91% Have an Intranet, 55% Have a Mess

Jenni: This bonus episode is brought to you by Simpplr. Simpplr is an AI-powered employee experience tool that streamlines work and supercharges communication.

Chuck: Welcome to Frequency, I’m Chuck Gose.

Jenni: And I’m Jenni Field. Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms, culture, and employee experience — beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. I’ll kick things off by mentioning, in case you missed it at the very start, that this is a bonus episode — something we want to do more of in 2026. We’ll keep our regular weekly show every Monday, but we’re hoping to drop in special bonus episodes throughout the year as well. Chuck, over to you.

Chuck: As Jenni said, sometimes our weekly episodes covering three to five articles just don’t do a topic justice, and every now and then there’s something worth digging into more deeply, which is exactly what these bonus episodes are for. So it’s my honor to introduce not only our guest today, but Frequency’s very first guest ever: Carolyn Clark, VP of Communications and Employee Experience at Simpplr. I’ve known Carolyn for years in the communications space — she’s spent time at GoDaddy, Yahoo, and Opendoor. Carolyn, welcome to Frequency, thank you for joining us.

Carolyn: Thank you for having me, I’m excited to be with these experts — you two are genuinely impressive people, and friends too, in our small world of comms.

Chuck: We’d like to think of ourselves as impressive, Carolyn, so thank you for that. We wanted to have you on to talk about Simpplr and some research — spend a bit of time sharing your experience there and what you all do.

Carolyn: I like to say I’m on the other side now — I spent my whole career doing the actual comms work, and I’ve been at Simpplr for almost three and a half years. It’s where all that training and learning has become directly applicable, because I’m now in meetings with product teams, working with the research team on what facts actually matter. It’s been one of the most fun parts of my career, because I can see the product actually change based on comms people’s feedback, including my own. We do a lot of research, and one thing that’s been a real learning curve for me — Chuck and I joked about this while prepping — is reports like the Gartner Magic Quadrant and the Forrester Wave, these massive analyst reports vendors like Simpplr invest heavily in. I’d genuinely never heard of them when I was still on the practitioner side. When I first encountered them, I thought, what on earth is this? It turns out that when comms people aren’t in the room, IT often is, looking at this research to make sure they’ve got the right vendors under consideration — it does a lot of that evaluation work for you. Did you two know about it, or follow it before?

Chuck: When I first heard “Magic Quadrant,” it sounded very Harry Potter to me, I didn’t quite know what it referenced. But I think it gives teams structure and a way to compare vendors beyond just buttons and features — it looks at the whole spectrum, including customer interviews as part of the evaluation. What were Simpplr’s results in this year’s Magic Quadrant?

Carolyn: This is our fourth year being named at the top of the quadrant — something we’re genuinely proud of, since it’s been true as long as I’ve been there. For me, it’s validation that these are facts, evaluated by an unbiased third party, not just what my friends in comms say or what marketing tells you. If I were buying any platform now, that’s exactly what I’d look for — who are the top three, that’s really all I want to know up front.

Chuck: That’s a great point, Carolyn, because some organizations simply aren’t familiar with all the options out there — this is a place to see who’s a cemented leader and who’s growing, and the more the industry grows, the better for everyone involved.

Carolyn: Bring on all the products, honestly — not everything will work, but if some smaller, more obscure intranet vendor introduces a feature that changes the game, even the top-of-quadrant players can learn from it. The whole ecosystem only makes everyone stronger.

