Pulse 2026: Keynote Design for the Main Stage
Creative Direction + Keynote Design
"Rexi Media brought our Pulse keynote to life in a way that went beyond design. Their ability to translate complex narrative into visual storytelling that actually landed on stage was remarkable, and the collaboration was exceptional throughout. They took direction, built on it and elevated every moment. The stage experience was the better for it."
Emily Singer, SVP, Marketing, Gainsight
The Partnership
Gainsight, a leading Customer Success and product experience platform, has partnered with Rexi Media for more than five years on high-visibility executive presentations and main-stage keynotes. Most recently, Rexi Media supported Pulse 2026, Gainsight's flagship customer success conference, held at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas.
Pulse brought together post-sales professionals from around the globe for two days of keynotes, product announcements, and conversations about the future of customer success, AI, and retention, with speakers from Gainsight, Okta, Zendesk, and IBM.
The Challenge
The main-stage presentations had to do more than communicate information. They needed to carry the visual weight of Gainsight's biggest annual event and make complex ideas feel immediate, coherent, and memorable across a full main-stage audience.
For Pulse 2026, the keynote content tackled ambitious themes including the changing role of AI in customer success, agentic workflows, and Gainsight's evolution toward retention-as-a-service. Those ideas were substantial and often technical, which made the visual design especially important. The slides had to reinforce the argument as the speaker made it and hold attention across a full hour on stage.
The Rexi Media Approach
Over roughly two months, Rexi Media partnered with the Gainsight team to design two one-hour CEO keynotes for the Pulse main stage, including an original cast of characters built for the Pulse 2026 explorer theme.
Gainsight provided brand guidelines, the Pulse 2026 explorer theme, and the keynote narrative. Rexi Media developed the creative direction and visual identity for both keynotes, designing every slide and creating the original cast of characters, with the Gainsight team reviewing and shaping the work throughout. We also shaped how the narrative appeared on screen, working with the team on what text belonged on each slide and what the audience should read rather than hear.
That meant thinking beyond individual slides. Rexi Media brought the characters back throughout both keynotes, where they gave the story feeling that words on a slide can't. Around them, we established hierarchy for the most important ideas and built moments of emphasis that supported the speaker and kept the audience oriented across an hour on stage.
Keynote visuals for a stage that size have to hold up under the production values of a flagship conference while making complex content easier to follow in real time.
The Result
Central part of the Pulse main-stage experience
The design resonated visibly with the audience. Attendees were seen photographing slides during the keynote, capturing visuals and ideas they wanted to take with them after the session. That is exactly what strategic keynote design is built to do. It makes ideas land, stick, and travel beyond the room.
Gainsight has continued to return to Rexi Media for high-stakes presentation work, reflecting a long-term relationship built around trust, brand fluency, and design that performs at executive scale.
