so it's no surprise to see them hitting the top spot. 

[Screen shows a view of the Bowen Craggs Corporate Digital Communications Index Snapshot 2025 top 10. The ten companies Caterina noted are listed down the left, with their overall score, logo and company name. The table then sets out their scores for each of eight headline metrics: Construction, Message, Contact, Society, Investors, Media, Jobseekers and employees, and Customers.]

Here it is in full.  

So, if you are a Bowen Craggs client, you will be familiar with this. This is the live Index. It's on our Hub, and it sets out all 120 companies that are in the Index. Alongside their scores, you can also find lots of best practice. It's a real treasure trove, and you can see at the top, it's indexed according to our eight main methodology benchmarking. So this is construction, message, investors, media. These are all the stakeholder groups and all the metrics we look at when reviewing. So to crack the top 10, you have to be constantly keeping up with the latest developments in the industry, listening to your stakeholders, what they're saying, their feedback, of course, and setting best practice organically. 

[Screen shows a slide that reads: “Lessons from the leaders”]

Let's talk through some inspiration that you can take from our leaders this year. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Bosch. Coherence, consistency and clarity – without compromising creativity, innovation and personality”. There is a screengrab of the #LikeABosch landing page, which features quirky imagery linking to an article about the Internet of Things, along with a panle of links to a selection of content under the heading “Podcast and blogs”]

So from Bosch. Bosch manages to achieve coherence, consistency and clarity, but the amazing thing is, the company manages to do it without compromising creativity, innovation and personality. It's a difficult feat to achieve, but they do it, and they do it really, really well. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Nestlé. A carefully crafted reputation management machine – refined for the AI search age. A screengrab from the site shows a grid of colourful blocks leading to information including “How do you ensure human rights are respected throughout your value chain?” An image of a tap with the heading “Does Peter Brabeck-Letmathe believe that water is a human right?”, and “How is Nestlé sourcing palm oil in Malaysia?”]

Nestlé started tackling difficult topics head on in a dedicated section of its global site many years ago, and this visionary move is really paying off in the age of AI search. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: GSK. Fresh and impactful across web and social channels – with excellent service for key stakeholders. The screenshot shows panels illustrated with quality images of a range of different people under the heading “Behind the science. Discover how we’re getting ahead”. Headlines include “Finding the right treatment for my asthma and nasal polyps has transformed my life. I hope my experience can help others achieve the same.” And “Long-acting therapies are no longer the future of HIV treatment – they are the now.”]

GSK uses its digital estate really well to explain the company and serve a wide range of stakeholders, including investors. Employees are also front and centre too, so adding that element of personalisation and GSK are also optimised for the AI search era, purely because they are continually providing human visitors with memorable experiences.

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Meet your newest and most influential stakeholder”]

Scott   Yeah, thank you, Caterina. And congratulations to everybody, all companies in the top 10. And if you're a Bowen Craggs client, as Caterina says, do log into the Bowen Craggs Hub to see our insights and analysis of all 120 companies in our Index, because there's inspiration to be found and best practice to be learned from far deeper than the overall leaders. So do dig in, because it is, as Caterina says, it's a treasure trove of inspiration and ideas in this fast changing area.  

But for now, let's turn to our first theme, AI and its impact on search, and what you should be doing about it. So one of the big trends this year has been the massive increase in AI search, increase in traffic to websites made up from by AI search bots.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Artificual intelligence is fuelling the rise of bots that now make up more than half of global internet traffic. Source: Imperva Bad Bot Report 2025”]

So there's lots of data like this, which shows that now more than half of all traffic to your company's website is likely to be made up from AI search bots. So, it's the search bots that ChatGPT and Google AI mode and Perplexity and DeepSeek are sending to your site to evaluate whether the content you're providing on your web presence is useful enough, is trustworthy enough, is relevant enough to be sources for AI search answers. 

So this is really, really important. So it's time, it is really time to get to know your newest and most influential stakeholder. 

And at Bowen Craggs, we have been for many years, we've been producing personas, audience personas, to determine, to highlight and identify, what is an investor looking for when they visit your website? What are their goals? What are their frustrations? What makes them happy? What makes them cross? And all of these personas, we've got personas for different types of investor, different types of journalists, different types of job seeker, different types of customer, and so on, and they're all based on the data we've harvested from our website visitor research service. So we run surveys on many of the world's largest corporate websites, and we've got more than 1.6 million real responses from real website visitors to produce these personas.  

[Screen shows a slide with an image of the new persona titled “AI search bot/crawler/agent” The persona sets out Behaviours, Goals, Barriers and Access Points for the persona over a number of bullet points on a dense page.]

And if you're a Bowen Craggs clients, you can download those personas from the Bowen Craggs Hub, but we've just created a brand new persona, and the persona is to identify and highlight what exactly AI search bots are looking for when they come to your site. So, if you're a client, do log into the Hub and download the full persona. 

But just to highlight now some of the things in it…

[Screen shows an overlay on the persona image pulling out “Behaviours: * Ignores visuals unless tagged (alt text schema)]

…it's got it highlights, things like AI search bot behaviours. So for example, AI search bots can't see so unless your visual content is tagged using alt text and schema, unless your videos have thorough text descriptions, that visual content is going to be invisible in AI search. So that's one example.  

[An additional overlay panel reads “Goals: * Identify evidence-based case studies, testimonials, product specifications and other information it cannot generate independently”]

What are AI search box trying to achieve? What are their goals when they visit your company's site, or they're primarily they're looking for things crunchy, hard, specific information that they don't already know, that isn't already a part of their training models, so things like case studies, testimonials, product specifications, and that other unique specific information is the kind of thing that is going to be feeding the AI search beast, and increasing the likelihood that if people ask AI search, AI chat bots questions about your company, it's going to be your content, rather than content from third parties, sources outside your control, that is going to feed the answer. So, it's all about kind of owning the truth about your company. 