Chuck: Carolyn, thank you for all the work you and Simpplr do, and for joining us on Frequency. Jenni and I are now going to dig into Simpplr’s 2025 State of Internal Communications and Intranet Technology report. We’re going to talk about a slightly uncomfortable truth: internal comms is getting more attention and, in some cases, more budget, but the everyday employee experience is still shaped by a mess of tools, unclear ownership, and “we sent an email” as a strategy. To be clear, this isn’t an employee survey — it’s the view of the people running comms, HR, IT, and leadership. So we’re really digging into how the builders of the system think it’s working, what’s improving, and especially the gap between “we have an intranet” and whether employees can actually find what they need. We’re pulling ten findings that tell a bigger story: IC is becoming more strategic, measurement is still a bit odd, tech is both enabler and bottleneck, and AI is moving fast while governance and targeting lag behind. Number one: execs are paying more attention to IC. The report says 79% believe execs understand IC’s importance, 58% report increased IC budgets, and 38% expect to add IC staff. The question is whether bigger budgets mean “more stuff” or actually better outcomes — it’s worth asking leaders what they think they’re buying: faster adoption, fewer rumors, less churn, better manager communication. Jenni, if leadership is finally investing, what should IC do first so it improves employee experience rather than just output?

Jenni: This is a great starting point, and I won’t answer straight away, which is apparently what I always do. What strikes me is that 79% “think” execs understand IC’s importance — we’re equating that understanding with more investment rather than more of execs’ actual time spent improving the employee experience, which is what we really need: leaders being more supportive, more credible, all of that. If I got more budget, the first thing I’d do is invest in deeper insight into different employee groups, and really tackle the big unresolved challenges — frontline and deskless workers, for instance — that never seem to come off the table. Assuming the budget keeps growing year over year, in year two I might build the skills and resources my team needs, since I’ve typically outsourced rather than hired directly. What would you do?

Chuck: Very British of you — get more budget, then go do more research. The American in me wants to start buying and doing things immediately. For me, the real red flag is that 79% figure — we don’t actually know execs understand IC’s importance, we only know people think they do. It’s more important to actually know your leaders understand it than to assume they do.

Jenni: Exactly why I’d want more research — to really dig in and find out. I hate “I think” as an answer, it’s one of my pet peeves — do you think this, or do you know it?

Chuck: Moving to number two: customer satisfaction is the top impact metric for internal comms. The most cited business impact metric is customer satisfaction score, and only 35% of orgs with an intranet measure email readership. This is a fascinating tell — IC is allegedly using an external metric leadership already respects, but it raises the question of how you actually know comms drove that outcome. Jenni, what does it say about measurement when this external metric outranks the comms-effectiveness metrics we typically hear about?

Jenni: I think this links directly to Gallup’s work connecting employee experience and engagement to customer satisfaction, so there’s a thread being pulled there. I struggle a little to believe internal comms people are really saying this unprompted — I’m curious about the exact wording of the survey question, whether it was one item on a longer checklist. It might signal a link to more profit-driven organizations being more engaged with this than more purpose-led ones. It raises a few flags for me.

Chuck: I actually want this to be true, because we’ve started encouraging comms to look at things like retention and other business metrics — if this is real, it supports the idea that happy employees lead to happier customers, and we know engaged, supported employees tend to translate into better outcomes further down the line.

Jenni: What’s jarring for me is how far downstream that feels — for more purpose-led organizations, the equivalent stakeholder might be donors or supporters, and it just feels distant from what comms people typically discuss day to day. If it is genuinely happening, that’s amazing because it shows real impact, but I don’t hear it discussed enough at industry events to feel confident it’s a strong emerging trend yet, even though it aligns with what we know from Gallup.

Chuck: Maybe our listeners will start talking about it more. Number three: organizations with intranets rate internal comms higher — 30% rate IC “excellent” with an intranet, versus 13% without. The challenge here is that this is perception, not proof — it could simply be that organizations already taking employee experience seriously also invest in platforms. Still, it’s a strong “infrastructure matters” signal. Jenni, if you hear “we don’t really have an intranet,” what’s your next question about how employees actually get what they need?

Jenni: I’d literally ask, how do employees get what they need? It’s a genuinely common answer lately — I’ve heard “we don’t really have an intranet” from several people in just the last three to six months. I think this leans toward proof rather than pure perception because clarity and one version of the truth — always my core argument for having an intranet — genuinely makes people feel more informed, and that naturally improves how they’d rate internal comms. Without one, the answer is almost always cascaded slide packs by email, plus all-hands and town halls, and the general consensus is that none of that works especially well, leaving real gaps in collaboration.

