Adriana Lacy Speaks at SIPConnect 2026 on What AI Already Understands About Audiences

Adriana Lacy, founder and CEO of Field Nine Group, spoke at SIPConnect 2026 on July 29 at the InterContinental Doral in Miami, closing out a program built around how media and communications organizations survive and grow in the AI era.

Her session, "What AI Knows About Your Audience That You Don't," made the case that the audience question most institutions are still asking has quietly gone out of date. For twenty years the work of audience strategy has meant describing people, sorting them by age and geography and education and income until a picture emerges of who the reader is. AI interfaces never bothered with any of that. They answer a different question entirely, which is what a person is trying to accomplish in the moment they arrive, and they have gotten extraordinarily good at it.

That difference is the foundation of TCI, the framework Lacy developed through applied work with newsrooms, foundations, and universities. Task, Context, and Intent asks what someone is trying to do, what their situation demands they know, and what they need from you this week rather than in general. During the session she walked the room through the framework twice, first with a storm scenario in which the same demographic profile produces four completely different information needs depending on where a person is standing, and then with coverage of Colombia's presidential transition, which demonstrated that the model travels well past American weather reporting.

The talk closed on the argument that this is a competitive advantage rather than a threat, because the organizations in that room hold something no model can assemble on its own. As Lacy put it from the stage, you know your communities much better than these search engines ever could.

The Inter American Press Association covered the session in its conference recap, "Beyond the Experiment: How to Integrate AI and Reconnect with Audiences."

TCI is explored in depth in What Demographics Miss: The Case for Situation-Based Audience Strategy on Field Notes.

Adriana Lacy Consulting is the strategic research and advisory practice of Field Nine Group. For speaking inquiries, contact info@adrianalacyconsulting.com.

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