Advocate and Sceptic: Billy Partridge on AI and Human Judgement
Billy Partridge has a firm line for where communications agencies stand on AI: they have to be both advocates for it and sceptics of it. As Chief AI Officer, UK at Grayling, he works on both halves of that sentence every day, bringing AI into the work of an international communications agency and deciding where it should stop.
In this Comms With AI Leader Interview, Michael MacLennan talks to Billy about the half that gets less airtime. What healthy scepticism looks like in a team that uses AI every day. How to tell when an automated process should hand back to a person, and who gets to make that call. How to keep human thinking and creativity sharp when AI makes the obvious answer cheap to produce. And why treating AI and people as two separate subjects misses how the work gets done, now that each depends on the other.
Forty-five minutes, live and on the record, with time for your questions. It is free and recorded, so register even if you cannot make the slot and the recording will come to you.
Who it is for: communications leaders in-house and in agencies, teams using AI day to day, and anyone deciding where AI stops and people take over.
Joining: register and the joining link comes to you by email and in your calendar invite, with reminders the day before and an hour before. It runs in your browser, with nothing to install.
Agenda
12:15 Welcome: Michael introduces the series and Billy
12:20 The conversation: advocate and sceptic; knowing when to stop; human thinking and creativity; AI and people as one question
12:50 Your questions
13:00 Close, and what's next: Zoe Amar, Wednesday 18 November, 16:00 GMT
About Billy
Billy Partridge is Grayling UK's Chief AI Officer. He leads the agency's UK AI strategy and is responsible for driving business transformation with AI. He is also a corporate reputation and crisis comms specialist, and oversees Grayling's Scottish operations from his home in Edinburgh. Billy joined Grayling in 2009 after starting his career at Grayling's sister agency, CDR, in the City of London.
About the host
Michael MacLennan is the founder of Faur and Comms With AI, and host of the Comms With AI Leader Interview series. He was named AI Communications Leader of the Year at the AI Comms Awards 2026. Michael also works with Billy and Grayling as a freelance digital and social director.
We use your details to register you for this session and to email you the joining link, reminders and, afterwards, the recording. Luma runs our registration pages and sends event emails for us. Ticking the Briefing box is optional and does not affect your place. Privacy notice: commswith.ai/privacy/