SPARK LIVE Sydney 2026
Highlights and Key Takeaways
Optimize Once, Win Everywhere.
SPARK Live Sydney 2026 united leading Australian brands and industry experts around a shared challenge: how AI is fundamentally reshaping search and content discovery.
From SEO to AEO and beyond, the afternoon made one thing clear, a unified strategy isn't just an advantage, it's the foundation for lasting visibility and impact.
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SPARK LIVE 2026 in Moments
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Event Highlights
Keynote:
Ran Van Riper, CCO, BrightEdge
Ran opened with a simple but urgent message: AI search isn't a trend to prepare for, it's the environment you're already competing in. He dived deep into three new BrightEdge capabilities, AI Hyper Cube, AI Agent Insights, and BrightEdge MCP, showing how they give teams a complete view of AI-driven search performance across every engine, every market, and every competitor. For marketers willing to move, the opportunity has never been bigger. The core message was clear: AI doesn't invent answers, it finds them. Make sure your brand is what it finds.
Australia in focus:
Kylie Tabrett, Head of APAC, BrightEdge
Kylie took a focused look at how AI search is evolving across the Australian market, showing that regional patterns vary significantly by industry, and that teams acting on local signals rather than global assumptions will have a meaningful edge. From the dominance of YouTube in Australian AI citations to how AI has compressed the buyer journey from ten steps to two, Kylie gave attendees a clear picture of where the Australian market stands today and what to prioritise next.
Customer Panel:
Kavit Shah (Telstra), Michaela Lobb (University of New England), Matt Norman (Spark Foundry)
Three enterprise leaders shared what's actually changing inside their organisations as AI reshapes search and customer discovery. The conversation covered how they’re evolving SEO into full AI discoverability and influence management, how they’re tracking AI citations and sentiment across key customer journeys, and how they’re restructuring teams and workflows to operate effectively in an AI-first environment.
AI Certifications and Roundtables
The afternoon moved from insight to action with hands-on AI Certification training, giving attendees a deeper, practical grounding in BrightEdge's AI tools and how to apply them day-to-day. This was followed by roundtable discussions on AI Search & GEO and Agentic Workflows, where small groups dug into real challenges, from optimising for AI Overviews and citations to building agentic workflows into existing team processes and left with concrete next steps to bring back to their own teams.
Networking
The day wrapped with a networking reception, bringing together attendees, speakers, and the BrightEdge team over drinks and conversation. Many left with new peer connections, actionable follow-ups, and a clearer picture of what to prioritise when back at their desks.