When to speak out: How to navigate corporate speech in divided times

The secret sauce behind Nestlé’s corporate digital comms success

How does the world’s largest food and beverage company maintain its position as a global leader in digital communications? In the latest episode of Cutting Through, Ferhat Soygenis, Global Head of Corporate Identity and Content at Nestlé joins podcast regulars Scott Payton and Jonathan Holt to discuss the "secret sauce" behind Nestlé's enduring run at the top of the Corporate Digital Communications Index. Find out how constant, iterative improvement and cross-department collaboration are helping Nestlé navigate the rise of AI search and get Ferhat’s insights on what to do first if you want to create a comprehensive, AI-friendly corporate FAQ similar to “Ask Nestlé”, the key role that digital marketeers can play in corporate digital comms, and more.

What AI really means for corporate digital communicators

In this episode of Cutting Through, Jonathan Holt is joined by Ivan Pollard and Denise Dahlhoff from The Conference Board's Marketing and Communication Center – along with Bowen Craggs' own Scott Payton and Caterina Sorenti – to dig into new research on how AI is reshaping the communications landscape. We unpack the results from a recent survey of senior communicators and marketers and find out: why owned media is surging to the top of the priority list (hint: AI search is the hidden force behind it), why paid advertising and employee social media posts are falling out of favour and what all of this could mean for your team's size, structure and skillsets. If the rise of AI has you feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure what to do next, this episode will help.

When to speak out: How to navigate corporate speech in divided times

Speaking out is risky right now (understatement), but is not speaking out on the issues your customers, investors and employees care about the only answer? In this episode of Cutting Through, Scott, Georgia and Jonathan discuss strategies for taking a stand in 2026; why your company’s values might be the North Star you’ve been looking for; and how speaking out via the corporate digital channels can actually bring people together, rather than dividing them further, even in unprecedentedly fractious times.

In the AI age, is authenticity enough?

As AI-generated depictions begin to look all but indistinguishable from the real thing (even when they’re untrue), what are the authenticity signals that can mark your own information out as genuine and believable? From Grok to Star Wars to live examples from the corporate web, we explore the contours of authenticity and trust in our present times – and offer practical advice on how corporate digital communicators can cut through.

A digital sustainability sense check

In this episode, we hear from web sustainability pioneer Tim Frick on how the thinking and guidelines that underpin the web sustainability movement are evolving. If you’re wondering what the explosion of AI (with its famously high carbon impacts) means for web sustainability, how to get the most out of carbon measurement tools or even whether the culture wars might be forcing web sustainability activists into retreat, we’ve got answers. With practical tips on where to start if you’ve been meaning to bump sustainability up on your to-do list.