[A third overlay panel reads: “Barriers: * Complex site navigation or orphan pages.”]

And just a quick example of what makes an AI search bot cross. Can AI search bots be cross? I think so. It's things like complex site navigation, orphan pages is a real hurdle for AI search bots. And at Bowen Craggs, we've been evangelising about the importance of clear, intuitive navigation as a cornerstone for good usability and ensuring high levels of goal achievement for human website visitors. AI search really kind of turbo charges the value and importance of clear and intuitive navigation.

So just a little flavour of the kind of things that's in our new AI search bot persona, but just to kind of give some examples of what AI search optimisation looks like in practice. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “How to optimise your digital channels for AI search”]

What practical things can you do on your web presence to increase the likelihood that if people ask questions about your company using AI search tools, it's your content that's going to be going to be the source of the answers. So so-called GEO, Generative Engine Optimisation. So just wanted to give you some good practice best practice examples, real life examples from real corporate websites.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Bayer. Lots of FAQs across the global website”. A screengrab shows the Bayer Clinical Trials FAW page, with expanding panels to access answers to a range of questions such as “Who sponsors clinical trials?” and “How are participants protected?”]

Bayer, the German multinational company, great example of effective use of the humble FAQ. So FAQs, stocking your web presence with relevant, clear, detailed, clearly worded answers to real quick common questions that people are asking about your company. This is catnip for AI search tools, because it's providing exactly what they're looking for. Because essentially, people are using AI search tools to ask questions. So if you pose those questions on your web presence and answer them clearly, that's going to drive AI search visibility. So lots and lots of FAQs is a good idea. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “TotalEnergies. Clear, country-specific company information” The screenshot shows an excerpt from and AI Mode search results page. The heading is “What does TotalEnergies do in France”. The top paragraph reads “TotalEnergies operates as {highlighted} a major energy producer and supplier {end of highlight} in France across various sections, including traditional and renewable energies and related services. Here’s a breakdown of hteir activities…”]

Another example from TotalEnergies, the French energy company, and this is an example of the power and value of clear, detailed, global as well as country-specific information about what your company actually does in different parts of the world. 

So we've asked in this example, Google's AI mode: What does TotalEnergies do in France? 

[The initial slide now has an overlay showing the “References” panel from the AI Mode search results, listing three reference web pages, all on TotalEnergies.com. As Scott continues talking, a screenshot of one of these pages – “TotalEnergies in Metropolitan France” – is added to the slide]

Here's the AI answer, but very pleasingly for TotalEnergies, this next screenshot shows the sources that Google is using to drive this AI answer. And as you can see, all three of the of the top sources, top citations are from totalenergies.com, from their own channels. And that's because on totalenergies.com there's lots and lots of very, very clear and specific and detailed and useful plain language information about TotalEnergies' operations, in this case, in in France. 

So I think a wider trend here, kind of a theme feeding through, one of the one of the secret sauces to GEO, to AI search optimisation, it's really to ensure that you provide rich detailed information about all aspects of your company. 

There has been a trend in online corporate communications over the last, I guess, five years or so, going back to the chief executives' enthusiasm for operational efficiencies. Lots of companies have fell under pressure to kind of, really strip back detailed content on their web presence, and a kind of less is more approach, because it's obviously, it's cheaper, a minimalistic approach to content. But that's a really bad idea in the age of AI search. So more relevant detailed content is the key. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Nestle. Use the language of your critics”. The screenshot shows just a Google search bar with the search phrase “nestle boycott”]

Another example, good practice example of high AI search visibility from our joint number one, Nestle, is to really answer difficult questions, answer all common questions about your company, including difficult ones, using the language of your critics on your web presence. So here we've googled Nestle boycott, and this is a Google AI overview answer providing information about a Nestle boycott, which started in 1977… 

[A subsequent screenshot on the same slide shows an AI Overview “A Nestle boycott {highlighted} refers to the long0running activism, particularly the one launched in 1977 and coordinated by Baby Milk Action, aimed at pressuring the company to end its alleged unethical business practices, most notably the aggressive marketing of infant formula in developing countries that discouraged breastfeeding.{end of highlight}. While the boycott has been suspended and renewed over the years and focused initially on baby food, it has also targeted other aspects of Nestle’s operations, including labour standards and environmental impact”]

…and Nestle is one of the top three sources feeding this aren't feeding this answer.  

[A further screenshot shows the top sources: Why the Nestlé boycott continues from the Baby Milk Action site, 1977 Nestlé boycott from Wikipedia, and Why was a Nestlé boygott launched? From Nestlé Global]

So it's part of the debate. You know, it's part of the conversation. It's kind of it's ensuring that its version of the truth looms large in the version of the truth that is being fed to people through AI, and that's because on nestle.com, as Caterina says…

[A fourth screenshot on the same slide shows the “Why was a Nestlé boycott launched?” page on the Nestle site. The clip shows two subheadings: Why was a Nestlé boycott launched? And Why was the US boycott dropped? Copy under each explains briefly, with links to further information.]

…for many years, Nestle has positioned its global web presence as the mothership of truth about all relevant topics related to the business, including tricky issues like boycotts, maybe issues that in some companies, the senior leadership team wouldn't necessarily want to crawl over broken glass to shout about on the web, on the website. But on nestle.com there's a great question here: “Why was a Nestle boycott launched?” with a nice, clear answer, and importantly, this answer, I'm not sure if you can see it on your screens, but there's links in this answer to the World Health Organisation and other trustworthy third party sources. 

So this kind of thing, you know, sends high trust signals to AI search box that this is legitimate. This is authoritative information, driving AI search visibility.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Hydro. The “mothership of truth” on aluminium”. Again, a Google Search box is shown, with the search term “How is aluminium made”]

Another example now from Hydro, the aluminium manufacturer, and Hydro wants to be the "mothership of truth." It wants to be the definitive authority online about the process of making aluminium. Why aluminium is valuable. 