Chuck: I’ll try to limit my dislike of SharePoint here, but it’s notable that people handcuffed to SharePoint are still only rating IC as “excellent” 30% of the time — there’s clearly room for the industry to grow, since it has to be much more than just an intranet. Sorry, Microsoft. This is exactly that perception-not-proof problem — we need to be sure we’re actually delivering great content employees can access.

Jenni: And remember, this survey is comms, HR, and IT professionals essentially grading their own homework.

Chuck: Correct — that’s exactly the perception-not-proof issue. Number four: the intranet divide shows up in employee experience measures — the report links intranet presence to higher productivity (84% vs. 67%), belief in mission (78% vs. 60%), and connection to coworkers (75% vs. 58%), while noting it doesn’t prove causation. Even as correlation, it points to something practical: when people can find things and complete tasks, they feel better about work — a platform isn’t culture, but friction absolutely shapes it. Jenni, where do you see the real driver in stats like these: the platform, the culture that funded it, or how comms is run?

Jenni: I think it’s all blended together — I always say your tools and channels are the tangible representation of your culture. If innovation is one of your stated values, working with an AI-powered platform like Simpplr demonstrates that; if you’re still sending PDF packs while claiming innovation as a value, you’re not backing it up. These gaps — 84 versus 67 on productivity, 75 versus 58 on connection — are substantial, not marginal. On the friction point, I was at an event discussing “digital stress,” the accumulation of small daily frictions chipping away at someone’s experience, and I think that genuinely affects wellbeing as part of this too.

Chuck: This might also signal that leadership teams investing in a platform like this are typically investing more broadly elsewhere too, which is what really drives the employee experience improvement rather than people just pointing fingers about not being able to find things or know who owns what.

Jenni: And it’s also about the content — the tool is only one part. The people showing up, engaging, contributing content, matters just as much. There’s a risk that organizations invest in an intranet, treat it as a checked box, and stop there. I remember an old boss, right after we launched a new intranet, asking “right, that’s done — what’s the next project?” as if there wasn’t ongoing work involved in actually running it. That was a long time ago, hopefully that mindset’s disappeared, but it’s still a real risk.

Chuck: Number five: 91% have an intranet, but that doesn’t mean it’s working. The report calls this an engagement paradox — 91% say they have one, yet 55% describe a fragmented, multi-vendor setup. This is where decisions and internal partnerships really matter — we often see “SharePoint graveyards” that technically qualify as an intranet alongside a pile of other disconnected tools. Jenni, when someone says “we have an intranet,” what’s the fastest way to tell if it’s a real hub versus just a document repository?

Jenni: My next question is always, and what tool is that? Once you know the specific tool, you get a much better sense of how it’s actually being used. Not to pick on SharePoint specifically, but when people say “we’re a Microsoft house, so we’ve got SharePoint,” the underlying complexity of that whole ecosystem makes proper governance and usage really difficult. I think the deeper question is what you actually want the tool to do — two-way conversation, or just a repository — because there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer, it depends entirely on your size and culture. There’s also been real chatter over the last six months to a year about whether “intranet” as a term is disappearing altogether, because it doesn’t really describe what these tools have become anymore.

Chuck: When people say “we’re an intranet house” and try to justify it, I’m almost ready to offer condolences if it turns out to be a Microsoft house specifically.

Jenni: Do you send them a sympathy card in the post?

Chuck: Number six: tool sprawl is driving interest in all-in-one platforms. Among multi-vendor users, 42% say they’d switch to an all-in-one solution if they could, and the report shows higher employee connection scores for all-in-one setups (81% vs. 74%). The story isn’t simply “one vendor good, many vendors bad” — it’s about fewer handoffs, fewer logins, fewer dead ends, since employees experience a workflow, not an org chart. Jenni, what’s the hidden cost of tool sprawl that leaders tend to underestimate day to day?

