Celebrating the women pressing for progress in tech
Gender inequality can often feel overwhelming.
Statistics tell us that less than 25% of tech jobs are held by women in developed countries. To add salt to the wound, that ‘minority’ group are not only getting paid less than their male counterparts, but the gap is widening.
Today we are encouraged to #pressforprogress and commit to a “gender parity mindset” via progressive action. With this in mind, I am choosing not to be weighed down by the inequity that stats demonstrate, and rather celebrate the small wins. While not yet equal in number to men, today women are leading some of the world’s biggest technology companies and are leading by example. It’s that progress we should celebrate; and celebrate these women that are the change makers.
Sheryl Sandberg
“Nearly 50% of men think that when just 1 in 10 senior leaders in their company is a woman, that’s sufficient” wrote Sheryl Sandberg in an op ed for the New York Times. Known as one of the tech industry’s most visible feminists and as COO of one of the world’s most successful tech companies, Facebook, Sheryl says that achieving gender equality starts with knowing how far we have to go. Through the work of her Lean In organisation, Sandberg released a report into Women in The Workplace with McKinsey and Co, highlighting startling insights about women and work that she’s determined to address. Highlighting just how far we have to go, Sandberg’s report found men are not only less likely to say gender diversity is a top personal priority, some men even feel that gender diversity efforts disadvantage them: 15 percent of men think their gender will make it harder for them to advance. Not one to rest on her laurels, Sheryl has been sharing the message of workplace gender equality in typically male domains. “Go back and be loud and clear, especially if you are a male, that you are committed to mentoring women. It will make a huge difference,” Sandberg said at the Morgan Stanley 2018 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.
Grace Hopper
It would be remiss not to mention Grace Hopper when referring to the women who shaped tech as we know it today. Born in 1906, Hopper was a computer scientist and US Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of IBM’s Harvard Mark I computer, used in WWII. She was a pioneer of computer programming and invented one of the first compiler related tools – software that transforms computer codes. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages in the 1950’s, which eventuated into ‘common business’ computer language, COBOL which is still in use today. This invention led Hopper to be affectionately became known as the Grandmother of COBOL. Hopper passed away in 1992 but her legacy lives on in many ways; a college at Yale has been named in her honour and in 2016 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
Jean Liu
Named amongst Forbes Power Women in 2017, Jean Liu is the president of Didi Chuxing, China’s answer to UBER, and the country’s largest transportation platform providing transportation services for more than 450 million users across over 400 cities in China. Since joining the business in 2014, Liu has been instrumental in helping the business win multi-billion dollar investments and strategic partnerships with the world’s leading ride-hailing companies via investments and cooperation in products and technology. After buying Uber’s China operation in 2016, Didi Chuxing is now thought to be valued at $50 billion. Having studying Computer Science in China and achieving a Master’s Degree at Harvard; technology is in her blood – Liu is the daughter of Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi. Liu has made a name for herself most recently being named in TIME’s 20 Most Influential People in Tech; one of only five women who made the global list.
Women changing the way we think
Behind many great companies are great women changing the way we think, act and do thanks to technology. These trail blazers are making decisions that not only affect their work place, but also influence our future. I hope that in the next iteration of TIME Magazines’ ’20 Most Influential People in Tech’, women account for more than a quarter of the list. While the gradient may be slower than we desire; we must also celebrate how far we’ve come – something Grace Hopper would be so proud of.
Andrea is Isentia’s Chief Information Officer. She is one of Australia’s few female CIOs.
Loren is an experienced marketing professional who translates data and insights using Isentia solutions into trends and research, bringing clients closer to the benefits of audience intelligence. Loren thrives on introducing the groundbreaking ways in which data and insights can help a brand or organisation, enabling them to exceed their strategic objectives and goals.
The role of communications professionals is evolving rapidly. AI is now actively shaping how organisations build trust, manage reputation, and engage key audiences, moving beyond theoretical discussions.
Gartner’s latest forecasts for Chief Communications Officers (CCOs) highlight a growing profession under increased scrutiny. Traditional methods such as press releases and media relationships are no longer sufficient. Communication is now central to business, and supporting tools must evolve accordingly.
Isentia’s platform combines AI-driven media intelligence, real-time narrative tracking, and expert human analysis. These capabilities address several urgent needs identified by Gartner. Below, we outline key predictions and how Isentia’s tools help meet these challenges.