[The AI Overview panel is now shown beneath the search box. It reads “Aluminium is made {highlighted text} through a three-stage electrolytic process starting with the mining of bauxite ore, which is then refined into alumina (aluminium oxide) using the Bayer process. Finally, the alumina is smelted via the Hall-Héroult process by passing a powerful electric current through it while dissolved in molten cryolite, producing nearly pure liquid aluminium”{end of highlight}]

So, if you Google, how is aluminium made? Here's the AI overview answer, and the top source for this question, and this question is not about Hydro. 

[Overlay of the top three sources for the answer has Norsk Hydro at the top, with a page titled “How aluminium is made”. The screen goes on to show a page on the Hydro site titled “Facts about aluminium” with a whole sub-section menu to the left detailing a wealth of information including Why aluminium, Aluminium recycling, Renewable power and aluminium and more]

How is aluminium made? Nothing to do with Hydro, but because Hydro's web presence is packed with clear, engaging, informative information about aluminium, it's highly rated among AI search tools as a kind of source for answers. So again, there's a lot of this about, a lot of lessons here about just really the importance of value, and value of high quality, well targeted, strategically, targeted editorial content. 

This is one of the, that's one of the keys to GEO success. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “McDonald’s. Telling jobseekers what they really want to know”. The screenshot shows a Google search box with the search “benefits of working at mcdonald’s”]

Final good practice example about AI search optimisation from McDonald's. If you ask chat bots, is Company X a good company, a good place to work? Is Company X a good employer? It's often the case that the AI search answer is driven by glassdoor.com and indeed.com, doesn't tend to be – corporate websites tend to struggle with being a highly rated source or citation for that kind of question. 

Not so for McDonald's, because if you google benefits of working at McDonald's, as we did, there's an AI overview answer here, and the top three sources for this AI answer are McDonald's website. 

[The AI Overview panel is now shown. The first paragraph reads “Working at McDonald’s offers benefits like {highlighted text} flexible schedules, meal discounts, and opportunities for training and career progression {end of highlight}. Employees can also received support for their education through programs like Tuition Matching…”. As Scott talks, another overlay shows the sources, all three from the McDonald’s site: Benefits – McDonald’s Careers; Corporate Careers at McDonald’s; and What benefits do McDonald’s employees receive?.
The final overlay shows a page on the McDonald’s site titled “What benefits do McDonald’s employees receive?”]

In this case, it's the UK website and some global stuff too, because on McDonald's web presence, once again, it frames common questions, “What benefits do McDonald's employees receive?” really kind of AI search friendly and provides clear and detailed, clear and detailed answer to that question. 

So this is the kind of thing that you should be investing in and doing in and persuading the senior executive team to provide budget for and a mandate for, if you're going to win the battle for the truth in the AI search age. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “And what to avoid…”]

And just to hammer home this point with a bad, well, with what not to do, and apologies in advance if…  

[Overlay shows a Google search box with the phrase “is citigroup’s risk management flawed”. As Scott talks the AI overview panel is revealed, followed by the top sources panel which sites The Protecht Group, CG Regulatory Solutions.com and the Bank of England.]

…I'm sure Citigroup has an amazing web presence in many ways. But we googled, “is Citigroup's risk management flawed?” And you get this. 

This is the AI overview answer, which starts with: “Yes. Citigroup's Risk Management has been widely described as flawed…”. And the key point here is, these on the right there, there's the three highest citations of sources that are driving this answer: Bank of England, Protecht Group, but Citigroup's web presence, Citigroup channels, web channels, social channels, they're nowhere to be seen here in terms of citations and sources, and that's because AI search bots, have concluded that there isn't the relevant authoritative content on this, on this topic, on this difficult topic, on Citigroup's web presence, so they've gone elsewhere. 

So, I think that kind of really kind of powerfully highlights the risks of not investing in well targeted editorial content.

[Screen shows a slide titled: “On-site AI search – lessons from the pioneers”]

Caterina   Okay, so let's take the AI search from the external to the internal. 

So, we're increasingly seeing the rise of the on site AI search, an internal search tool that's designed to surface information quickly, efficiently and often accompanied by an AI overview. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Do visitors want AI on corporate sites?”. As Caterina talks the slide reveals the findings, from 2,025 survey respondents: 76% Yes, 24% No] 

So just some context, we run surveys, as Scott said, across many of the leading corporate websites, and we posited a question to visitors, so: Do you want AI on corporate sites? And the answer was a resounding yes. 76% did want to see AI in some capacity on the corporate website. Might come as a shock. 

[Three quotes are shown on the screen alongside the results: “Add a help bot to guide me to the right page”, “A chatbot is missing as nowadays AI driven sites are helpful”, “I was looking for a chatbot to talk about your products”]

Here are some comments that we also gathered, and these illuminate some of the functions, or the functionalities, that visitors are looking for in terms of AI. a popular format was actually a chat bot. So that's a really interesting insight. It seems like AI needs to be used in a helpful, serving way, but there are other ways that you can begin your AI implementation journey, and we really do feel that the on site AI search is a great place to start. Let's take a look at some examples. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Siemens. A blend of AI and traditional search”. The screenshot shows just a search results page on the Siemens site that includes an AI summary as well as a list of Related topics. Results are sorted into All, Products or Pages. As Caterina talks, an additional screenshot overlays this showing a more conventional search listing under the Pages heading] 

So first of all, from Siemens. Siemens has created a blend of AI and traditional search. So, what we have is this excellent products and services focused AI search tool that offers an AI summary, related topics, product imagery, and deeper pages linked, so it serves as a real Hub of product information for customers, an extremely valuable tool. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Nvidia. An AI search experience that feels like ChatGPT”. The screenshot shows another on-site search results page, again with an AI summary above the traditional search results listing. Filters to the left of the page offer a range of sites and blogs, enabling users to refine or expand their search] 

