Coining a new term to explain modern media: operafication. Like opera, the major cultural forms of the postwar era (the novel, movies, rock and roll) are in decline. New stuff is still being created, but the canon is set and most activity is about replaying key works.

An excellent tour of the comms horizon from @arunsudhaman.bsky.social www.earned-first.com/spectres-at-...

The average person isn't bothered by AI really

Tech predictions for 2026 from @caseynewton.bsky.social www.platformer.news/2026-tech-pr...

New AI tell: "quietly".

Clever headline

Just getting round to reading the NYT's obit for Tom Stoppard and I'm struck once again by the brilliance of this speech from The Real Thing...

With the cost of LiDAR plummeting, Waymo's bet to use it in their autonomous cars is looking smarter and smarter.

Good chart from @azeem.bsky.social that captures something I've noticed anecdotally: AI obsession from businesses, leaders, elites; AI suspicion from workers and consumers...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

I just published 52 things I learned in 2025 medium.com/@tomwhitwell...

We just published a new report on how UK journalists are adopting AI in their work Authored by @neilthurman.bsky.social @sinatk.bsky.social & @richardfletcher.bsky.social, it's based on a survey conducted in 2024 Read in full reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/ai-adoption-... 10 findings in thread

Interesting TfL data that shows Londoners are slowly coming back the office more and WFH less (via @jim.londoncentric.media)

Nothing lasts forever but it’s a sad moment when agency names like Harvard (46 years old) and Good Relations (65+ years?) disappear. Was proud to play my role in 12 great years of the Harvard story. www.provokemedia.com/latest/artic...

This insight from @caseynewton.bsky.social is very good. It gets at something I've been trying to work out - the death of hypocrisy in tech, making shamelessness the most effective strategy.

Public attitudes to AI, according to Edelman data. Pretty stunning.

Not only are generations fake, they’re also something we basically invented a few decades ago. Compare when generations occurred (shaded areas) with when we settled on their names. From this week’s newsletter: www.howtoreadthisch.art/ample-exampl...

Lovely idea from Nils Leonard to rebrand WPP so it stands for "we proudly present" and go all-in on creativity. Never happen though.

Atomico's new State of European Tech report is live: www.stateofeuropeantech.com

Interesting/depressing stats on AI-generated podcasts 👇

Welcome to the party, guys... digiday.com/marketing/th...

The two real legacies of Covid: 1. WFH 2. People putting their Christmas trees up in mid November

"A wealthy country where everything visible seems to be slowly breaking while everything invisible keeps getting richer... It’s invisible prosperity and visible decay." Powerful summary of tech, economics, & the state of US (and wider West?) via @kyla.bsky.social kyla.substack.com/p/30-days-9-...

TIL this Astronomer ad, made by Ryan Reynolds’ ad agency after the CEO-HR Coldplay gig shenanigans, has more views than the Deadpool 3 trailer…

Reading Robert Graves’ “Goodbye To All That” and this anecdote is on page one. Wondering how far backwards and forwards we could take this chain of connections…?

So much of this "Matt Clifford 4 PM" stuff just seems to be America-brained wishful thinking. In the Westminster system you can't just donate £100k/£1m to get someone to 'run for PM'. That's not how this works. And smart tech people should know that.

The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.

The modern equivalent of sitting in someone's warm seat on the bus, is getting into their phone booth after a call...

Be clear, the American far right are coming for British democracy.

The average American now spends 13 hours a day on tech/media, including 5 hours on video. Because of multitasking, it adds up to a 32-hour day...

At the AMEC AI day summit and the news breaks that Getty Images has lost its copyright infringment case against Stability AI. What are the implications for other copyright owners and monitoring companies?

Finding it increasingly difficult to live my life without being followed by dogs everywhere.

the password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre" www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...

The architectural traces of a lost civilisation…

“No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.” The strategist’s motto, via Einstein.

We've just published the most comprehensive study of news creators to date covering 24 countries. Authored by Nic Newman @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @mitalilive.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social, it identifies the most mentioned in each country 📱Report buff.ly/bL6y8Hj 🧵6 findings in thread

Was this a subtle apology today?

Had dinner with 16 comms leaders at tech companies this week, discussing AI. Everyone using AI much more at work, some even creating bespoke instances/use cases, but mostly using it for faster admin, translation, data analysis and storyline development.

'The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will cost an estimated £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to researchers.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Marc Benioff rolls back his suggestion that the National Guard is needed in San Francisco.

The new poop emoji

So weird to see a new beauty store opening in Westfield, plastered with a giant AI-generated image…

The new branding for Microsoft's AI division - now called "MAI" - is like a West Coast yoga retreat. Soft pastels and softer language: microsoft.ai

this is the dumbest shit i have ever read

The “three threes” — the new standard for political communications in the 2020s…

Sad to see Vogue House like this.

Yes! Looking forward to the sceptics having to move the goalposts from "It'll never work on Britain's narrow roads" to "It's morally bad because [reasons]". waymo.com/blog/2025/10...

Interesting piece. But it's not just about channels, it's about a larger crisis in government comms - and in society - which is not a new thing and goes back perhaps 15 years. Put simply, the Whitehall comms machine has lost the ability to win arguments.

Wow, $165m Series B funding for a London robotics startup... www.dexory.com/insights/str...