I joined Unily a few weeks before Unite 25. It was my first Unite, and my first major event in the employee experience space. There was a nice symmetry to that. I was still finding my feet in EX, learning what a genuinely great experience feels like from the other side of it, as an attendee.
Except I wasn’t only attending. Unite is a huge team effort and for Marketing and teams across Unily, those two days were incredibly busy. But somewhere between the sessions, interviews, product reveals, conversations, and a Nashville afterparty, I understood why people talk about Unite differently from other conferences. .
The Conversations You Don't Plan For
Unite is built around its sessions, but what stayed with me most happened around them. A conversation that started over breakfast and continued into the corridor. A question that kept a speaker back 10 minutes longer. A five-minute chat with someone you had never met before turning into a genuinely interesting exchange about a challenge you both recognize.
Attendees talked to speakers. Customers talked to each other. Nobody stuck to their own table and people joined conversations happening around them. People running major programs at some of the world’s largest organizations were just as curious and generous as everyone else in the room. And what struck me was how natural it felt.
That's the real value of Unite: you don't just consume content, you bring your own experience and questions and trade it for someone else's opinion, problem, or story.
Speakers Who Command The Stage
The lineup included headline speakers Dr Mae Jemison and Vanessa Van Edwards. Vanessa’s session focused on trust, influence, and the behavioral cues that shape how people respond to each other, then modeled every bit of it a few minutes later when I interviewed her. Warm. Patient. Completely present. There was no gap between "on stage" and "off stage". That stayed with me.
We also had speakers from organizations including Shell, Pearson, and Microsoft sharing equally sharp thinking with the room: what it takes to run enterprise social at scale, why community and governance matter more than raw activity, and why AI adoption is a people problem before it's a technology one. Our own speakers, including Matt Boyd and Hannah Unsworth, added the Unily perspective to the same conversation.
When I interviewed attendees afterward, almost everyone wanted to talk about what surprised them, what they disagreed with, and what they were taking back to their teams. That openness to exchange ideas said more about Unite than any single session could.
Where You See It First
Last year, Unite was also where Unily Futures went from slide to stage. Lokdeep introduced the vision. Will Saville and Matt Boyd built it live, in front of the room. You could feel the reaction shift in real time.
What happened in the hour after the reveal created a real buzz. Attendees who'd just watched it walked straight up to the team behind it to find out more. They were asking how it would work for their organizations and discovering just how much change they could bring to how their teams work. Some of those conversations turned into early pilots before the week was even over.
This year, we've got a product reveal that’s going to move you from ‘corporate’ to ‘creative’ in a click. I can’t wait to see the reaction in the room, and gather some insights into how attendees see it shaping their strategies.
A Room That Knows Each Other
The Unit Awards were a highlight for a different reason. They recognized months, sometimes years, of work behind real platform launches and campaigns, and watching teams hear their names called made it clear how much this community means to the people in it.
Watching teams celebrate each other made the community aspect of Unite feel tangible. It also helped me understand why so many attendees come back. They reconnect with peers who understand the same challenges, in the same kinds of organizations, facing the same year ahead.
Nashville also gave the trip its own personality: an afterparty run-in with a Dolly Parton lookalike, convincing enough to fool a very tired brain for a second.
What Actually Stays With You
Nearly a year on, I don't remember every slide or statistic, but I remember the people. I remember how easy it was to talk to Vanessa in my first EX interview. A speaker staying behind for one more question. Customers celebrating each other's successes. People from completely different organizations realizing they were solving the exact same problem.
You arrive at Unite expecting an agenda. You leave with conversations, ideas, and stories you weren't expecting, and a reason to come back.
Unite returns to London on September 29–30. I'll be working again, and I'm looking forward to being back in that same energy that made the first time so special.
Rob helps customers unlock the full value of Unily by connecting product innovation with real business outcomes. With a focus on AI Search & Knowledge and People & Community, he works with the product teams to translate customer feedback into meaningful solutions that empower employees and strengthen organizational culture. Rob plays a key role in Unily’s monthly product releases. Through a dedicated “What’s New” series, he ensures customers receive clear, actionable insights and resources to adopt new features with confidence.