Nvidia's on site AI assistant feels very familiar to anyone who's used ChatGPT or ChatGPT-like tools before and, I think by now, that's the majority of us. From the interface design to the tone of the interaction, it's mirroring how people are already expecting AI to work, and I think that just makes it more inviting and less intimidating to use as a tool. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Silicon Labs. Building trust through transparent sources”. The screenshot shows as panel titled “Silicon Labs Ask AI, which shows an AI answer to a product question on the search. A panel beneath the summary shows “Answer based on the following sources:” and lists three pages around the Silicon Labs with onward links]

Silicon Labs does a great job of showing where its AI generated responses come from. So, each answer includes clickable links to the original content on the site, so all of its source material. This obviously gives users the option to dig deeper and verify the information the tool provides, but the overall tone is credibility, trustworthiness. 

That's the message that's being put out, that this is a tool with substance

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Eni. Using AI search to guide users deeper into your content”. The screenshot shows a page titled “energIA” with the question “Who is the CEO of Eni?”. A short sentence answers the question with a list of citations – [1] [2] [3] etc. These are referenced below in more detail with onward links in a panel headed “Learn more”]

And finally, Eni's energIA tool does more than answer questions. It actively encourages exploration. As well as responding to specific queries, it suggests relevant links, related topics and the most up to date information available. Hence it behaves more like a smart content guide, if you will, one that surfaces information and invites users to keep exploring.

[Screen shows a slide titled: “How to persuade humans to click through to your channels]

Scott   Thanks, Caterina. So, we've talked a lot so far about how to feed the AI search beast and ensure that if people ask AI search tools questions about your company, the AI answer is going to be fed by your content. And we've talked about how to use AI search to improve the experience on your corporate website. 

But what about human people? What about actual humans? How do you continue to persuade them, once they've got the AI search answer, which is hopefully fed by your content, how do you continue to encourage them to actually go a step further and click through to your actual web channels, to your online channels. 

And going back to this big debate, about 60% of Google searches ending without a click; is this the end of traffic to the corporate website?  

[Screen shows a slide with a quote from Liz Reid, VP Head of Google Search, August 2025: “People are more likely to click into web content that helps them learn more – such as an original post, a unique perspective or a thoughtful first-person analysis.

Sites that meet these evolving user needs are benefiting from this shift and are generally seeing an increase in traffic.”]

Well, no, and we were very gratified and pleased to see that Google's Vice President, Head of Search, agrees with us. Liz Reed, VP of Google search, on the fifth of August this year, she posted a blog post on Google's search blog, really kind of addressing this topic. What is the impact of AI search on traffic to websites? And she wrote that based on Google's own data, websites that provide unique perspectives, things like podcasts, human stories, testimonials, first person perspectives, a real kind of, provide a real insight into, for example, what life's really like inside of the company, websites that provide that kind of thing, as she puts it, are generally seeing an increase in traffic.  

So, I think that really, I'd certainly kind of listen to these words really carefully, because the future of the corporate website is bright, not only in terms of it being the most powerful tool your company has to drive AI search answers.  

But if they evolved to become immersive destinations, attractive destinations, to provide content above and beyond the AI search answer, then traffic will increase. 

[Screen shows a slide with the heading: “Digital channels as authentic experiences”] 

And this is all about, part of this is about ensuring that your web and social channels provide an experience which feels genuinely authentic. Because one of the side effects of the AI revolution is the fact that, as Nick Clegg said, it's not just social media that's increasingly awash with synthetic content. 

The world is increasingly awash with content that either is synthetic or looks like it might be synthetic. So this is, whether it's job seekers, whether it's investors, whether it's in journalists, customers, everybody's thirst for human content that genuinely feels real is growing. So, you need to respond to that and cater for that on your online channels. 

Before we provide just some examples of what good looks like on that front, just wanted to flip through some examples of content which either is synthetic or might be synthetic online, here in 2025. So just to start with this, this was doing the rounds on them on Instagram this year. 

[Screen shows a slide with five AI generated images of tech billionaires apparently walking a fashion catwalk wearing sequined dresses in their company branding: Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Elon Musk of Tesla]

It's a video. These are stills from a video. And obviously this is not real, but you had the tech titans of today strutting down a catwalk. Obviously, it's AI generated, but very, very popular. 

[Screen shows a TikTok film apparently showing a group of six or more rabbits bouncing on a garden trampoline caught on a security camera at night] 

This video went viral on Tiktok this summer. So big debates, are they real bunnies jumping on a trampoline, or are they AI generated bunnies jumping on the trampoline? As it stands, just for the record, they are fake bunnies. But you know, it's increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, or real from synthetic. 

[Screen shows an image of singer Katy Perry wearing a cutaway fitted pinstripe blazer with a “liquid PCV” style dress and arm piece underneath. She is standing on a floral “red” carpet with a wall of flowers and photographers behind her]

Similarly, this went viral. I think it was on Instagram this summer. Second year running, where there's pictures of Katy Perry at the Met Gala, went viral when Katy Perry did not go to the Met Gala this year or last year. This is fake.  

[Screen shows a picture of Elon Musk holding a microphone and wearing a hat in the form of a wedge of orange cheese]

And just a final example, this is Elon Musk, as I'm sure you'll know, wearing a cheese hat. And in this instance, this is not fake. This is real. Elon Musk wore a cheese hat at a fundraiser. I think it was in Wisconsin about a year ago, something to do with football team. But I think, slight side note, but I think one of the hallmarks of 2025 is artificial intelligence is increasingly creating content which looks real but isn't, while prominent, real people are doing things increasingly that shouldn't be real but are. 

So anyway, these are the interesting times in which we live. 