Jenni: It connects back to that digital stress point — we recently ran focus groups for a client, a SharePoint-heavy organization, specifically about their digital experience, and the overwhelming feedback was simply “I don’t know where to go for things.” Eventually people just stop looking entirely, or ask a colleague instead. That’s the real hidden cost — time, and disengagement. What’s frustrating from a comms perspective is watching other departments ignore that insight and build yet another standalone tool, say for HR recognition, without connecting it to anything else — you’re left pulling your hair out. Getting the message across internally that “all-in-one” is often genuinely better — but clearly defining what that actually means, a more seamless digital experience rather than just physically one system — is the hard part.

Chuck: Perfect segue to number seven: IT often controls the budget, and satisfaction differs meaningfully by department. 48% report that IT controls the IC technology budget, and IT itself reports 92% satisfaction with intranet functionality, versus 76% for other departments. This is a classic translation problem — “functionality” to IT often means security, stability, and compliance, while to everyone else it means findable, fast, useful, and not annoying. Jenni, how should comms and HR work with IT on ownership so usability doesn’t get lost behind pure functionality?

Jenni: This is genuinely hard, and I suspect it still is today — even though I haven’t run intranets inside an organization myself for about ten years. The question I ask clients now is, what’s your actual IT or digital workplace strategy, outside of comms? About 80% of the time, nobody can answer that clearly. I’m a big believer in governance and process, even though that can sound dull, but without it, measurement and clarity of purpose both become nearly impossible. If there’s no IT-led digital strategy that’s genuinely consulted with comms and HR, it simply won’t work — your comms strategy, your digital strategy, all of it has to come together and be worked out jointly.

Chuck: I’d love to see communicators and HR stand up for themselves more here — owning the budget line doesn’t mean owning the platform, and it’s not personal money, it’s the company’s. Just because IT pays for it doesn’t mean they own it, it just means they funded it. Comms or HR, whoever genuinely owns the intranet experience, should own it outright, regardless of who’s writing the check.

Jenni: Exactly, and focus on the experience itself — even without one fully integrated platform, making the experience feel seamless to the end user is what actually matters. And frankly, it’s easier to spend other people’s money on integrations you need, since that’s not really your problem to solve alone.

Chuck: Number eight: the top valuable intranet features are self-service, analytics, automation, and search. For all-in-one platforms specifically, the top capabilities are employee self-service and HR support, advanced analytics, workflow automation, AI personalization, and enterprise search. This suggests employees want fewer forms, fewer tickets, fewer “ask your manager” moments — the intranet is becoming the front door for getting things done, not just an information layer. If self-service is the top value, how does that change what “good internal comms” actually looks like?

Jenni: It’s interesting that this is internal comms people themselves saying they want more self-service and advanced analytics — I wonder if that’s driven by comms teams feeling time-poor and unable to provide as much manual support, or whether it’s coming more from HR’s side. Self-service is always a tricky balance to get right, since people can feel abandoned without the right guardrails. But workflow automation specifically makes me wonder whether that means automating workflows across the whole organization, or just the comms team’s own content-publishing workflow — because those are quite different things. Either way, it points toward comms shifting into a more advisory, consultative role rather than doing manual day-to-day execution, which is the “readiness gap” a lot of this conversation is really circling.

Chuck: Number nine: targeting is uneven even as overload complaints stay high. Organizations are nearly evenly split — 50% say they can target multiple audiences, 47% only target one — and a cited Gartner stat finds 38% say comms volume is excessive while 47% say comms feel unrelated to their day-to-day work. Only 22% of all-in-one respondents report having real audience-targeting capabilities. There’s a disconnect here — teams clearly recognize relevance matters, yet broadcast communication still dominates. What usually blocks targeting, Jenni: capability, governance, or fear of accidentally excluding someone?

