What Actually Changed: Comms and AI in 2026
A communications team can usually say straight away whether it used AI in 2026. Saying whether AI changed how the work gets done takes longer. The distance between those two answers is worth understanding before 2027 planning starts, and this year there is enough published evidence to talk about it properly.
The first Comms With AI Roundtable puts that question to three people who spent 2026 watching it closely, for an hour on what actually changed.
The guests
Darryl Sparey, Hard Numbers. Darryl ran the Gullible Engine Optimisation experiment, in which a fictional award was repeated back as fact by the major AI chatbots. He brings the measurement side of the conversation.
Emma Ewing, Big Fish Training. Emma has spent the year in training rooms with in-house and agency comms teams, and brings the view of what those teams asked for and what they did with it.
A third guest will be announced soon. Register now and you will hear first.
The four questions
Where exactly does the distance between using AI and changing the work sit, and what did the teams that closed it do differently?
Did AI give anyone time back in 2026, and where did that time go?
AI visibility became something you could buy this year. Who won those briefs, and what were they selling?
New EU transparency rules for AI-generated content are arriving. How many comms teams know whether they apply to them?
Every question is anchored in something published this year, and the guests have been asked to disagree where they do.
Who it is for: in-house communications teams, agency leaders and independent practitioners going into 2027 planning.
Joining: register and the joining link comes 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. A write-up follows afterwards on Applied / Comms With AI.
Agenda
12:00 Welcome, and what each guest did not see coming in 2026
12:09 Using AI and changing the work
12:19 Capacity, cost and the attribution problem
12:29 Visibility in the machine layer
12:39 Governance and the new transparency rules
12:46 Your questions
12:54 What we each got wrong about 2026
12:58 Close, and what comes next: The Year Ahead, Wednesday 13 January, 12:00 GMT
About the host
Michael MacLennan is the founder of Comms With AI, which won Gold for Best Innovation in AI Tools for Communications at the inaugural AI Comms Awards in June 2026, where he was also named AI Communications Leader of the Year. He has led communications at senior level for more than twenty years, including five as Director of Social Media Strategy, Digital and Comms at Brunswick Group, with earlier digital work at Red Bull and Barclaycard, and a career that started in newsrooms at The Herald and STV. He holds a Professional Certificate in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence from Imperial College London and is a director on the board of ScotlandIS.
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