AI is transforming how brands are discovered and evaluated
Gartner predicts that, as large language models replace traditional search, PR, and earned media, PR and earned media budgets will double by 2027. Stakeholders will increasingly view organisations through AI-generated summaries. The quality, authority, and timeliness of earned media will directly influence how AI systems represent your organisation.
Gartner emphasises that this is a communications challenge, not a marketing or SEO issue. Search engine optimisation requires PR and communications expertise to build trust, secure media coverage, and maintain consistent messaging across stakeholders.
Isentia’s Lumina AI suite and Narratives AI tools address these needs. Narratives AI identifies, summarises, and ranks stories from billions of news articles and social media posts in real time and historically. It reveals how stories develop and spread, enabling communications teams to understand both the content and its influence on AI-generated perceptions.
Isentia’s upcoming Lumina AI View feature enables organisations to see how their brand appears across AI platforms and understand the information shaping those results. Intelligence is no longer a luxury.
Gartner’s second forecast was that by 2029, 45% of CCOs will use narrative intelligence technologies to monitor reputation amid rising disinformation. Traditional monitoring tools often miss early signs of harmful stories because they focus on keywords rather than story development and spread.
Isentia has addressed this challenge. Our crisis monitoring teams provide 24/7 coverage and real-time alerts via email, mobile app, and WhatsApp, delivering the intelligence-driven support Gartner recommends.
Our Media Impact Score (MIS) supports this approach. It evaluates not only the volume of coverage but also its reception, combining tone, importance, and audience reach into a single human-coded score that reflects true reputational impact.
The growth of AI-powered internal communications
Gartner predicts that by 2028, 75% of employees will use chatbots for internal information instead of intranets, newsletters, or manager updates. This shift from push-based to pull-based, conversational access raises important governance considerations.
Isentia’s GenAI-powered Insights Chatbot addresses this need. It allows users to query past reports and data, providing clear, evidence-based answers from the organisation’s media intelligence archive. Teams can interact with their data, compare trends, identify patterns, and access insights efficiently.
As Dr Nici Sweaney, Founder and Director at Ai Her Way, observed at Isentia's recent webinar on AI as a new stakeholder: "What will set people apart — and what AI cannot replicate — is the human lens. The judgment, the relationships, the institutional knowledge, the strategic read of a room. The organisations that lean into supporting their people to harness these tools, rather than just deploying the tools, will be the ones best placed."
This principle guides Isentia’s approach. Our platform combines AI with over 100 local analysts across Southeast Asia (SEA) who review AI-generated data for cultural context, slang, and sarcasm. This model achieves up to 95% sentiment accuracy, ensuring reliable results through human expertise.
Analytics must move from retrospective to predictive
Gartner’s last key prediction is that analytics must shift from retrospective to predictive, much on data, and Gartner’s final key prediction is that by 2029, communications teams will double their spending on data and analytics to 6% of budgets. This reflects increased pressure to demonstrate business impact. Nearly half of CCOs struggle to prove their value, and a third report their teams are viewed as cost centres.
RepID and interactive dashboards go far beyond simple metrics. For example, RepID measures an organisation’s reputation by analysing stories and posts across areas such as leadership, ethics, and quality. This gives a clear, evidence-based view of how reputation is really changing, not just how much coverage there is.
Our interactive insights reports enable clients to track share of voice, narrative sentiment, and influencer impact in one platform. This real-time, results-focused measurement aligns with Gartner’s recommendations for credibility in communications.
Implications for communications leaders
Communications teams must achieve more, operate with greater precision, move faster, and deliver measurable business results. AI is both the driver and enabler of this change, but success depends on investing in the right intelligence systems.
Isentia’s platform already provides the essential tools Gartner recommends, including Narratives AI, real-time risk alerts, AI-powered chatbots, human-verified insights, and advanced measurement systems. For PR & Comms leaders in Asia-Pacific and beyond, the key question is how quickly they can implement this intelligence.
Join the conversation
We invite you to attend our upcoming webinar, Inside the AI Shift: How Communications Leaders Are Adapting, on Tuesday, 28 April 2026 at 11am SGT / 1pm AEST / 3pm NZST via Zoom.
Isentia’s VP of Revenue and Insights for SEA, Prashant Saxena, and ANZ’s Director of Insights, Ngaire Crawford, will discuss how communications teams are meeting increasing demands for speed, insight, and measurement, while adapting to evolving executive expectations as AI becomes a new stakeholder.
