Presence is the new KPI
I like to think I've curated a really tight LinkedIn feed. I know that sounds like an odd 2026 algorithm flex, but hear me out. I'm intentional about who I follow, and the result is a stream of community-focused updates I actually enjoy scrolling through.
Lately, what's standing out is the sheer number of branded community and event roles popping up. The job market is, in a word, awful right now, but still I see so many opportunities for event-based roles.
A few stood out from organizations you might find…surprising.
Anthropic is hiring a Marketing Events Lead at up to $400K to produce hosted executive roundtables, customer summits, and intimate dinners – and a Marketing Events Content Manager to develop content for recurring brand events like Code with Claude and the Anthropic Futures Forum. OpenAI is hiring a Head of Events for APAC to build a regional team whose stated mission, in OpenAI's own words, is "bringing people together to connect in meaningful ways.”
The cynical read: they're chasing acquisition. Executive dinners and summits are pipeline plays, not moral leadership.
But here’s the signal. While the rest of the market is busy buying AI subscriptions, scaling token budgets, and threading agents through every workflow, the AI companies themselves are quietly spending six figures on humans to host rooms. They're not betting their growth on AI replacing the human side of the equation. They're betting on the room. (I do giggle at the thought of a bunch of laptops with AI notetakers sitting around a table though.)
The real question: how much can we trust these brands to do the messy, human work of community well? The ones quickly turning our content streams into a generic mess of meh? The ones whose favorite movie, apparently, is HER?
I run in-person programs for a living. I know what gets built when a brand decides to host real humans for real, and what doesn't.
I have concerns.
What we do know: thanks to AI, our online spaces are getting weird(er), and as a result people are seeking out places they can trust. The brands they trust are the ones that own somewhere authentic to meet them.
A caveat: many brands may misstep on the community aspect and confuse it with experiential activation. But the trick there is: a three-day pop-up has no return rate. A walk-through installation produces no bring rate. A sampling moment at a train station has zero independence–the budget dries up and the entire activation evaporates.
A community can continue to exist even if the brand stops paying for the room.
Some brands have known this for years.
For over a decade, Lululemon has run free in-person run clubs out of its stores. Saturday mornings, in cities around the world, store ambassadors host group runs that anyone can join. No app. No social-media gimmick. No paid attendance. Just a meeting time, a route, a host, and a returning cadence. People come. People come back. People bring friends. The clubs persist regardless of Instagram's algorithm, a competitor's ad spend, or whatever AI is doing to their category that week.
And they are not alone. Athletic Brewing built a Collective program just for run club organizers. Figma just refreshed Friends of Figma — 250+ chapters across 82 countries. Airbnb runs in-person Host Clubs for its host community in cities worldwide.
The Anthropic and OpenAI hires aren't outliers. They're early signals. The companies who can least afford to misread the moment are putting their money on humans, in rooms, on a returning cadence. The brands that will compound through the next decade won't be the ones with the loudest content. They'll be the ones who own a Saturday morning.
The shift worth naming: in a world where content is infinite and acquisition keeps getting more expensive, the most valuable thing a brand can measure isn't how many people saw something. It's how many people showed up.
Speaking of showing up
Most of us are designing gatherings in isolation. An offsite we're piecing together between meetings. A community program that's lost its energy. A member experience we're building from scratch with no template.
I'm running a four-week Gathering Design Sprint in June for exactly this. You bring a real gathering you're planning. We go through the design process together, week by week — discovery, mapping, prototyping, documenting. Four live calls, office hours in between, a small cohort that'll see your work up close.
You leave with a designed gathering, not a folder of theory. Documented decisions, owners, timelines. The Belonging Triangle and the rest of the frameworks for the next one, and the one after that.
💎 Internet Treasures:
- Community Playbooks The folks at Ledby.Community turned the transcripts of the talks from their London Community Week into interactive playbooks. (no login required)
- Social Interaction Trainer is a minimalist comedy puzzle game about eye contact, awkward timing, and everyday social pressure. Move through strange little scenes, watch how people react, and figure out where your character should look next.
📚 Book Club: The Power of Moments
Our next Community Book Club read is: The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath.
The Power of Moments reveals why our most meaningful memories cluster around four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. It also shows why we're wired to remember peaks and endings while forgetting everything in between.
Our book club runs a little differently than ones you might be used to. For starters, there is no pressure to have actually read the book. We take some of the core concepts, turn them into a practical workshop, and share what comes up. We'd love to see you there.
Thanks for being here!
Until next time, keep gathering with intention.
—Christina
Founder, Community Council & BoardingPass
