Part 1: Communicating in Volatile Times
11:00 – 11:20 a.m.
Comms at the Center: A Crisis Framework for Leading Under Pressure
Crisis is not a matter of if—it’s when. Communicators have been operating on always on mode, pivoting and responding to internal and external crises for years. In this practical session, we’ll ground today’s challenges in real examples and reset how comms leaders must partner with the C-suite—not just to react, but to anticipate and lead. This new crisis communication blueprint will equip you to manage the chaos effectively. What you’ll learn:
- The volatility map: Recent examples of organizational flashpoints ripped from the headlines, and what they reveal about shifting expectations for communicators.
- From messenger to strategist: How to position your expertise as an advisor that shapes decisions, not just announces them.
- Blueprints for rapid response: How to align your team with organizational emergency protocols and pre-drafted holding statements that are pre-approved by leadership.
- Cross-sector coordination: Best practices for collaborating with internal leaders, external partners, and media under pressure.
- Comms/C-Suite alignment: How to anticipate executive concerns and protect organizational trust during volatile moments.
11:20 – 11:40 a.m.
The Broken Trust Era: How AI Has Accelerated Decline, and How to Fix It
Trust collapses fast, and today, it often breaks first between employees and their organization. Add in polarized audiences and AI-powered misinformation and economic issues, and it’s never been more important to build trust with your employees that will last during and after a crisis. Learn how to spot the cracks in employee confidence, rebuild with transparency, and the metrics that will track credibility. We’ll talk about:
- Why employees stop trusting: How organizational silence, missteps, or AI-drive rumor cycles can erode credibility with leadership.
- Job displacement anxiety: How rising fears of AI replacing workers and economic woes has weakened trust between employees and their organization.
- Building trust back: Practical and transparent ways to share how AI is being used, why it matters, and how companies that demonstrate investment in employee growth and commitment to reskilling have been rewarded.
- Measuring trust: The tech and tools that track sentiment and credibility, both internally and externally, and how you can socialize these metrics to leadership.
- Repair in action: Case studies of companies that lost credibility, and the steps they took to successfully rebuild it.
- Future-proofing credibility: How to embed trust as a shared value, not just as a metric monitored during crisis.
11:40 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
The Spokesperson of 2026: Preparing Voices to Lead in the Age of Crisis
According to Ragan and HarrisX’s poll, 67% of CEOs say they lead external communications even when their organization employs a CCO. So how do you prepare your executives when their presence, empathy and credibility matter as much as their talking points? Credibility can be eroded by a single misstep, amplified by AI-driven deepfakes or rescued by the right voice at the right time. This session reveals how to train and elevate spokespersons who project clarity, composure and compassion across any crisis scenario. What you’ll learn:
- C-Suite training: What works (and what doesn’t) when coaching senior leaders who are short on time but high on visibility.
- Balance training: How to instill confidence without arrogance and empathy without weakness – plus how to work with executives reluctant to accept advice.
- Nonverbal mastery: Tone, cadence and body language that amplify trust in high-pressure moments.
- AI assist: How to build an executive template in GenAI to provide quick feedback on tone or voice.
- Crisis-era skills: Preparing spokespersons to counter misinformation, respond to activist pressure, and adapt messaging across hybrid media.
- Future-proofing the messenger: How to use simulations, data feedback and scenario planning to prepare spokespersons for tomorrow’s crises.
12:00 – 12:30 p.m.
Panel
Tech Tactics for Crisis Prevention
By 2026, digital threats don’t wait—they cascade in seconds. Deepfakes, bot networks, and AI-driven misinformation can hijack narratives before you even draft a working statement. In this session, panelists will share how they are staying one step ahead: using AI and emerging tech as early-warning radar, not just damage control, but as early-warning systems and even shields. You will fill your prevention playbook with:
- Anticipating narrative risks: Frameworks to identify the storylines most likely to be hijacked or manipulated.
- 2026 opportunity landscape: What communicators must know about the changing social media landscape, including community-driven platforms like Reddit, Discord, and Facebook Groups, as well as what’s next with algorithm manipulation (and which venues play nice with LLMs) and AI.
- Tech that works: Ways to vet and deploy AI-powered monitoring tools, deepfake detectors, and intelligence platforms that will help you identify risks before they detonate.
- Community defense: Building networks of allies and advocates who can validate facts and counter falsehoods at the ground level.
- Preventive readiness: How to stand up a cross-functional crisis tech unit that involves comms, IT, and security. Plus, the keys to building a polished playbook ready to go when the next storm hits.
12:30 – 12:35 p.m.
Flash Five: Clarity Under Pressure
In this quick-fire session, a Ragan Training advisor will share their top five tips to sharpen your delivery—rapid tongue twisters, confidence-boosting breathwork, and quick-hit prep hacks for last-minute info drops—so your spokespersons can step on stage calm, clear, and ready to shine under pressure.
Part 2: Crisis Response
12:50 – 1:10 p.m.
Case Study
Inside the Employee Lens: Communicating to Calm, Steady and Mobilize your Workforce
Employees aren’t just an internal audience; they’re your most visible stakeholders. In a crisis, how you communicate with them will determine whether they become your fiercest advocates or your fastest liability. One poorly timed memo or vague email can trigger leaks, fuel rumors or shake morale. This session pulls back the curtain on employee-first crisis communication within an organization that supported employees and maintained operational excellence during crises. You’ll walk away with:
- Fast, transparent updates: Proven methods for closing information gaps quickly and preventing misinformation from spreading internally.
