The first City Nation Place Lab took place in May 2026 in Lisbon. An invitation-only group of global place brand and marketing leaders came together for two days with expert hosts to translate AI and digital landscape shifts into practical priorities for strengthening reputation, investment appeal, and community resilience.

• 88% of attendees strongly agreed that the event provided them with ideas to implement in their own place
  
• 100% of attendees agreed or strongly agreed that the event had inspired them to be more confident about approaching challenges in their own place
  
• 100% of attendees would recommend the event to other place leadership teams

Read the group’s recommendations in this post-event report.

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Key takeaways from the discussion:

• In a fragmented environment, narrative consistency is everything. Give your stakeholders, private sector partners, community the tools to tell your story and embed your brand across as many touch points as possible.
   
  
• Don’t panic. At worst, you’re only going to be three months behind, because the technology is moving so fast, and when very pound, dollar, and euro needs justifying, there’s a lot of value in taking the time to get your approach right and learn from others.
   
  
• You need to be tackling human discoverability and AI discoverability at the same time. One piece of advice was to treat an AI as a persona or audience in its own right.
   
  
• Be curious. Create spaces to let people play, discover new use cases, and build the skills they’ll need. And remember, if you don’t put the guardrails in, you’ll find that some of your team will be using their personal accounts, and that can get messy fast.
   
  
• Test, test, test. Ask AI questions about your destination, identify the gaps and then be proactive about tackling those. This can also support your business case by proving the risk of NOT having a clear strategy here
   
  
• In the face of disinformation and misinformation, credibility is paramount. You have to be aware though that reputations and perceptions are continuously vulnerable. Reputational security is the name of the game.
   
  
• At the end of the day, the fundamentals of place branding create the structures and relationships you need.
   
  If you would like to propose a topic for a future City Nation Place Lab, or to put your name forward to be invited to join a future Lab as an attendee,  please email Clare Dewhirst.