The Reputational Risk of Disclosing AI Use
I am currently marking coursework where students were allowed to use generative AI, but they have to detail how they used it and include screenshots. And this reminded me of a paper that I read some time ago, entitled "Competence Penalty Is a Barrier to…
February 2026 round-up
Another month of contrasting travels: starting with a trip to Portugal for a funeral (on my birthday) and ending with a trip to Milan for the Olympics (a birthday present). There was also time with friends, coffee with colleagues, theatre, puzzles and flowers. Research I had…
New white paper: Balancing Responsiveness and Reliability – Liquid Innovation in Practice
The same qualities that make Generative AI agents valuable can become liabilities when this technology is deployed without appropriate controls. Their adaptability may produce inconsistent guidance across…
Why High-Performing AI Fails the Human Test
With AI technology (particularly language models) performing increasingly well in traditional measures of expert knowledge such as medical licensing exams or the assessment of research environments, many are now considering how to deploy “out in the…
Algorithms as the problem vs the solution to discrimination in the digital age
We know that algorithms are everywhere, from curating our news and social media feeds, to scoring our job and credit applications. And many have warned that algorithms deepen unfairness. For instance, in 2021, the UK’s…
December 2025 and January 2026 round-up
December and January involved a lot of travel. Some travel was fun, such as a surprise mother-daughter trip. Other was bitter-sweet, such as trips to spend time with a close relative whose health was rapidly deteriorating (and sadly passed away at the end of…
The Algorithmic Transparency Paradox: Accountability vs Behaviour Distortion
When we don’t know that an algorithm has been used to make a decision that impacts us, we can’t challenge those decisions, or fix any mistakes. According to Anne-Britt Gran, Peter Booth and Taina Bucher, such lack of…
Social media as a source of competitive intelligence
There is an old Chinese saying that goes something like this ‘Know yourself, know the competition, and get it right almost every time’. The good news is that social media has brought with it many opportunities to anticipate competitors’ likely…
Capturing human complexity in categories
I suspect that we have all had the experience of filling in a form and not finding a box that exactly describes us. That’s because those forms are trying to fit us into neat categories, whereas our identities, behaviours and preferences are often fluid,…
New paper: Marketing Education in the Age of Generative AI
One of my colleagues has completely redesigned their module. Generative AI is now central to every workshop and even assessment, with the aim of preparing students are ready for a job market that increasingly demands generative AI skills.…
Does blogging still make sense in the age of generative AI?
In the 15 years since I set up this blog, the blogging landscape has changed dramatically. And, now, generative AI is throwing yet another spanner in the works. So, on this blog anniversary, I find myself asking: Does it still make sense…
Recent publications #8
Here is my regular(ish) update on the key research outputs published in the last year or so. As always, I welcome readers who want to reach out to discuss any aspects of this work, or opportunities to collaborate. Journal articles Canhoto, A.I., Manika, D., Wainwright, E. &…
November 2025 round-up
November brought shoulder injuries, fractured fingers, and medical appointments galore (fortunately, not for me). But, on a more positive note, the Christmas tree is up. It feels like the older the kids get, the earlier the tree goes up, which is very much the opposite of…
Why Influencer Marketing Roles Are Rising While Creative Jobs Are Declining
A recent analysis of nearly 180 million global job postings from 2023 to 2025, by Henley Wing Chiu at Bloomberry, reveals an interesting split in labour market trends. Execution-focused, creative jobs are experiencing…
The global footprint of generative AI
Recently, I came across the Cartography of Generative AI, a fabulous resource created by the Estampa group. Image source: This resource shows how chatbots and other gen Ai interfaces are part of a dense, intricate and vast global system of physical resources,…
Key points from OECD’s report on Generative AI and SMEs
A new report from the OECD sheds light on how more than 5,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across seven countries (Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea, and the UK) are engaging with generative AI. This is an important…
October 2025 round-up
I have fully embraced Autumn, this month, with soups, walks on crunchy leaves, and, of course, Halloween celebrations. Oh, and I was interviewed by the BBC, on the use of AI-generated images for scams. Research I joined a group at Sussex, preparing a funding application to…
The Rise of AI-Enhanced Scams — and How to Protect Yourself
I was recently interviewed by the BBC about the use of AI-generated images in scam websites. The story followed reports that a small jeweller was being inundated with calls and emails from customers mistaking her legitimate business…
The role of emotions in B2B marketing
We often assume that emotions play little to no role in business-to-business (B2B) relationships. Rather, decisions in a B2B context are deemed to be purely rational, and to follow a complex process with multiple decision makers. Yet, a metanalysis of research…
LLMs learn from data about how people believe the world to be, not data about how the world is
It is widely acknowledged that answers produced by large language models (LLMs) reproduce the biases that informed how they were trained. For instance, assuming that doctors are male while nurses are…
September 2025 round-up
This was a big month on the personal front: I got my British citizenship achieved a key personal goal that I had set for 2025; plus, the kiddo started University. I spent the last 20 or so years wishing for the day when I wouldn’t have to plan work around the school day. I…
When Generative AI Makes Us Smart vs. Average
It has been noted by many different people that large language models (LLMs) can, to a certain extent, democratise access to information. Because these models are trained on massive datasets, and use an intuitive prompt-and-response format, they enable…
July and August 2025 round-up
This summer was mostly about celebrating several milestones in the kiddo’s life: end of school celebration, leavers’ ball, 18th birthday, A-level results’ day, driving test… But I also enjoyed catching up with friends, reading various fiction and non-fiction books,…
Interviewed for the podcast “Business Talk”
Recently, I was a guest in the podcast “Business Talk”, hosted by Deepak Bhatt. We explored why digital technology is sometimes helpful and sometimes a hindrance, based on the paper “The impact of technology: how features, resources and task demands…
Using Generative AI to Produce and Analysing Qualitative Data (video)
Joss Winn and I delivered a session on “Using Generative AI to Produce and Analysing Qualitative Data”, as part of the SeNSS/ SENSS doctoral training partnership’s Generative AI in research scholar series. In this session, we…
June 2025 round-up
This was the “I should be more intentional” month. Child 1’s birthday and child 2’s end of school exams made me kick myself for not being more intentional about doing things with them over the years (as opposed to just doing things for them). Then, some pains and aches were…
More Purchases but Less Viewing – The Impact of Smart Speakers on the consumption of video on demand
The news that Amazon’s Alexa+ has reached 1 million users inspired me to read a paper that has been on my TBR list for quite some time: “The Voice Of Commerce: How Smart Speakers Reshape Digital…
Ten Years of Sharenting: How are the kids doing?
This week marks ten years since I sat on a panel about sharenting - the practice of parents sharing content about their children online - at a blogging event. The panel was hosted by Monika Roozen, then known for her blog Mum on the Brink, and my…
New paper: How features, resources and task demands shape digital wellbeing (or why digital technology helps some people some times, but not everybody all of the time)
We know from personal experience that digital technology can shape our wellbeing. On the one hand, it offers speed, convenience,…
May 2025 round-up
If April was a month of the new beginnings, May was all about gathering speed, as detailed below. On the personal front, the month included a jazz concert, Star Wars’ day, coffee with a friend, lots of fresh asparagus and the kiddo’s last day of school ever (and, thus, my last…
