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Interning at Isentia was enriching and fulfilling

I had the pleasure of interning at Isentia, and my experience was nothing short of wonderful. 

Having only just graduated from university, I could not help but feel slightly apprehensive starting my internship. However, from my very first day, I was greeted with friendly faces all around the office. Before I knew it, I was having morning coffees with my team mates, and soon my colleagues became familiar friends. I was pleasantly surprised by how inclusive and positive the culture proved to be. 

My leader and colleagues from the marketing team were patient when it came to sharing knowledge and took the time to give me tasks that enhanced my learning experience. 

During my internship I gained a deeper understanding how to execute a social media campaign. The planning that goes behind each campaign was so extensive and detailed, which I found intimidating initially, but nevertheless proved to be a great learning experience. For example, I was introduced to the concept of publishing paid advertisements, SEO and content creation. I was even given the chance to write blogs, a responsibility I took on-board with great enthusiasm. 

My experience was not limited to marketing, I was fortunate enough to get involved with the client experience team, where I learnt more about Mediaportal and the amazing insight services Isentia provides. Time flew by quickly and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to learn and grow.

Isentia isn’t all about working hard; it provides a holistic experience with various social activities and events so everyone has a chance to get to know each other better and learn about the different roles that help to make everything happen. 

I am a strong believer in an enriching environment and Isentia has exceeded my expectations as a company, which teaches and places value in those who work there. The knowledge I have gained is invaluable, and I am thankful for the friendships I have made along the way. 

I highly recommend working at Isentia and leave the team feeling much more confident of the future ahead - a big thanks to everyone who added to my experience.

 Nicole C.
Sydney University, Marketing Graduate

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How would I sum up my experience as an intern for Isentia? Interesting, rewarding, challenging, and engaging.

Hi, my name is Allan. I am currently an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering and Business Management student studying at the University of Technology, Sydney – and have recently completed an internship with Isentia’s HR department.

First of all, you might be wondering what an Engineer is doing as a HR Intern – they don’t exactly fit together, do they? It was for this reason that I was initially hesitant in applying for the role as I didn’t know whether it would align with what I wanted out of my future, or whether I would be a good fit.

However, I soon learnt that being an intern with Isentia was a rewarding and interesting role, not to mention the fact that I was also surrounded by a group of incredibly supportive and knowledgeable people.

Having put myself forward as a mentee for the Australian Human Resources Institute’s mentoring program, I was inspired to learn more – an interest that ultimately led me to this exciting role.

Being an HR intern at Isentia wasn’t just any job – I took on this role because of the challenges it would provide to explore a different area of expertise. And yes, there were definitely new and interesting projects waiting to test my capabilities!

I do have to admit, I always seemed to find myself applying a bit of my engineering experience to the way I undertook each task, but I think this was an approach that helped bring a new and alternative perspective to the team. Who knows, maybe I taught them something new too?!

Along with the day-to-day operations of a HR department, I also gained skills across areas such as policy development, the intricacies of an intranet, and how a strategic HR function operates within a large business.

I would highly recommend Isentia for all future interns wishing to challenge themselves with something new and exciting – I certainly loved my time there and will carry that experience with me throughout my career!

Allan Soo 
Student from the University of Technology, Sydney NSW
Combined Degree in Business Management (Hons) and Mechanical Engineering (Hons)

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Optimise your customers' journey across all touchpoints to achieve a holistic and customer-centric experience

Customers now have a powerful voice in sharing their experiences and with it, comes an expectation for actions to take place as a result of their feedback. In our digital world, customer data is nearly limitless – but people are much more than data. Their lives are defined by driving wants, needs and desires with an endless amount of choice and more often than not, brands believe they are delivering a better experience to these people than they actually are.

For those brands or organisations that choose to close the experience gap and embrace maximising the customer experience (CX), are finding themselves in a race to the top. By understanding what drives your customers’ decisions and the other influences that are out there, you can improve overall business growth and success over your competitors by making decisions based on customer intelligence.

Optimising the customer experience

A customer’s feedback has the power to transform your organisation through innovation and by improving their overall experience it can reduce customer churn. No matter where your organisation is in terms of CX maturity or customer feedback management, it is important to have access to customer insights in order to implement strategies to retain them. 

