Dispatch Newcastle w/ Virgin

​An invitation-only evening of two talks on real-world AI. Each speaker walks through real AI work at their own organisation: the numbers, and what broke along the way. Then drinks, and time with the speakers.

​There's no pitch. The room runs under the Chatham House Rule, so you can use what you hear but not say who said it.

​Talks

• ​Beyond the pilot: running AI across a family of brands. Michael Barber, Innovation Lead, Virgin.

• ​Underwriting the future: how AI agents are rewriting commercial lending at Atom Bank. Dr Russell Collingham, Head of AI and Data Science, Atom Bank.

​Doors open at 6pm, the talks start at 6.30pm and we close at 8.15pm. The full running order and speaker bios are on levelfive.studio/dispatch/newcastle-11-2026.

​Places are capped at 25 and we approve every registration by hand. If there's anything we can do to help you take part fully, tell us when you register. We handle those requests privately.