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 whenever a new technology promises to change how we work.

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 build two entirely different vocabularies for the same technology.

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 thinking about.

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 actually are with all of this.

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 reflections as a school governor, a grandfather, and a long-time watcher of this debate.

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 and more like conversation?

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 first encyclical makes the case with considerable force.