Here are 3 steps to maximising the customer experience:

1.       Illustrate the customer journey

The customer experience is made up of many customer journeys – the path customers take to solve a problem or need. The better experience your customers have with your brand or service, the more engaged they become, and the more opportunities become available. Having a great customer experience can also promote customer loyalty and as long you continuously optimise every element along their journey you will have satisfied customers.

Understanding the steps of your customers journey through various touchpoints, engagements and interactions with your brand will help to properly target your customers and understand their requirements and their pain points. Divide the customer journey into phases and pay close attention to each component by measuring the outcomes, collecting feedback and applying this feedback where possible. This will maximise customer success.

2.       Drive value from experience data

Looking at both quantitative and qualitative approaches across various facets of your business must be considered to give a complete picture of your customer data. Looking at one source will only give an incomplete representation.

Customer experience is more than sending surveys and collecting feedback – having this information is important but it’s also about enriching and humanising the experience and using these unique experiences to create a positive customer centric culture. Sharing insights and developing processes to improve the customer experience and create business value allows the best experience possible. It also generates the maximum return on your efforts. Obtaining this information can be done through swapping knowledge between cross functional groups by identifying where there are gaps as well as what's working well. A team dashboard can also be created that specifically looks at different touchpoints and their success. Whatever data you do gather, turn it into actionable insights that directly improve your customers 'experience.

3.       Learn from churn when it happens

Reducing customer churn is always sought after, however is quite difficult to achieve. Churn happens from poor experiences (both operational and strategic) and can have a drastic effect on your bottom line but it can also be helpful and insightful for your brand to learn and improve. For the customers you’re not able to prevent from churning, be sure to find out why they decided to move on. Conduct a short exit interview with the customer to understand their experiences and their pain points and take this knowledge to make improvements.

Fundamentally, it’s important to ensure a positive customer experience to encourage your customers to build brand loyalty. Customers hold the power in today’s business landscape which is why seeking feedback on their experiences is valuable to your brand or organisations' performance and reputation.

Happy customer, happy life.

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AI has become a powerful stakeholder in its own right — from being just another ‘technological advancement’ to an active contributor to modern-day communications, that’s massively changed the media landscape today.

Isentia hosted an essential conversation with Lisa Main (Director, Main Bureau), Dr Nici Sweaney (Founder and Director, AI Her Way), Prashant Saxena (Isentia’s VP of Revenue and Insights, SEA), and Ngaire Crawford (Isentia’s Director of Insights, ANZ). Together, they explored how AI reshapes the world of communications and corporate affairs all the while figuring out how to manage and strategically engage with it.

In this session, we covered:

• Understanding AI’s behaviour and influence as a digital stakeholder.
• Navigating the unique challenges and opportunities AI presents as a new "audience."
• The long-term impact of AI and LLMs on the industries central to modern communicators.

Following the webinar, our panellists took the time to answer the most insightful questions from our attendees that we couldn't get to during the live session. Here are their expert perspectives.

Ethical governance and human-centric adoption: perspectives from Dr Nici Sweaney

As the Founder and Director of AI Her Way, Dr Nici Sweaney advocates for a strategic approach to AI that prioritises human intent over technical capability. The questions directed to her focused on the ethical foundations of AI, how organisations should structure their internal AI strategy, and practical ways to start using agents today.

Q: Could you please shed a little light on what ethical AI in your language means?

Ethical AI, to me, is about two things working together: avoiding harm and actively doing good. It’s not just “don’t break anything” — but genuinely asking, does this create value for the business, for the people using it, and for the broader world? Transparency, equity, and accountability are the pillars. Transparency means being honest with your audience and colleagues about when AI is involved. Equity means asking who this helps and who it leaves behind, as AI scales existing biases. Finally, accountability means humans stay in the loop. AI should inform decisions, not make them. When the "why" is clear — like saving a team time to focus on strategy — you are using AI with integrity.

Q: Should AI adoption be owned by IT or Internal Communications? I see staff intranets being overtaken by AI and this has implications for how employees are communicated with.

My answer is probably not what IT wants to hear. AI is part of your infrastructure, so IT must be involved for security and guardrails. However, the strategy behind adoption is fundamentally a human problem, not a technical one. I advocate for a cross-functional "coalition" that brings IT, HR, communications, and strategy to the same table. If you create a dedicated AI leadership role, that person should sit closer to human-centric functions like HR and communications. The hardest part of adoption isn’t the technology; it’s the people, the culture, and the narrative you build around it internally.

