NPA Summit 2026: Session Proposal Guide

AI is reshaping how news is produced, discovered, and monetized but most organizations are still stuck reacting to new tools, shifting platforms, and unstable audience attention.

The 2026 NPA Summit theme, "From Reaction to Readiness: Audience Intelligence as AI Infrastructure for News," focuses on moving from experimentation to preparedness by building the audience intelligence and AI infrastructure that modern news organizations need to operate with clarity, resilience, and control. By treating first-party audience data, insight workflows, and responsible AI systems as core infrastructure, leaders can make smarter decisions, strengthen trust, and create sustainable models that don’t depend on any single platform or moment of attention.

The Summit is the News Product Alliance’s global convening for news leaders defining what news will become next. It’s where the decision-makers who set priorities and ship work across product, audience, technology, revenue, and editorial come together to align on what’s changing, share what’s working, and turn strategy into execution. Each year, the program is shaped by the real challenges, experiments, and lessons emerging across our community. We invite you to share your work and ideas to help us build the most practical, forward-looking Summit yet, and ensure the conversations and takeaways reflect what news organizations truly need right now.

We’re looking for sessions that are:

  • Deeply grounded in real work

  • Focused on product systems, workflows, and decision-making

  • Useful to senior leaders outlining strategy and hands-on practitioners executing it

  • Oriented toward agency, ownership, and building what comes next

  • Aligned with the event’s theme (see here for more information)

Strong sessions come from clarity of experience, not completeness of expertise. We intentionally curate a program that reflects a wide range of perspectives, roles, and lived experiences across the field—and we design our formats and review process to support a generous, inclusive environment for shared learning.

If you’re unsure how to position your idea, trust your judgment. We’ll work with selected speakers to refine titles, descriptions, and format details as part of building a strong overall program.

Pitch your session by April 6, 2026!

What’s in this guide:

How to Complete Your Session Proposal

The information you share in the form helps us understand your idea, and if selected, present your session clearly to attendees. You don’t need to overthink any single field; together, they tell the story of what you want to share and who it’s for.

Submit your session proposal by April 6, 2026. [INSERT LINK TO THE FORM]

Below, you will find detailed information about what is included in the form.

Session Title

Your session title should be clear, specific, and engaging. This is the first thing attendees will see on the schedule.

Strong titles:

  • Signal the core idea or problem your session explores

  • Avoid jargon or internal language

  • Hint at what someone will learn or rethink

If your session is selected, your title may be lightly edited for clarity or consistency with the overall program.

Session Description

This is the public-facing description attendees will see on the Summit site and schedule. Use it to explain what the session is about and why it’s worth attending.

A strong description:

  • Clearly describes the topic or challenge

  • Explains what the session will cover or explore

  • Helps readers understand what they’ll gain by attending

Aim to be concise but concrete. You don’t need to outline every agenda item, focus on the outcomes and value. If your session is selected, your description may be lightly edited for clarity or consistency with the overall program.

Recommended length: 150–300 words.

Session Purpose & Takeaways

This field helps us understand what you want participants to leave with. You might use this space to describe:

  • The type of learning or insight you want to enable

  • Whether participants will leave with new ideas, strategies, skills, or connections

  • What success looks like for this session

  • Details on how you plan to structure this session

Session Format

We offer four session formats. Choosing the right format is one of the most important parts of a strong proposal. For more details, jump to the section on how to choose your session format.

  • Show & Tell (5 minutes | 1 presenter )→ A short, ignite-style talk focused on one big idea or lesson

  • Masterclass (75 minutes | 1–2 facilitators)→ A structured, skill-building session

  • Interactive Workshop (75 minutes | 1–2 facilitators) → A facilitated, participatory session focused on a shared challenge

  • Panel (60 minutes | Moderator + 3–4 panelists)→ A focused conversation within one core topic area

Choosing the right format helps us shape a balanced program and set clear expectations for attendees. 

Theme Alignment

Select the theme(s) your session most directly connects to. Themes help us ensure the program reflects the Summit’s overall focus and balance sessions across core areas. For this year’s Summit, we’re looking for sessions that focus on the following core themes:

1. Audience Intelligence & First-Party Data Systems: How news organizations build, connect, and operationalize first-party audience data to turn research and signals into decisions, products, and strategy.

2. AI-Native News Operations: Designing newsroom workflows, tools, and governance models where AI is embedded into everyday operations—not layered on as an experiment.

3. Sustainable, Audience-Led Business Models: Aligning revenue strategies with audience value creation through product-led monetization, trust, loyalty, and long-term retention.

4. The Future of Distribution & Non-dependability: Navigating platform volatility by building direct relationships, reducing dependency on search and social, and regaining strategic control over distribution.

5. Product Leadership in Uncertain Times: Leading cross-functional teams through change by designing organizations, decision frameworks, and accountability systems built for uncertainty.