Jenni: I don’t think it’s really that last one — and “spray and pray” is a horrible phrase, by the way. I think it’s capability on two fronts: comms teams not always knowing their audience segments well enough, and the underlying technology not always supporting real targeting either. Governance is also often missing entirely. In my experience helping organizations get less chaotic with their communication, the infrastructure to support real personalization and targeting — often rooted in HR systems, not the comms tool itself — simply isn’t there yet in most places.

Chuck: Finally, number ten: AI usage is higher where intranets already exist. Organizations with intranets are more positive about AI overall (74% vs. 48%) and use it more frequently — daily or weekly — with top uses being research, summaries, and content generation. The report also claims 71% are confident AI tools are used ethically. Jenni, “confident it’s ethical” is doing a lot of work in that sentence — ethical could mean privacy, bias, disclosure, accuracy, IP, or the ability to opt out. In a real workplace, what does ethical AI use in internal comms actually require beyond good intentions?

Jenni: I think ethical AI is still something the whole industry is grappling with, especially given recent public issues around deepfakes and AI misuse elsewhere. Internally, it has to connect to an organization’s broader ethics — I’m not sure how many organizations actually have documented ethical-communication guidelines at all, let alone ones covering AI specifically. There’s so much layered into “ethical” — bias, accuracy, disclosure — that I think we’ll only really understand it in practice as we use these tools more, and it’ll likely look different in different organizational contexts. Staying genuinely critical and questioning, rather than just trusting output at face value, is essential, especially given how often these tools hallucinate. That 71% confidence figure — honestly, I’m not sure what it even means in practice.

Chuck: I think if you have an ethical workforce generally, you have to trust employees are broadly using AI ethically too — companies being explicit about how AI is and isn’t sanctioned for use matters here. Organizations with intranets being notably more positive about AI (74% vs. 48%) feels like another signal that those same organizations are investing more broadly in AI rollout, training, and governance, echoing things we’ve discussed on the podcast before.

Jenni: Yeah, but there’s still such a gap between the big headline AI-adoption stats and the reality on the ground — that’s the bit that still needs real work, even though that percentage difference is genuinely striking.

Chuck: That wraps up our ten takeaways from Simpplr’s 2025 State of Internal Communications and Intranet Technology report — go download your own copy to dig in further, and we’d love to hear everyone’s own takeaways. Thanks again to Simpplr for sponsoring this bonus episode. Jenni, as always, what are you freaking out about?

Jenni: I’m having a little freak-out because we’re now all systems go for our Comms Reboot event in London this year — tickets are launching this month for the October event, and I’m genuinely excited. I’ve spent the last few days prepping, and once tickets are live I’ll share more, though it’s going out exclusively to my mailing list first next week. I’ve also had my head deep in Zapier this week, which you and I have discussed off-podcast as a — let’s say — wonderful experience.

Chuck: For anyone unclear, she’s being sarcastic about Zapier being wonderful.

Jenni: Thank you for clarifying my sarcasm, always appreciated.

Chuck: I’ll see your Comms Reboot and raise you the X Factor Summit at Transform, which I’m leading at the end of March. Transform is an employee experience conference in Las Vegas — I attended two years ago, partnered with them last year, and this year I’m leading a full-day summit for communicators. I’ll include a link for anyone who wants to join — it’s free for anyone attending Transform and adds no extra cost to the event, but pricing goes up January 23rd, so you’ll need to register through my link to guarantee a seat. That’s March 23rd in Las Vegas — hope to see many of you there, and then at Jenni’s event in London later in the year. Thank you all for joining us for this special bonus episode. All the content that inspired this conversation will be in the show notes, and don’t forget to rate and review after you’ve listened. Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, and pass this along to someone you think would enjoy listening or watching — you can also find Frequency on YouTube. Thank you to my friend Poet Ali for contributing music to the show. We’re back every Monday with more news, insights, and opinions about everything comms, leadership, and workplaces today. Keep tuning in and turning up.