The session will explore how communications leaders discuss AI with executives and boards amid increased pressure on risk, measurement, and strategy. It will also examine how teams are adapting workflows and decision-making, the challenges communicators face, and emerging opportunities.
Register below to secure your place.
Please fill up this form if you're in the ANZ region
Please fill up this form if you're in the SEA region
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Blog
How is Isentia responding to AI reshaping communications leadership?
Taking from the recent PR & Comms predictions for 2026 by Gartner, we observe how Isentia leads in creating a robust AI-powered workspace.
The media landscape is accelerating. In an era where influence is ephemeral and every angle demands instant comprehension, PR and communications professionals require more than generic technology—they need intelligence engineered for their specific challenges.
Isentia is proud to introduce Lumina, a groundbreaking suite of intelligent AI tools. Lumina has been trained from the ground up on the complex workflows and realities of modern communications and public affairs. It is explicitly designed to shift professionals from passive media monitoring back into the role of strategic leaders and pacesetters.
“The PR, Comms and Public Affairs sectors have been experimenting with AI, but most tools have not been built with their real challenges in mind.” said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Pulsar Group.
“Lumina is different; it is the first intelligence suite designed around how narratives actually form today, combining human credibility signals with machine-level analysis. It helps teams understand how stories evolve, filter out noise and respond with context and confidence to crises and opportunities.”
Setting a new standard for PR intelligence
Lumina is centered on empowering, not replacing, the human element of communications strategy. This suite is purpose-built to help PR, Comms, and Public Affairs professionals significantly improve productivity, enhance message clarity, and facilitate early risk detection.
Lumina enables communicators to:
Understand & Interpret: Move beyond basic alerts to strategically map the trajectory and spread of narrative evolution.
Focus & Personalise: Achieve the clarity necessary to execute strategic action before critical moments pass.
We are launching the Lumina suite by making our first module immediately available: Stories & Perspectives.
In the current fragmented, multi-channel media environment, communications professionals need to be able to instantly perceive not just how a story is growing, but also how it is being perceived across different stakeholder groups.
Stories & Perspectives organizes raw media mentions into clustered, cohesive Stories, and the Perspectives that exist within each, reflecting distinct media, audience, and public affairs angles. This unique functionality allows users to:
Rise above the noise: Instantly identify which high-level topics are gaining momentum or fading from attention.
Get to the detail, fast: Uncover the influential voices, niche communities, and specific channels actively shaping the narrative.
Catch the pivot point: Precisely identify the moment a story shifts—from a strategic opportunity to a reputation risk—or when a new key opinion former begins guiding the conversation.
"Media isn’t a stream of mentions," said Kyle Lindsay, Head of Product at Pulsar Group. "But rather a living system of stories shaped by competing perspectives. When you can see those structures clearly, you gain the ability to understand issues as they form, anticipate how they’ll evolve, and act with precision. That’s what we mean when we talk about AI built for communicators, and that's what an off-the-shelf LLM can't give you."
The Lumina Roadmap: AI tools for the future of comms
The launch of Stories & Perspectives is the first release of many. Over the upcoming months, we will systematically roll out the full Lumina roadmap, introducing a comprehensive set of AI tools engineered to handle every phase of the communications lifecycle.
The full Lumina suite will soon incorporate:
Curated media summaries: AI-driven daily summaries customized specifically to the priorities of senior leadership, highlighting only the most relevant stories.
Reputation analysis: Advanced measurement tracking how critical themes like ethics, innovation, and leadership are statistically shaping corporate perception.
Press release & media relations assistant: Tools designed to accelerate content creation and craft hyper-focused, personalized pitches that reach the precise contacts faster.
Predictive intelligence layer: Technology engineered to track and anticipate story momentum and strategic change before the window of opportunity closes.
Intelligent agents: Background agents continuously scanning all media channels for emerging key spokespeople and previously undetected reputation risks.
Enhanced audio, broadcast & crisis detection: Complete, real-time oversight of all channels—including audio and broadcast—enabling rapid context building and optimal crisis response delivery.
Want to harness the power of Lumina AI for your PR, Comms, or Public Affairs team? .
Complete the form below to register your interest.
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Blog
Announcing Lumina: The purpose-built AI suite for PR, Comms, and Public Affairs
An intelligent suite of AI tools trained on the language, workflows, and realities of modern public relations and communications.