You don’t need to force alignment with multiple themes—choose the one or two that best fit your session’s focus.

Audience Category (Who This Session Is For)

Choose the category that best matches the kind of work or decisions your session supports:

  • Building Systems & Infrastructure: Designing or implementing audience data, AI, product, or operational workflows and systems.

  • Making Strategic Decisions: Setting direction, priorities, or guardrails around AI, data, platforms, or long-term risk.

  • Turning Audience Insight into Value: Connecting audience understanding to products, services, revenue, trust, or retention.

  • Leading Teams Through Change: Guiding teams and organizations through change, restructuring, or uncertainty.

When choosing, consider: Who would get the most immediate value from this conversation? There’s no single right answer—your selection helps us shape a balanced and useful program. 

Choosing the Right Session Format

Show & Tell (Ignite-Style Talk)

5 minutes | 1 presenter | Auto-advancing slides

Show & Tell sessions are fast, focused, ignite-style talks centered on one clear idea, insight, or product case study. These talks should be fun, inspiring, and memorable, designed to spark new ways of thinking rather than explain everything you did.

Pitch a Show & Tell if:

  • You learned something surprising, challenging, or perspective-shifting

  • You have one big idea that reframed how you think about product, audience, or AI

  • You want to share a specific lesson learned, not a full project overview

  • Your talk can be distilled into a single, compelling takeaway

Strong Show & Tells balance storytelling and insight. They can be philosophical or pragmatic, but they should always be grounded in real experience.

We're looking for proposals that:

  • Are tightly focused on one core idea

  • Feel energizing and opinionated, not explanatory

  • Make it clear what attendees will take away in just five minutes

Masterclass

75 minutes | 1–2 facilitators

Masterclasses are structured skill-building sessions designed to help participants deepen their understanding or develop a new capability. These sessions may be sit-and-learn, hands-on, or a mix of both—but the primary goal is teaching something people can apply.

Pitch a Masterclass if:

  • You’ve developed real expertise in a tool, framework, workflow, or approach

  • You’ve learned something the hard way and want to help others do it better

  • You want to connect with peers doing similar work and share practical guidance

  • There’s a clear skill or method participants will leave with

Masterclasses are ideal for going deeper than a single case study and offering clarity, structure, and actionable knowledge.

We're looking for proposals that:

  • Clearly articulate learning objectives

  • Demonstrate real-world experience, not just theory

  • Are thoughtfully designed for pacing and participant needs

Interactive Workshop

75 minutes | 1–2 facilitators

Interactive Workshops are facilitated, participatory sessions where attendees learn by doing and/or collaborating around a shared challenge. These sessions prioritize engagement over presentation and often involve structured exercises or guided discussion.

Pitch an Interactive Workshop if:

  • You’re grappling with a challenge others in the field are also facing

  • The value comes from collective thinking, practice, or collaboration

  • You can clearly define the problem—even if the solution is still emerging

  • You’re excited to facilitate learning rather than deliver answers

You do not need to have everything figured out. This format is about creating the conditions for meaningful exchange and insight.

We're looking for proposals that:

  • Clearly define the challenge participants will work on

  • Show intention around facilitation and participation

  • Create opportunities for shared insight or tangible takeaways

  • If learning happens best through doing, this is the right format.

Panel

60 minutes | Moderator + 3–4 panelists

Panels at the NPA Summit are focused, topic-driven conversations tied directly to one of the Summit’s five core areas:

  1. Audience Intelligence & First-Party Data Systems

  2. AI-Native News Operations

  3. Sustainable, Audience-Led Business Models

  4. The Future of Distribution & Non-dependability

  5. Product Leadership in Uncertain Times

Rather than broad overviews, panels are designed to explore specific questions, tensions, or decisions within these themes—bringing together diverse perspectives to help senior leaders and practitioners think more clearly about what to do next.

Pitch a Panel if:

  • You want to help shape a high-quality conversation within one of the five topic areas

  • You can articulate a clear focus (the problem, debate, or decision the panel will explore)

  • You can contribute a meaningful perspective based on your experience or suggest others who can

We're looking for panel proposals that:

  • Are clearly grounded in one Summit topic area

  • Have a strong, well-defined point of inquiry

  • Bring together complementary or contrasting perspectives (not duplicative ones)

  • Are designed to go deep rather than cover everything

  • Strong panels feel intentional, opinionated, and useful—helping the audience understand how leaders are navigating real tradeoffs, not just what’s happening in the industry.

How Sessions Are Selected

All proposals are reviewed by a community review panel made up of practitioners from across the news product ecosystem, who read submissions and share their top recommendations. The NPA team then uses this feedback to curate the final program, balancing community input with considerations such as session mix, theme alignment, and a breadth of perspectives and experiences from across the field, alongside overall program cohesion.