[Screen shows a slide with the headline: “People will still visit websites for immersive, authentic content beyond AI search answers”]

But to take things back to the corporate online channels, as Liz Reed says, amid all of this, amid what's going on in the culture at the moment, people will still visit corporate websites for immersive, authentic content that feels real, that cuts through, feels human, and provides people with things that the AI search text answer can't. 

So, what do we mean by that? 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Unilever: immersive editorial”. The live screenshot shows a page in the Sustainability section on unilever.com titled “Our palm oil supply chain”. The left of the page has a text panel with chapter headings in a vertical tab-style menu to the left, while an interactive world map is to the right.]

Here's a great example from Unilever. Unilever has made the strategic decision that getting the message across that it's taking sustainable palm oil seriously in its supply chain, that's a strategically important message to get across. So, it's invested in this really kind of rich, immersive multimedia content on its global website that provides an experience about that topic above and beyond the AI search answer. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Hydro: interactive history timeline”. A live screenshot shows a white man in overalls and hard hat walking through a very technical looking industrial plant room and looking at control panels]

Similar example from Hydro, the aluminium maker, if you did ask ChatGPT or Google, when was Hydro founded? Tell me about the history of Hydro. You get a text answer, and you might get some still images these days, but what you won't get unless you click through to Hydro's corporate websites you won't get this kind of immersive, interactive multimedia history of Hydro. So again, it's providing content above and beyond the AI search answer, human content. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Aviva: embedding podcasts into the Innovation page”. The screenshot shows a panel of images with overlaid play buttons – one large to the left and three smaller to the right. The pictures feature smiling staff who are apparently taking part in the podcast episodes. Titles include “Episode 3: Being Enterprise Ready. This episode covers the topic of what to do when an insurer says yes, navigating the steps before beginning a pilot”]

Final example here from Aviva, which is a British insurance company, major British insurance company, high performer in the Bowen Craggs Corporate Digital Communications Index right now, it's kind of – it understands the point that Liz Reed at Google was making, that people like, people will click through, they want things like podcasts, unique perspectives, human perspectives. 

So, on the innovation page of Aviva's corporate website, it's put its podcast front and centre. So it's really kind of thinking about not only, how do I feed the AI beast, how do I please AI search bots, but also, once I've done that, how do I also encourage humans to go the extra mile and click through to your own channels. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Use AI to help with content creation… but not to fully automate”. A screenshot of a headline reads :”MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s attorneys fined for inaccurate, AI-generated brief”]

So just some examples of how you can do that, and just when it comes to AI and content, there's a huge amount of opportunity for online corporate communications teams to use AI to augment the process of content creation, creating first draft, creating summaries of content, ensuring that content aligns to style guides, that kind of thing. 

But it is, the way things are at the moment, it's a mistake to fully automate content creation without human intervention, human oversight, as the legal team of the Chief Executive of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, discovered to their cost this yea. They were found, they were caught out by a US judge as using ChatGPT to create a legal brief without checking it. So just kind of highlights the fact that that's a bad idea. Caterina. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Sustainability communications: under threat – but gaining a backbone”]

Caterina   So moving on to our next topic, staying within the realm of AI, but departing slightly. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Regulators are focusing on double materiality, while an anti-ESG backlash rages on”]

So, it's an ever volatile world, and we as communicators know that sustainability communications have faced a really serious threat this year. But amidst it all, it seems to be gaining back its backbone. So, the ESG backlash continues to rage on internationally, and there are all of these shifting regulatory goal posts to contend with, especially the emphasis on double materiality. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Move beyond virtue signalling and focus on truly material issues”]

In light of it all, it's time to move beyond virtue signalling and focus on truly material issues. So, you need to be addressing the issues that people are really and genuinely interested in, and do so in a way that prioritises the facts and the figures. After all, we all know that evidence backed sustainability communications have proven, time and time again to be the most effective way. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Microsoft: tight focus on six “programs”. The screengrab shows part of a page on Microsoft.com with six illustrated panels, one each for: AI impact, Fundamental rights, Nonprofits and giving, Security and privacy, Digital skills, and Sustainability.]

So, let's take a look at a few examples of this in practice. We have an example here from Microsoft. So Microsoft is focusing on six tight programmes ranging from AI impact to digital skills, and by honing in on these areas, Microsoft is able to provide the detail and the data needed to prove that the company is taking these topics really seriously. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Unilever: tight focus on five areas”. The screengrab shows the secondary navigation of the Sustainability section on unilever.com. This has five illustrated options: Climate, Nature, Plastics, Livelihoods, and Responsible business.]

Unilever opts for a similar approach with a tight focus on five key areas, ranging from climate to nature. What's so great about this example is that Unilever uses extremely clear language, ensuring that its sustainability communications hits with a range of audiences. It's time to move beyond catering solely for sustainability analysts, because everybody who's coming to your corporate website is going to be interested in your sustainability messaging, so allow it to land. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “EDF: focus on a single goal, supported by proof-points”. The images is of the landing page of the Sustainability section on the edfenergy.com site. It shows an image of a woman opening the back of a work van, seen from inside the van, with the headline “Change is in our power. Helping Britain achieve Net Zero. Progress update 2024”]

EDF does something slightly different. So EDF are focusing on a single goal, supported extensively by data, proof points and roadmapping. The "Change is in our Power" campaign is a really excellent way to get people engaged and enthused, because there's so much rich content about this one specific topic. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Feed the AI search beast with facts and figures”]

So, the headline is, as Scott's been saying throughout the presentation, you need to be feeding the AI search beast with facts and figures, much like Siemens do. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Siemens. Rich interactive ESG data in HTML, Excel and PDF”. The screenshot shows a page from siemens.com titled “Our sustainability indicators”. A table shows a range of data with tag buttons shown at the top of the page, along with a search box and “Filter by standards” option.]

