New research shows investors increasingly judge executives by the gap between what they say and what their organisations do. As reputation becomes a more volatile and valuable asset, communicators fac...

A bout of heat exhaustion became two months of tests, treatment and uncertainty – and brought work to a complete stop. I reflect on illness, the NHS paradox, stepping away from commitments, and what i...

Shadow AI isn't simply an employee compliance problem. New research from LexisNexis suggests it can signal a gap between how people are expected to work and the governance around that work. For commun...

AI detection encourages us to ask who – or what – wrote something. But perhaps that's the wrong question. What matters more is the thinking, judgement and accountability behind the words – and whether...

People don't want AI agents. They want outcomes. That simple distinction may explain why agentic AI excites Silicon Valley while leaving most consumers cold – and it carries an important lesson for or...

Podcasting 2.0 prompted an interesting discussion on the latest FIR podcast. But the conversation quickly moved beyond technology to something more enduring: the questions communicators should ask whe...

This year, we invite you to break free from the usual, challenge the status quo, and embrace transformation at the UPN Retreat: UP Your Game. In today’s fast-evolving world of PR and communications, s...

Andy Burnham's team wants to rewrite the UK's AI strategy – away from partnership with US tech, towards sovereignty and workers. The real story isn't who's right. It's how fast a governing party can b...

AI is changing how organisations are discovered and understood. But it isn't creating a new reputation. It's interpreting the one they've already earned. That's a distinction communicators should be t...

A morning at Toyota's heritage collection and talking to the Guild of Motoring Writers about AI and journalism – what the room made of it and what they asked told me quite a lot about where we actuall...

The UK government's ban on social media for under-16s won't be easy to enforce, and it won't be enough on its own. But as a first step – a line drawn, a norm shifted – it's the right call. My reflecti...

I've never found a good way to capture thoughts on the move. The Plaud Note – and its Claude integration – might finally have solved that. This post started as a voice recording. That's the point.

The biggest change in AI over the past few years may not be the quality of the output. It may be the quality of the interaction. What happens when working with AI starts to feel less like prompting an...

Pope Leo XIV's "Magnifica Humanitas" argues that AI is not morally neutral, that justice must shape these systems from the outset, and that human dignity is the non-negotiable standard. The Pope's fir...

Tony Blair's new essay on Labour's future is uncomfortable reading. Some question whether his voice still matters. But he has nothing left to protect, which is precisely why his argument – whatever yo...

Billable hours are becoming less useful as a yardstick. McKinsey's clients are demanding outcome-based fees. The same pressure is coming for communicators – sooner than many expect.

Deloitte. Sullivan & Cromwell. Now EY. Three organisations, three contexts, the same essential failure. At some point, the pattern becomes the story – and the story isn't about AI hallucinations.

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER

AI fluency will matter in the workplace. But as AI-native graduates begin entering organisations in larger numbers, employers are starting to ask a deeper question: what skills become more valuable wh...

As AI becomes more embedded in executive decision-making, a deeper question emerges: if a leader changes direction because AI suggests something different, who owns the decision? A reflection on judge...

King Charles's address to Congress was months in the making – a carefully crafted collaboration between Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and the Foreign Office. But the most interesting question isn'...

I've been deep in ChatGPT since 2022. Now I'm running a deliberate, staged experiment with Claude Pro – and one feature in particular, Cowork, has genuinely surprised me. It has my full attention as I...

Everything was in place – policies, training, guardrails. And still, AI errors slipped through. This isn’t a technology failure but a human one. Perhaps the answer is simple: someone must own verifica...

You enter an award contest to win. So why do so many strong entries fall short? They fail not because the work was poor, but because the entry was. After 15 years as a judge, here's what I've learned,...

I've been deep in ChatGPT since 2022. Now I'm running a deliberate, staged experiment with Claude Pro – and one feature in particular, Cowork, has genuinely surprised me. It has my full attention as I...

In an AI-enabled environment, the greatest reputational risk isn't AI making mistakes. It's organisations hiding behind AI to avoid responsibility. The answer lies in human-centred AI – and it's where...