- Manager as messenger: How to equip frontline managers with talking points, FAQs, and coaching so they deliver clarity and confidence.
- Emphasize capability, not just buy-in: How this organization emphasized employee capability to adapt and overcome change, and how they calculated the savings from an avoided crisis.
- Balancing reassurance with realism: Techniques for acknowledging fear or uncertainty while reinforcing stability and direction.
- Employee advocacy playbooks: How to mobilize employees as credible, external-facing voices while protecting them from overexposure or burnout.
- Channel strategy for 2026: Best practices for using intranets, collaboration platforms, secure chat and video briefings to reach dispersed teams.
1:10 – 1:30 p.m
Case Study
When the Outside World Becomes Your Crisis
Some of the most damaging crises don’t start within your headquarters, they come from external forces you can’t control. Whether it’s a sudden cyber incident, a viral misinformation surge or a geopolitical flashpoint, these shocks can cascade into reputational, operational and financial damage. This session will reveal how one organization confronted an externally triggered crisis and how they neutralized the situation from start to finish.
- Rapid detection and verification: Confirm the facts quickly to avoid speculation.
- Alignment under pressure: Coordinate executives, legal and communications teams to issue a timely, consistent response.
- Transparent messaging: Inform stakeholders directly, even as details are still emerging.
- Narrative control: Monitor and counter rumors while ensuring clarity across media and digital platforms.
- External relationships: Leverage regulators, industry groups and trusted media as validators of accurate information.
1:30 – 1:50 p.m.
Case Study
Disinformation in the Age of AI
A fake video can tank stock prices. A cloned voice can spark panic. A mob of bots could turn a logo rebrand into a brand crisis. In 2026, communicators are confronting a new kind of disinformation reality: where disinformation is engineered to look, sound and feel real. See how one organization navigated an AI crisis and the lessons and tools every communicator can apply. What you’ll learn:
- Detection skills: How to recognize telltale signs of deepfakes, cloned audio, and synthetic text using both low-tech techniques and AI-detection tools.
- Message triage: How to decide when to respond, when to ignore, and when to reframe.
- Anatomy of a social media crisis: The tools that can identify the beginnings of a viral post, including the metrics that matter like share velocity and comment spikes.
- Platform engagement: How to work with social platforms, journalists, and fact-checkers to debunk false narratives without amplifying them.
- The top five AI threats to watch for: How comms leaders can prepare for these crises, including: internal misuse of AI; deepfake videos of CEO or leadership.
1:50 – 2:15 p.m.
Panel
The Lessons Behind the Case Studies
After sharing their case studies, our speakers return to the virtual stage to take your questions on managing high-stakes crises, from AI threats to internal turmoil and external reputation hits.
2:15 – 2:20 p.m.
Flash Five: Resilience Under Pressure
Take five, learn five: A Ragan Training advisor will present practical ways to stay strong when challenges mount, like creating micro-routines that restore calm, reframing setbacks as experiments, leaning on peer support, protecting focus with boundaries, and practicing fast recovery rituals.
Part 3: Post Crisis
2:35 – 3:00 p.m.
Measuring what Matters: How Comms Can Demonstrate Value in a Crisis
Communication success isn’t just determined by weathering headlines; you know it’s about proving impact. Leaders expect data that shows not only how you responded, but how your actions protected trust, prevented loss and preserved business value. This solo session arms crisis comms professionals with the latest strategies, platforms and templates to quantify the true aftereffects of a crisis in executive-friendly terms. Learn how to transform post-crisis data—sentiment, reputation scores, misinformation exposure and business outcomes into proof points that matter at the boardroom table. What you’ll learn:
- AI and crisis prediction: How to use advanced monitoring to spot risks early and feed insights into executive briefings and post-crisis reviews.
- Unified dashboards: Ways to combine sentiment, misinformation exposure, stakeholder trust, and traditional media metrics into one clear picture for leadership.
- ROI framing: How to quantify “cost avoided” and “trust preserved,” and connect reputational outcomes to contracts, talent, and investment.
- Post-crisis playbooks: Practical, ready-to-use templates for capturing lessons learned, auditing counter-messaging, and tracking trust scores.
- Next-gen KPIs: Define and defend metrics that reflect today’s risks—such as misinformation exposure time, credibility indexes and share of voice in trusted outlets.
3:00 – 3:30 p.m.
Q&A
The New Crisis Communicator
There’s always going to be something new on the horizon. This closing conversation with a senior level exec will break down what leaders expect from communicators in a crisis in 2026—and beyond. Learn what you can do now to improve your playbooks and you’ll be ready for the curveballs no one will see coming. We’ll discuss:
- Deliver for the C-suite: The five traits of a successful crisis comms plan—plus, an example of a communicator that turned one crisis event into a day of celebration.
- Key stakeholders: How to set up communication channels that really work—and don’t overwhelm—making sure the CEO and C-Suite have the information they need at hand while giving your comms department the space it needs to succeed.
- Speed vs accuracy: The delicate balance between being the first word and getting it right, and what it takes to pivot strategy as headlines shift by the hour.
- Scenario planning for 2026: How to upgrade your playbooks to include the threats of the future, including new categories of risk (climate, social media attacks/reputation, AI, geopolitical unrest).
3:30 p.m.
Closing Notes
Five Big Takeaways
We’ll close the day with a brief recap of the lessons you can implement tomorrow.
