Would you like to speak at Comms vNext 2026?
Would you like to speak at Comms vNext 2026?
Comms vNext is a community conference. Our content is sourced from volunteer speakers who have a passion to share their knowledge with others freely. Each year we open our doors and accept content from speakers all over the world. To assist you with your submission, please read through this key information to ensure that you can commit to speaking should you be selected.
Submission Timeline
Call for Speakers is now open until November 30, 2025 23:59 MST. You have until this date to submit your sessions. We are unable to accept submissions beyond this date. Sessions will be reviewed after this date with session offers being sent out no earlier than December 31, 2025.
If you receive a session offer, you will have 7 days to accept your place. We give you this time to align your calendars and seek any approvals you need to attend. If you do not accept the offer within the timeframe, your offer may be removed and offered to another speaker. If you need more time, please contact us within the 7-day period so mitigations can be put in place. If you have specific scheduling requirements for your session due to anticipated late arrival or early departure, you must convey those requirements when you accept your session. Requests for time/date change cannot be accepted after the schedule is finalized.
Who Can Submit
Anyone in the community can submit sessions that are suitable for one of our content tracks. You don't need to be an MVP, Microsoft staffer, or experienced speaker. We welcome all abilities and encourage new speakers to submit. If you are new to the speaking circuit, we can provide coaching and buddy schemes to help build your confidence leading up to the event.
The most important thing is that you submit content that you can confidently speak about. Generally, this means you have had real-world, hands-on experience in your topic and can speak from a position of experience and authority. We are not after Microsoft regurgitation sessions where you're re-presenting a marketing session or reading a document on Microsoft Learn. We want sessions from the coalface. These are the most valuable to the community. You'll need to be prepared for questions on your topic that you should be able to answer on the spot and not "take it offline".
However, there are a few no no's. Regardless of whether your company is sponsoring our event or not, you can submit a session in our community call, but it must not be about your products/services. This means no direct or indirect product/service sessions where your topic can only be achieved either using your product or where your product is an alternative to a native method. Your content must be aimed at community knowledge sharing of Teams, Copilot, and Microsoft developed native tooling/methods that attendees can benefit from freely and without having to sign-up for products/services that are not included in Microsoft 365 licensing. This includes trojan horse sessions where a speaker is sponsored to deliver a session on a neutral topic but positions a vendor solution as part or all the solution to the session problem statement. Sessions must be delivered in neutrality. This means avoiding content that over promotes your employer e.g. "We at Acme have X capability, or we at Acme do Y" etc.
Note that a sponsor option available again this year is to provide a vendor focused session on their specific products and/or services. These are separate from the technical sessions and must be coordinated through the sponsor agreement.
Sessions must be presented live and in-person and should not rely on remote presenters or participants except for the purposes of live demos.
Above everything your session must add value to the Teams & Copilot community that can be freely implemented without conditions.
Session Submission Limitations
You can submit up to 3 sessions for consideration. These can be changed / updated until the Call for Speakers period has ended. After that, they cannot be altered. The number of sessions you submit does not increase your chances of being selected. Sessions are chosen based on their quality and relevance. A single well-crafted submission is worth considerably more than multiple ambiguous sessions. Session length is 60 minutes, including any question-and-answer period. There is 15 minutes between sessions for setup/teardown time.
Please do not submit sessions that you have previously delivered at Comms vNext unless there have been significant developments in your topic at industry level, or these sessions will not be considered.
We'll use the same title and description you submit for your session across all our platforms, including the mobile app, electronic signage, social media posts, and YouTube. Please don't use extra-long titles or descriptions with complicated formatting. Please also consider that some people may view the session recordings after the event.
Sessions must be submitted by the primary presenter and not on-behalf of another person. Sessions submitted by someone on-behalf of others will be removed from consideration.
Multi-Speaker Sessions
Multi-speaker content sessions are permitted. However, your session must be the same 60 minutes in duration as single presenter sessions. Sessions of less length have very little value to the attendee when delivered by more than one speaker.
The maximum number of speakers per content session is limited to 2. The maximum number of speakers per panel discussion is limited to 4. Please note: Free hotel room benefits are extended only to the primary presenter of a session, and not to co-presenters. If you wish to submit multiple sessions with the same co-presenter, submit the first with you as primary presenter, and submit a subsequent session with the other person as primary and you as co-presenter. Presenters and co-presenters cannot be switched once a session is submitted, nor can a co-presenter be added after Call for Speakers is closed.
Please ensure that ALL your speakers are added to your session submission. They can be changed afterwards, but you must make it clear on the submission how many additional speakers your session proposes.
Payment & Expenses
We do not pay speakers to speak at Comms vNext so don't ask. This includes payment in the guise of full expenses paid. We do not pay for your airfare, parking, taxi, or business airport lounge access. As a community we want speakers who are willing to volunteer their time and knowledge.
Those that can seek sponsorship from their employer should do so. We will in all cases provide the following support to speakers to ease the cost burden to attend:
- We will provide you with a room at our event hotel for two nights. All hotel nights are single occupancy (no sharing) at our cost.
- We will provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, and beverages throughout the event times.