So, Siemens includes rich interactive ESG data in a variety of formats, from HTML to Excel and PDF. Again, of course, your sustainability analysts are going to want to find this information and do so in a quick and easy way, but they're not the only audience group who are interested in this data anymore. You've got a lot of interested members of the public coming to your website to have a look at your sustainability data, so make sure it's easy to access for them too.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Nestle. Clear data tables in HTML plus a prominent Excel link”. The screenshot shows a reporting page from nestle.com, with tabs for General disclosures, Environment (shown), Social, and Governance. Indicators are shown across a range of measures with a baseline of 2018 and date for 2021-2024. Columns for GRI index and SASB index are included. A large green panel at the top of the page invites users to “Download our KPIs in Excel format”]

Nestle also does something similar. So, the company includes clear data tables in HTML with a prominent link to download data in Excel too. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Be brave in responding to criticisms and crises”]

You need to be brave in responding to critics, because we know that it's a really scary world out there at the moment, and we also know that, unfortunately, crises do tend to crop up, hopefully not all the time, but they definitely have scope to. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “United Health Group. Directly answering difficult questions”. A screenshot shows a page from the UHG site titled “Why is healthcare in America so expensive?”, with five short paragraph answers set out across the page, each under a graphic icon. Further down the page a second heading reads: “How can UnitedHealth Group make the system work better? We know there is more work to do, and we believe our experience and expertise can help drive real change”]

United Health Group have been in the press, well, for quite a while now, in not necessarily the most flattering lights, but what they manage to do is directly answer their critics questions head on, on their corporate website. So you've got questions posed like, why is healthcare in America so expensive? And what can the company do to make the system work better? 

[A further screenshot is overlaid, showing a post from a UnitedHealth Group social media feed posing the question “Why is health care in America so expensive? We’re addressing this topic and more at {link}. An infographic shows “Health care costs in the U.U. are almost 2X as expensive as in other developed countries”]

By using clear cut language to answer some of these questions, it means the company can, in a way, gain control of the narrative by providing that sole response that they need to. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Maersk. Global tariff updates directly on the home page”. The screenshot shows the Maersk home page with a clear panel signposting “Current global tariffs. Stay up to date with our latest information, links and guidances here. Read updates”]

Global shipping company Maersk, include global tariff updates directly on their homepage. That means that they are providing the latest and most up to date information available.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Samsung. Tackling greenwashing head on”. Image shows a still from a Samsung video showing a man sitting on a sofa looking at a smart phone, overlaid with the headline “Let’s talk green washing”]

Samsung are tackling greenwashing head-on. And what's so interesting about this example is that they're moving beyond data, just solely data presented, and instead, are using formats like video to really encourage engagement with the topic and appeal to a wider audience range.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Shell. Clear FAQs on climate targets”. The screenshot shows a page in the Sustainability section of shell.com titled “Our climate target – FAQs. Seven questions are shown in expanding panels, including “What is a net-zero emissions energy business?”, : What are Shell’s latest targets and how will these achieve net-zero emissions?”, and “What is the actual CO2 reduction you are aiming for with your Scope 1 and 2 absolute emissions target?”]

As Scott mentioned, we know that AI bots love an FAQ and this example from Shell is a great example of FAQs in practice. So by including FAQs on really important sustainability related topics, like climate change, Shell's laying out those answers that the AI bots need to pick up on, thus meaning that they, too can control the narrative.

[Screen shows a slide titled: “DEI might be over – but inclusion is just getting started”]

Scott   Yeah, sticking with the topic of responsibility, but now turning to the specific issue of diversity, equity and inclusion. It's a topic that is, I guess, it's the eye of the culture war storm, originally in the US, but also very much in Europe and elsewhere too. Now our view is that the acronym DEI might now have become just so politically weaponised that it's uses in corporate communications, it's kind of days might be over, but the actual topic of inclusion, that's just beginning, that's only just getting getting started, and we genuinely believe that it's important for companies to continue to talk about that.  

[Screen shows a slide with a chart showing “Annual report pages. Average share of pages on which FTSE 100 companies mentioned each subject”. There are lines for ESG and DEI. The ESG line peaked in 2022 with 12% of annual report pages, settle down to just under 9% in 2024. The DEI line peaked in 2023 with around 5% of pages, dropping to 4% in 2024.]

We have seen, this is not just a US issue, this is very much a UK and Europe issue. This is some data from the UK showing how references to environmental issues, governance topics and inclusion related issues in FTSE 100 annual reports, so the annual reports produced by the UK's 100 biggest quoted companies, it's been reduced. It's been dropping in recent years.  

We think this is a short-sighted approach to talk less about these issues, and what companies need to be doing instead about is talking about those issues in different ways.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Organisations that have chosen to drop references to ESG in the annual reports risk disengaging their future talent pipeline. – Pavita Cooper, 30% Club”] 

Pavita Cooper, who was from the 30% Club, very eloquently articulated why it's a bad idea to stop talking about these topics. And she made the point that Generation Z, or Generation Z and younger people, they are going to be making up the majority of the workforce in less than a decade. By 2034, Generation Z will make up the vast majority of the workforce. And a larger portion of younger people, not all of them, a large portion of younger people, want companies to continue to talk in detail about topics like inclusion, diversity and climate change. 

So, if you stop talking about those topics, you are cutting off your future talent pipeline. 

So how do you continue to talk about topics like diversity and inclusion when it's so politically polarising, culturally polarising? Well, our view is to kind of do, keep talking about it, but just to change the language. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Keep providing date – while avoiding politically weaponised terms”] 

Change, modify the language.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Walmart. “Belonging” report”. The screenshot shows the Belonging Report on the Walmart website. Titles include Executive Messaging, By the Numbers, Awards & Recognition, and Report Archive. The page is dominated with the still of a video featuring five diverse staff members in a Walmart store laughing together. The overlaid text reads “I belong. You belong. We belong”.]

