Introducing our hosts from Education Cubed, Jo and Vivek. Day One will start with a warm welcome and breakdown of what’s to come during the conference.

Not another keynote… 

Universities spend time and resource perfecting their course pages – but do students read them the way we think they do?
In this interactive insight session, UCAS puts course language to the test. Delegates will be asked to judge real examples of course descriptions before seeing how students responded to the same content. The findings reveal what captures attention, what turns students off, and how subtle language choices can make all the difference to engagement and conversion.
Expect to challenge assumptions, laugh (a little), and leave with practical ideas to sharpen how your institution communicates its courses to the next generation of applicants.

Owen and Dani will explore how AI is shaping the future of higher education – from shifting student behaviours to the topics driving the most engagement today. Everything from sector-wide data, through real case studies from Uni Compare’s AURA, they’ll reveal how data and AI are involved in the decision-making process.

University marketing decisions are rarely straightforward. Most of the time, they’re made in the middle of a juggling act: ambition on one side, constraint on the other, and not much breathing room in between. Add ongoing uncertainty across the sector, shifting student expectations and a never-ending to-do list, and it’s no wonder decisions can feel hard to land.

Trying something new isn’t just about whether an idea is good. It’s about time, resource, internal scrutiny and whether you’re willing to stick your neck out when the stakes feel high. Often, the safest option is to do nothing at all.

In this session, university marketers from across the sector join the stage to talk honestly about the challenges and barriers they’ve faced when adopting new platforms, tools and approaches.

From resourcing and internal buy-in to delivery effort and competing priorities, contributors share what they wrestled with, what assumptions held up, which ones didn’t, and what they learned along the way.

This is a chance to hear those conversations in their most honest form, the kind that usually happen when suppliers aren’t in the room.

A peer-led conversation about how decisions really get made in higher education marketing.

Ready to stop talking about AI and actually do something with it?

I’ve spent the last year embedding AI across marketing, comms and admissions at Aston University, learning the hard way so you don’t have to. This session is your fast-track past the hype and into actual implementation.

I’ll show you how to motivate your teams to experiment with AI, and how to maintain momentum when budgets are tight and bandwidth is tighter.

You’ll leave with tools you can deploy: a strategy blueprint that works in the real world, a taskforce checklist that’s tried and tested, and the inspiration to lead your team into the AI era.

Amandeep Aulakh, Associate Head of Client Partnerships, and Joe Marzano, Account Director, explore why peer-to-peer interaction has become one of the most powerful drivers of late-stage conversion. As applicants move beyond search and research into the moments where confidence wobbles, they look for reassurance grounded in lived experience – answers from someone who has actually been there. While AI now supports early-stage discovery by streamlining information and personalising guidance, it cannot replicate the trust, belonging and credibility that real student voices provide. This session will show how universities can use peer connections to close the confidence gap, strengthen offer-holder support and drive more meaningful, human-centred conversion.

Imagine a world where AI doesn’t exist and we have to rely on our collective minds. (Yes, that world… four software updates ago.)

Now imagine your university could tap into the hive mind of a major global brand. What happens when you think unalike?

Our hosts from Education Cubed, Jo and Vivek, welcome you back for day two!

Universities face a legitimacy crisis, not an image problem. After three decades of marketisation, rankings dependency, and widening gaps between brand promises and reality, traditional levers like logos, campaigns, and visual refreshes are not enough.

Research with 140+ marketing and academic leaders globally reveals three interconnected gaps undermining reputation efforts: a credibility gap (marketing as service, not strategy), a connection gap (72% of academics identify with their discipline versus 41% with their institution), and a capability gap (marketing lacking the institutional knowledge to earn academic trust).

These gaps form a vicious cycle no tactical fix can break. Brand must shift from noun to behaviour, from corporate polish to institutional infrastructure. Delegates will leave with a diagnostic framework and planning time to identify the skills, relationships, and quick wins that will elevate their influence.

In this session, we’ll dive into the shift and shake of organisational restructuring, not just as a challenge, but as an opportunity. Expect a candid, practical conversation about what really happens when teams, roles and responsibilities are reorganised. I’ll share honest reflections on the tensions and decisions that come with restructure, and discuss how to transform chaos into clarity and renewed purpose. I’ll discuss how to explore and how to rebuild (or reimagine) team dynamics, realign roles, and create a shared vision that empowers everyone involved.

Drawing on aggregated behavioural insights from millions of peer conversations and micro-surveys, this session breaks down what drives applicant and offer holder confidence, hesitation and choice. We highlight how universities can use real conversational signals to predict conversion, identify risk earlier and personalise support at scale.

We will discuss how universities can turn these conversational insights into practical actions, such as targeted interventions at key points of hesitation, personalised outreach based on behavioural signals, and resource prioritisation aligned with application conversion.

TBC

There’s no shortage of AI chatter in Higher Education — but far fewer opportunities to pause, compare notes, and work out what’s actually useful (and how to implement it responsibly).

On Day 2, during lunch, Emma and Sally will host a small‑group roundtable designed to turn discussion into action for HE marketing teams.

Over a focused 45‑minute session, you’ll dive into:

• How teams are resourcing AI in practice
• Which tools are earning their place in the stack
• Frameworks to keep outputs on brand and on brief

You’ll walk away with:

• A simple starter doc for your own AI governance framework
• Benchmarking insights from peer institutions
• A practical, crowd‑sourced shortlist of tools and use cases
• The option to join a new cross‑institution AI in HE network

Interested?

Email conference@educationcubed.com with your name and AI experience level (super‑user, dabbler, or beginner). If full, we’ll add you to the waitlist.

Let’s move AI in HE from hype… to how.