On Tuesday, May 6, more than 1,400 PR, comms, and marketing professionals from around the world gathered in Manhattan for the highly anticipated, third annual Meltwater Summit. Offering attendees a mix of sessions ranging from the practical to the visionary, the event delivered on its promise of new perspectives from expert speakers and opportunities to connect meaningfully with peers. Here’s a slice of what you missed (or want to revisit) from Day 1 of Summit 2025.
Introducing Mira AI
The morning kicked off with the official launch of Meltwater’s newest innovation, Mira, the first comprehensive AI intelligence engine designed to help PR, communications, and marketing teams get from insights to impact even faster. After a rousing welcome by VP of Culture Zubair Timol, keynote speakers Chief Strategy Officer Alexandra Bjertnæs, Chief Executive Officer John Box, Chief Technology Officer Aditya Jami, and Chief Product Officer Chris Hackney each took to the stage to unveil this latest innovation integrated into the Meltwater Suite.
Now powered by Mira, new enhancements announced include:
- Mira Studio: This chat-based interface within our social listening solution does everything from uncovering consumer insights to compiling media lists, all with a quick prompt.
- Mira Companion: Integrated throughout the Meltwater Suite, these context-specific, pop-out companions streamline and accelerate existing workflows.
- Meltwater Copilot: Available for Microsoft-enabled organizations, this chat-based AI assistant within Teams brings Meltwater insights to broader internal audiences.
Reese Witherspoon takes center stage
The excitement around Mira carried over to the next segment as Meltwater VP of Marketing Jenny Force welcomed Summit’s celebrity keynote speaker Reese Witherspoon. While globally known for her acting career, Witherspoon’s mastery of storytelling extends to her business ventures Hello Sunshine, Draper James, and Reese’s Book Club. In a thoughtful conversation touching on leadership and staying true to your mission, she emphasized the importance of grounding business decisions in core values.
Figure out what your values are and keep it to five things. Get laser-focused on what your mission is, what you want to accomplish, and how you treat people.
Witherspoon’s keynote, with its focus on authenticity and moving with intention, set the tone for the rest of the day’s sessions.
Witherspoon wasn’t the only one delivering impactful takeaways on the first day of Summit. The Main Stage alone featured five sessions with expert speakers from Havas, We.Communications, dig Human, Point 600, Unserious Podcast, Microsoft, Heineken, Crumbl, and Yahoo. Download our forthcoming Summit Playbook for a full breakdown of those sessions’ insights
Three key themes of Day 1
From presentations in the breakout rooms to the conversations in the halls, it’s impossible to sum up all of the highlights of the day. You just had to be there — and next year you can be! Instead, here are three themes that emerged throughout the day.
1. Agility is everything
Staying agile in today’s quickly-shifting PR, comms, and marketing landscapes was a recurring theme. In her session ‘Navigating Career Advancement in Communications: Insider Strategies for Securing Your Next Role’, Brooke Kruger, founder of KC Partners, noted that comms hiring is steady but more competitive than ever. With hiring processes growing longer and more rigorous, candidates not only need to be prepared for interviews and references, but also need to stay agile and responsive with example projects and ideas at the ready.
Lyndsey McFail, Director of Social Media at Broadcast Music Inc., highlighted the importance of preparation to remaining agile in her presentation ‘Harmonizing Social Media: Crafting Compelling Video Content with Limited Resources.’ Along with sharing the methods behind some of her most successful social videos, she illustrated how planning tools like lists, posting schedules, and capture plans (like her signature 5-for-1 Method) help solo and small teams maximize limited resources.
You don’t need a big team to make a big impact — you need big intention.
From the data side, Will Swope, Associate Director of Issues Management and Monitoring at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, demonstrated his three-step process for building more insightful reports. Beginning with the first step of creating a basic search and improving it, next he digs into key insights, and finally chooses the right report template. With that process, he explained, organizations can remain agile throughout news cycles as narratives and objectives continually shift.
2. Context is crucial
Having the right data is important, but as multiple presenters emphasized, that data can’t exist in a vacuum. Jerrod Lew, Manager of Crisis and Issues at Philip Morris International, urged attendees of his session, Turning Social Listening into a Crisis Management Powerhouse, to shift to their PR reporting to have more contextual emphases with analysis of engagement and impression trends. Context around data was also a touchpoint in the day’s Communications Panel: Data-Driven Strategies for Effective Media Relations, featuring SHEIN US’s Head of Brand PR Lisa Zlotnick, and Accenture’s Insights Lead, Corporate Communications, Colleen McGroarty, moderated by Nicole Schuman, Managing Editor at PRNEWS. Attendees of that session learned how contextualizing data within real-world business impacts is essential for communicating impact to executives.
Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy and Edelman Managing Director and Global Head of Digital Crisis Dave Fleet also spoke to the importance of context through the lens of misinformation in their talk Manipulated Narratives: Navigating the Reputational Maze of Misinformation. Along with identifying the actors behind harmful content and exposing the coordinated behaviors behind them, Brahmy and Fleet highlighted the need to contextualize misinformation in wider narrative landscapes to better understand how to respond.
Finally, Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, and Justin Schoen, Director of Strategy and Customer Success at Converseon, a 2025 Summit sponsor, shed light on how their company’s AI models (now integrated into Explore+) allow users to go beyond binary sentiment data to access more nuanced analyses around categories like customer attitudes and trust.
3. Connect authentically
In his presentation 2025 Webby Talk Trend Report: It’s Giving Brainrot, Nick Borenstein of the Webby Awards explained the ins and outs of chronically online culture, including how it is creating communities both on and off of the Internet. Organizations looking to engage with current trends in brainrot and other digital cultures should only do so when it is authentic to their brand.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Mbonu, Vice President of Marketing of the NAACP, championed leading with humanity and recognizing the people represented in the numbers.
Don’t think about your audience as merely data points. There are real people behind the data, so talk to them: communicate with their interests and pain points in mind.
For social, Mbonu noted that if you know your audience, you don’t have to overthink every output. Authentic content will follow, from posts that effortlessly say what everyone is thinking to influencer partnerships that feel naturally on-brand and organic.
From the premiere of Mira to business lessons from Reese Witherspoon to strategic insights from experts across industries, Day 1 of Meltwater Summit was a powerful kickoff. And yet, there’s even more to come with Day 2. Stay tuned.