Some good examples of what that looks like in practice: One example from Walmart, one of America's, indeed, the world's largest retailers. Walmart continues to produce a report about diversity and inclusion, but it doesn't call it a report about diversity and inclusion. It calls it a "Belonging report." So, a good example of just changing the language to continue to talk about a topic in a way that takes it away from highly politicised, angry, polarised debate about a particular topic. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Pfizer. Digging in on diversity but tweaking language”. The screengrab shows a page in the About section of Pfizer.com with the headline “Merit-Based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Who We Are”] 

A similar but different example from Pfizer, the US pharmaceutical company: Pfizer continues to go large on diversity, equity and inclusion on its online channels, but there's this interesting qualifier here. Before the words diversity, equity and inclusion, it's added the qualifier merit-based, which is just again, without getting bogged down into the detail of the disagreement, cultural, social, political disagreement about the merits of DEI policies. Adding merit based to it, is it just helps to kind of, it helps to de-politicise the topic and make it, make discourse about it more neutral.  

[Screen shows a slide titled: “HSBC. Excellent inclusion data transparency”. A screenshot shows a ring chart titled “The shape of our organisation” with men shown in green and women in gold. Radio buttons at the top enable users to vide 2024 (shown), 2023 or 2022, while quadrants within the ring offer views for Global, Europe, Asia Pacific, America, or Middle East and North Africa. The chart shows a 51% female/49% male split across the global workforce of 214,305 employees]

One more best practice example about good inclusion related communications online comes from HSBC, the global bank, as we've both been saying, feed the AI beast with facts and data. It's also important to use data and evidence transparently and in detail to build trust among real job seekers, real employees and others. So HSBC has got this really clear and transparent interactive infographic that shows the demographic breakdown of its global employee base. So just some examples here about how you should, you can and should continue to talk about topics like inclusion, but to do it in a in a different way.

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Social media is getting its second wind”]

Caterina   Okay, so for the last few minutes, we'll move on to our final topic, and that is social media is getting its second wind. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “It’s time to experiment with your social media channels – make your posts vibrant and fun”]

So, there are certainly signs of a more volatile but also a newly inventive period on corporate social channels. In serious times, people tend to need some light relief on social media, especially we're seeing corporate social media teams take risks, try new channels and have some fun, all in the name of engaging stakeholders and building reputation. 

And it's particularly pertinent for us here at Bowen Craggs, because this year we introduced a new submetric to our benchmarking methodology. So for context, that is the methodology we apply when reviewing various different corporate web estates. And we're now looking at social media used for corporate messaging. So we've been collating best practice examples, noting industry trends, and I'm really happy to share some of those with you today. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Who does this well?”. A still from a social media video is shown to the left of the slide with the number 1 overlaid at the top left. The image shows a professional-looking woman in a sari with overlaid text: “…and releasing enzymes that break down complex material in dirt”]

First of all, a brief glimpse into our Index to see who is doing this. Well, first of all, we have Unilever. So Unilever has been really creatively adopting a new approach to social media by trying to engage younger audiences. How have they been doing that? Well, capitalising on short form, snappy content, and they've been doing it not just on Tiktok or Instagram, but across all of their social channels. And the result is highly, highly engaging.  

[Further stills from social media posts are shown to the right of the Unilever example. One from Bosch has a text-heavy post with a gallery of images from LinkedIn. An example from Shell shows a section of an old pen-and-ink style technical drawing of some engineering apparatus with the headline “Newcomen’s atmospheric engine”, and a post from Meta shows a picture of a woman talking coupled with a pair of AI sunglasses with the headline “You’ve got questions, Olivia’s got answers”.]

And here are some other examples. We have Bosch and their LinkedIn captions. I'll come to that later on, but Shell includes incredible archival company footage on its YouTube shorts channel, and the engagement across this channel is really astonishing. There are millions and millions of views because people are so interested in this historical footage. It's a unique angle to take, and it's always important to differentiate yourself. And we all know that there are so many, it seems like there are always new platforms to contend with. And how can you really leave your mark on each platform? 

Well, Meta on Threads shows that, you know, a short, succinct approach that's company-centric is the best way to do so. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Creativity is the lasts great competitive advantage – Christine Dobbin, Unilever”]

"Creativity is the last great competitive advantage" – this is a quote from Christine Dobbin, who is the Head of Social Media at Unilever. Christine was talking about not only showing up in people's feeds from a strategic perspective, but also earning your right to show up in people's feeds. 

What makes your content deserve to cut through the noise over other companies. Well, how can you show up? 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “TikTok is here to stay”]

First of all, TikTok is here to stay. I'm not sure whether that will be positively or negatively received by our audience today, but it is here to stay, and it's a format that only really works if it's short, sharp and inventive…

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Henkel. Employees are front and centre”. The slide has two stills from TikTok films featuring staff. One is a “Memory Challenge x Henkel Products” and the other features a woman walking upstairs in a modern office with overlaid text following a popular meme: “Propaganda I’m falling for * work edition * Workation abroad. Office snack bars. Flexible hours. Work from home. Global job rotation. Quiet zones. Team building days. Career boosters. Creative spaces”]

…much like Henkel do by putting its employees front and centre, giving them creative autonomy to have fun and provide a glimpse behind the scenes of working life. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Morgan Stanley. The Robots are coming”. Two stills from social media feeds. One shows a cute robot made of copper pipes, nuts and bolts, talking on an old-fashioned dial phone. The heading reads ”AI can talk. Search ‘Morgan Housel’”. The other has copy overlaid on a dark gradient-filled screen: “A Morgan Stanley Slidetalk. The Robots Are Coming with Adam Jonas”]

YouTube is also having a corporate renaissance at the moment, so Morgan Stanley's "The robots are coming" YouTube short series is an excellent example of thought leadership that very much so plays with the intersection between AI and the physical economy, but the visual graphics and the fun elements add that element of personalisation and engagement. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “There’s plenty of new life on LinkedIn”.]