Q: What are the most effective ways to address colleagues' concerns about using AI agents in the workplace — particularly around trust, accuracy, and job security?

First, acknowledge that the fear is real; it is a biological response to an unprecedented rate of change. Trust is built through honesty. Pretending AI won’t displace roles destroys trust, so be honest about how the landscape is shifting. What actually moves people is showing, not telling. Show them how AI can solve their specific "pain points" — the tedious, joyless tasks that don't add value. When people see AI as an "empowered choice" that uplifts their work rather than replacing their judgment and strategic thinking, buy-in follows. Build confidence with small wins first.

Q: What are some simple AI agents that you would recommend communications professionals experiment with setting up?

Most professionals don’t need complex autonomous agents yet; they need custom bots and automated workflows. The magic is in understanding your process first. Some practical starting points include:

• Daily Briefings: A task that pulls from your calendar, email, and news to deliver a summary each morning.
• Meeting Prep: Automated notes that pull context and past correspondence before a meeting, and transcription tools that turn recordings into action items afterwards.
• Content Repurposing: A custom bot trained on your "voice" that can turn one talk or newsletter into 15+ social media assets and blog snippets.

Q: Our team members are using AI daily, but I know this is not safe as data is transferred back and forth. Should we create rules and ask people to sign IP protection?

Answer: Your instinct is right. If your team uses free consumer tools, your data may be used to train future models. You should move to enterprise-grade tools like Claude for Teams, Microsoft Copilot, or ChatGPT Enterprise, which offer contractual data protections. You should also build an AI Usage Policy that defines which data is public, internal, or restricted, and map AI rules to those classes. In Australia, we recommend aligning with the EU AI Act — the most comprehensive framework available — to future-proof your organisation.

Synthetic authenticity and the new media ecosystem: Perspectives from Prashant Saxena

Prashant Saxena, Isentia’s VP of Revenue and Insights for SEA, approaches AI through the lens of psychological bonding and media structural shifts. His insights address the changing role of media and the technical ways we must now communicate to satisfy AI as a new audience.

Q: Given that trust in media is dropping and media themselves are using AI more, what is the role or value media can have now?

Media's value is shifting from being the "trusted narrator" for humans to being the "training signal" for AI. When AI models generate answers, they weight authoritative media sources much more heavily than random web content. Even as human trust erodes, media’s structural influence on AI-generated information is growing. For communicators, "earned media" now serves two audiences simultaneously: the humans who read it and the machines that learn from it. Publications with strong editorial standards become more valuable because AI systems use domain authority and editorial signals as quality proxies.

Q: How does AI rank or prioritise its sources and how do you see this shaping the earned media strategy for brands?

AI models don't "rank" sources like Google does. They weight information based on source authority, recency, consistency, and structured data quality. If five credible outlets report the same fact, that fact becomes a "high-confidence training signal." This means volume across credible sources matters more than a single "big hit." For your strategy, consistency of messaging across all placements is vital because AI looks for corroboration. Factual, entity-rich statements will be picked up more reliably than narrative-heavy feature writing.

Q: With the question of trust — where does the psychology come into it when AI uses a cute nickname or 'remembers' your day? Is it harder to remain dispassionate?

This is the core of my PhD research. It is what I call "synthetic authenticity." AI systems deploy cues like warmth and memory that we evolved to interpret as human. These trigger "parasocial bonding" — the same mechanism that makes you trust a friend’s recommendation. The danger is that cognitive awareness (knowing it’s AI) doesn't override the emotional feeling. We need a new kind of literacy that teaches people to recognise when their "trust response" is being activated by design rather than by a genuine relationship.

Q: Should we be changing the format of communications to cater for AI as an audience, such as media releases in Q&A format?

Yes. This is a very practical move. AI models extract information more reliably from structured formats. A Q&A format gives the AI clear question-answer pairs that map to how people query systems. You should also focus on "AI-readable claims" — entity-rich, factual statements. Instead of saying "We are committed to sustainability," say "Our Singapore operations reduced carbon emissions by 34% between 2023 and 2025." The second version is a verifiable fact an AI can actually use and cite.

Q: PR professionals traditionally monitor media coverage through agencies like Isentia to gauge sentiment. With AI as a stakeholder, how do we monitor 'its sentiment'?

This is the new frontier. Traditional monitoring tracks what humans publish; AI sentiment monitoring tracks what AI systems say about your brand when asked. Since there is no single "AI sentiment" (ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude all give different answers based on their training), you need to monitor across platforms. We are developing capabilities to systematically query these platforms to see how their narratives change over time and identify which source materials are driving those answers.

