An audience pays attention. A community shares an interest. A fandom goes further: it becomes part of your identity. No wonder marketers want in. But can brands create and nurture fandom? @shelholtz.bsky.social and @nevillehobson.xyz explore the topic in #FIRpodcast 528 🎧💻 bit.ly/4x2OCpx

People know AI carries risks. Yet many still use unapproved tools because the work has to get done. Shadow AI isn't simply a compliance problem. It's a leadership signal – and it tells us something about the governance itself. www.nevillehobson.io/when-shadow-...

When shadow AI becomes a leadership signal

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...

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Bit of a fudge, eh Google #LakeOntario

"The AI made the decision, not us." You can delegate a task to AI. You cannot delegate accountability. In #FIRpodcast 527 with @nevillehobson.xyz & @shelholtz.bsky.social: AI hiring, Reddit, Meta, Neutrogena, employee influencers + @danyork.bsky.social tech report. 🎧💻 bit.ly/4xaPvxc

AI helped write it. So what? We're becoming obsessed with detecting AI in writing when a better question might be: What was your intellectual contribution? Accuracy, thinking, judgement and accountability matter more. New on my blog: 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/so-ai-helped...

So AI helped write it. Who cares?

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...

nevillehobson.io

Anthropic is watermarking text processed by Claude. Cue the AI-writing "gotchas". But a watermark can't tell us who did the thinking. In #FIRpodcast 526, @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz ask a better question than "Did you use AI?" 🎧💻 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-526-forg...

AI workslop isn't simply bad AI output. It can waste colleagues' time, damage trust and erode what an organisation knows to be true. In FIR 525, @shelholtz.bsky.social and I ask whether this is really an AI problem – or a leadership problem. 🎧💻 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-525-the-...

Silicon Valley is betting heavily on AI agents. But ordinary people aren't really using them. Maybe nobody wants an AI agent. People want outcomes – and the best agents may eventually be the ones we don't notice. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/maybe-nobody...

Maybe nobody wants an AI agent

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...

nevillehobson.io

#Podcasting20 prompted an interesting thought. The best conversations about technology rarely stay focused on the technology. They become conversations about people, organisations and communication. That's the theme of my latest blog post. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/why-the-best...

Why the best technology conversations aren't really about technology

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...

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Your brand is no longer defined solely by what you say about yourself. Increasingly, it's defined by the answers AI gives when someone asks about you. @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz discuss the rise of the answer economy with Pete Blackshaw in a new FIR Interview. 🎧💻 bit.ly/3RdeqR4

Ford rehired 300+ veteran engineers after AI quality checks fell short – and topped JD Power's quality survey as a result. In #FIRpodcast 521, @shelholtz.bsky.social and I discuss the gap between documentation and judgement, and what IBM and Klarna's AI reversals reveal. 🎧💻 bit.ly/4vOuU0S

Excited about co-creating *Hack Growth in the AI Era* with @mariabengtsson.bsky.social at the #UPNRetreat in Barcelona this October. Starting a leadership conversation and interactive hackathon exploring where PR agency value comes from in an AI-shaped world. www.united-partners.com/upnretreat

United Partners Network Retreat 2026 — United Partners | Corporate and Brand Communications

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...

united-partners.com

AI policy is a language problem before it's a policy problem. Andy Burnham's team wants to rewrite Britain's AI strategy, away from partnership with the US, towards sovereignty and UK workers. Two competing vocabularies, one technology, no settled policy yet. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/britains-ai-...

Britain's AI policy is a language problem before it's a policy problem

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...

nevillehobson.io

Do organisations now have an AI reputation alongside their human one? I'm not convinced. AI doesn't create reputation - it assembles it from the evidence we leave behind. The real challenge is optimising for credibility. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/ai-doesnt-cr...

AI doesn't create your reputation. It interprets it.

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...

nevillehobson.io

Currently 34C (93F) in South Somerset at 11:05 🥵

“AI will fail. And everyone agrees.” A brilliant collection of memorable quotes by people who knew things, curated by @RubenHassid. ruben.substack.com/p/why-ai-…

New research extends the hostile media effect to misinformation: people believe fake news targets their side more than the other. In #FIRpodcast 519, @shelholtz.bsky.social and @nevillehobson.xyz look at what that means for communicators. 🎧💻 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-519-is-m...

AI can draft a car review in four seconds. It can't take the test drive, though. I spoke at the Guild of Motoring Writers AGM last week about that distinction – and what they asked back was just as interesting. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/what-a-room-...

What a room full of motoring writers made of AI

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...

nevillehobson.io

PR misread the internet in 1995 and social media in 2007. Are we about to do it a third time with AI? In FIR 518, @shelholtz.bsky.social and @nevillehobson.xyz dig into Stephen Waddington's sharp provocation for the CIPR. 🔗 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-518-is-t...

The UK's social media ban 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 take: www.nevillehobson.io/why-the-soci...

Why the social media ban for under-16s is the right call, even if it's hard to enforce

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...

nevillehobson.io

Is there nowhere good online anymore to post jokes during games? #FIFAWorldCup2026 www.theverge.com/entertain…

#IABC World Conference 2026 opens in Toronto on Sunday. Theme: the communicator's evolving role – agility, ethics, leadership through change. Worth attending if you can. wc.iabc.com/About/About-...

First impressions of the #Plaud Note after a week of use – setup, Claude integration, meeting recording, and why a dedicated device earns its keep. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/plaud-note-f...

Plaud Note: first impressions from a week of actual use

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.

nevillehobson.io

Some companies spent more on AI than on the employees they replaced. Now they're walking it back, quietly. In #FIRpodcast 517, @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz look at what communicators should do when a loud promise meets a messy reality. 🎧💻 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-517-how-...

A simple design project made me realise something had changed: I spend far less time writing prompts for AI than I did two years ago. Increasingly, the interaction feels like a conversation rather than a set of instructions. My latest post: www.nevillehobson.io/from-prompts...

From prompts to conversations: the next stage of working with AI

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...

nevillehobson.io

My #Plaud Note just arrived. Goodbye notebooks full of half-finished thoughts. Hello, conversations, insights, and hopefully a lot fewer missed details! uk.plaud.ai/products/…

The Economist is building separate web content for AI agents, not just humans. In #FIRpodcast 516, @shelholtz.bsky.social & @nevillehobson.xyz explore what that means for communicators, and why content like FAQ and press releases may need restructuring. 🔗 www.firpodcastnetwork.com/fir-516-your...

Pope Leo's first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," argues AI is not morally neutral, that human dignity is the non-negotiable standard, and that vulnerability is not a defect to fix. Worth reading beyond Catholic audiences. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/staying-huma...

Staying human in the age of AI: what Pope Leo is asking of us

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...

nevillehobson.io

Tony Blair's essay on Labour's future is uncomfortable reading for some. He has nothing left to protect – which is precisely why the argument deserves to be taken seriously. My take: www.nevillehobson.io/does-tony-bl...

Does Tony Blair's voice still matter?

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...

nevillehobson.io

McKinsey is being pushed to tie fees to outcomes, not hours. AI is making billable hours obsolete across professional services. Communicators need to pay attention. 🔗 www.nevillehobson.io/when-mckinse...

When McKinsey can't justify the hours, what does that mean for the rest of us?

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.

nevillehobson.io