Finally, there's plenty of new life on LinkedIn. So there's always been an intrinsic link between LinkedIn and the corporate website in terms of sharing the same messaging, but you can still have fun on the platform and appeal to AI when AI is indexing LinkedIn content. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Bosch. Thought-leadership optimized for AI”. Two screenshots from the LinkedIn feed show substantial text captions, with links to relevant accounts and individuals, along with engaging images featuring people at work and play.]

Bosch is a great example to refer to because they include really long captions, but they are interesting, engaging, almost thought leadership pieces with those key AI appealing check boxes ticked, like hashtags, tagging and visibility, so driving links back to the site.  

Scott   Great. Thank you, Caterina, and that is moving us towards the end of our whistle stop tour of our blueprint for the future of online corporate communications, I hope you found it interesting and useful and full of some practical ideas. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Measure Your Success”. Two screenshots are shown. To the left, an image of The Corporate Digital Communications Index Current Leaders table, which can be found on bowencraggs.com or, in a more comprehensive form, in the Bowen Craggs Hub. The table shows the scores for companies across eight metrics: Construction, Message, Contact, Society, Investors, Media, Jobseekers and employees, and Customers. The image to the right shows a Visitor Research Survey Dashboard, available in the Bowen Craggs Hub or to Survey clients. A range of charts show Visitor group (Jobseeker, Customer, Partner, Media…), Visit reasons group (Job search, About, Customer service…) while a set of smaller charts below show Goal achievement, Brand perception, Net promoter score, and Ratings.] 

I think that the future is bright, and I genuinely believe, as I said, that online corporate communications is changing more dramatically than it has done for a generation. And corporate channels, the corporate web and social channels have never been more strategically important for companies. 

People often ask us, you know, what's the secret? What's the common traits of the secrets to success, what do the world's best, top performers in online communications have in common? And I think one of the secret sauces is they are ceaselessly, restlessly, they're constantly measuring and improving, measuring and improving. 

And if you work with Bowen Craggs already, you'll know that's what we do, that's what we are, that's what we're here to help companies do, to measure and improve. 

And we do that in two primary ways, through the benchmarking that drives the Corporate Digital Communications Index we've been talking about today, and we also do it through visitor research. 

We run surveys on corporate websites around the world, and that gives clients a really clear, detailed picture of who's coming to the website. What are they trying to achieve? Did they achieve the goal of their visit? And also really important questions like, what's the impact of their visit on brand perception? 

But yeah, continue to measure and improve, and don't stop, particularly now in this time of unprecedented change.  

[Screen shows a screenshot of the dashboard of the Bowen Craggs Hub. The Dashboard includes the latest top 10, the current score and ranking for the latest report on your site as a client, the latest reports published in the Index, as well as links to information about events, resources, the podcast and more.]

If you are already a Bowen Craggs client, do log into the Bowen Craggs Hub. It is an Aladdin's cave of further best practice, insight, advice on this fast-changing area. There's reports, you can find a podcast, you can find event recordings, lots and lots of analysis. And we are really committed to doing everything that we possibly can to ensure that our clients thrive and succeed in a changing world. 

[Screen shows an image of the 2025 Corporate Digital Communications Index Snapshot report. Text reads: “Learn more from the leaders. Read our full report – The Corporate Digital Communications index Snapshot 2025. Available now at bowencraggs.com]

And whether you're a client already or not, do log on to our website, bowencraggs.com, and download the report that accompanies this presentation, our “Blueprint for the future of corporate digital communications”. A lot more examples, advice, practical tips along the lines of the kind of things we've been talking to today. 

But for now, I just say thanks so much, and I'm going to hand over back to Liv. I think we're going to have a Q&A. 

[Screen shows a slide titled: “Thank you” Contact details are provided: Caterina Sorenti: csorenti@bowencraggs.com. Scott Payton: spayton@bowencraggs.com ]

Liv   Yes. Thank you so much, Scott, thank you so much, Caterina, for taking us through the Index Snapshot. And we have just about time for one of the questions. And it goes as follows: You mentioned your AI persona, is that available to download?

Scott   It is, if you are Bowen Craggs clients, you can go to the Bowen Craggs Hub right now and to download all of our personas, including our new AI search bot personas, plus our updated personas on what investors, analysts, trade journalists, general journalists and everybody else is looking for. So the AI search bot is available to clients right now in the Hub. 

Liv   Nice. Maybe just the last question as well, and a short and sweet answer, if I may ask, it's just about the change of traffic to the website with AI. Was just asking, how do we convince the senior stakeholders that we have less traffic, but that that is not a problem?

Scott   Well, I would say, I think, I'm not sure what you think, Caterina, but I think a really powerful thing to do is to show them some examples of asking ChatGPT or Google AI mode questions about the company, and show whether their content is the source or not? On some level, this is a big existential debate, but if you are, if your content is driving the AI answer, then that's a really important part of the battle, and websites are the most powerful weapon a company has to drive its version of the truth in AI search, whether setting aside the issue of traffic.

Liv   Great answer. Thank you so much, Scott. I think it is time to wrap up. I just wanted to thank everyone who joined today, and as said, we will share the recording on our website. There was one question asking if these slides will be shared – the presentation was based on our Index Snapshot report. So do go to bowencraggs.com to download the full report, which includes more detailed explanation and more examples as well. And then finally, it would be great to keep the conversation going online. You can follow us on LinkedIn and also on our Substack @bowencraggs, and it was great to have you. Thank you again, Scott and Caterina as well, and hopefully see you at our next event. Thank you so much.

Thank you everybody. Bye.

Return to the Index Snapshot page to view the recording and download the report.