Q: Regarding ethics and agendas in AI learning — what are the differences between models like ChatGPT and Grok, and how does this affect our brand narrative?

Every model reflects the values, training data choices, and alignment decisions of its creators. ChatGPT (OpenAI) tends towards cautious, balanced responses with strong content guardrails. Conversely, Grok (xAI) was explicitly designed to be less filtered, sometimes surfacing perspectives that other models suppress. Claude (Anthropic) prioritises honesty and nuance. For communicators, this means your brand's narrative varies by platform; you must monitor across multiple models because the same question about your brand will receive materially different answers depending on which tool is used.

Q: With many major news organisations blocking AI crawlers, how should we navigate content creation to ensure we still influence AI-generated answers?

Major publishers like the New York Times and Reuters have blocked AI crawlers, creating a gap in training data. When authoritative journalism is unavailable, AI models may fill that gap with lower-quality content or brand-owned content. For communicators, this means your "owned content" — such as your website, blog, and structured data — carries proportionally more weight in AI-generated answers. Your media targeting strategy now needs to account for which outlets are AI-accessible, as they will be disproportionately influential in shaping your narrative.

Analytical interrogation and the search for authority: Perspectives from Ngaire Crawford

Ngaire Crawford, Isentia’s Director of Insights for ANZ, emphasises the role of the analyst. Her approach is characterised by a "rhythm of interrogation," arguing that the most effective way to use AI is through constant questioning and a focus on high-authority inputs.

Q: Is AI already part of your daily work or habit? If so, how are you using it and what are your best practices?

I was initially very sceptical, but it is now part of my every day. I use models like Claude and Gemini to workshop conference outlines, plan education programmes, update code, and structure strategic thinking. My best practice advice is to develop a "rhythm of interrogation." Don't just accept the first answer; ask for evidence and challenge the output. While AI saves time on technical tasks like coding, for strategic work it simply shifts the "mental load." You spend the same amount of time, but the depth and quality are significantly improved because you aren't starting from a blank page.

Q. PR professionals traditionally monitor media coverage through agencies like Isentia to guage what stakeholders think about a brand. How do we monitor 'AI sentiment' and the information that feeds these models?

It's important to know that models are optimised to give the most useful answer, not necessarily the most accurate one. They are pattern-completing, not fact-checking. Because model responses are not fixed and change based on the conversation, I suggest focusing on the "controllable inputs" that feed them. This includes your own website, company material, Wikipedia data, and review sites (including employee reviews). Ensuring these bases are telling the intended story is the absolute best starting point for managing AI "sentiment."

Q: How does AI prioritise its sources and how does this shape earned media strategy?

There is no "PageRank" to reverse-engineer here. Models are shaped by what was prominent and widely cited in their training data. Practically, this means a shift from volume to authority. A hundred pieces of low-quality coverage do less work than ten pieces in genuinely credible outlets (major mastheads, industry publications, or your own well-structured site). The question for the modern communicator isn't "did we get coverage?", it's "does the coverage that exists, taken as a whole, tell a coherent and credible story?" AI reads the whole picture, not just the highlights reel.

Q: Now that OpenAI is opening up advertising, how much will it cost for a sentiment boost?

Honestly? We don’t know yet. The commercial layer of AI is being figured out in real time. The moment someone wonders if they are getting the "best" answer or a "sponsored" one, trust erodes. However, we still click Google ads, so it will likely happen. What's important is that organisations that "earned" their reputation through authoritative presence before the ad market caught up will be in a much stronger position than those trying to buy a shortcut later.

The path forward for the modern communicator

The insights from our panellists make one thing clear: AI is no longer a tool of the future; it is a stakeholder of the present. To lead with credibility in this new era, communicators must pivot from chasing volume to building authority. Whether it is through adopting a rigorous ethical framework, optimising content for AI readability, or maintaining a "rhythm of interrogation" with the tools we use, the goal remains the same: ensuring our brand narratives are coherent, credible, and human-led.

The tools have finally caught up to the ambitions of our industry. Now, it is up to us to provide the architect's blueprint for how they are used.

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Interested in viewing the whole recording? Watch our webinar here.

Alternatively, contact our team to learn more insights into meaningful measurement, KPIs and communicating using the right dataset.

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