Leader Comms With AI
Your team is already using AI. Your governance probably isn't there – yet.
Leader Comms With AI is a practical resource for the person accountable for how a communications function uses AI. Start with the governance most teams don't yet have in place, and a board-ready position you can stand behind.
Get the Governance ToolkitFree. Ten pages. Usable this week.
Built by a communications practitioner with twenty years in the field.
The gap nobody has written down
Most communications teams adopted AI faster than they governed it. Drafting, research, summarising, monitoring: it is already in the workflow. What is usually missing is the part a leader is accountable for. When do we disclose it, who signs it off, what must never go into a tool, and who answers if it goes wrong. The bar is higher for regulated and public-sector teams, who carry scrutiny most resources ignore.
Researchers tracking AI in PR since 2017 keep finding the same thing. Teams believe they have asked for AI policies far more often than anyone reports putting them in place. The profession is using AI widely and governing it barely.
Drawn from the Comms With AI leader interview with Ben Verinder, May 2026.
Leader Comms With AI
A focused stream of Comms With AI, built for senior communications leaders rather than the whole profession. It opens with one thing done properly.
Built for leaders, not beginners
For Heads of Comms, Communications Directors, the public-sector and in-house leaders who carry the risk, and the agency leaders advising them. Not a "getting started with ChatGPT" guide. If you advise these leaders agency-side, the toolkit is the conversation your clients are about to start.
Practical, not theoretical
Artefacts you can put in front of your team and your board this week. Designed by a practitioner, tested in real communications work.
Honest about the limits
It tells you where AI helps and where it does not, including what it can and cannot do for you. No promises it cannot keep.
Module 0
The Leadership AI Governance Toolkit
- Disclosure
- Accountability
- Risk and IP
- Capability
Ten pages · Free · Comms With AI
Module 0
The Leadership AI Governance Toolkit
Seven short artefacts that give you a governance position you could defend to your CEO, your board, or a journalist. Built around four controls: disclosure, accountability, risk and IP, and capability. Each is usable in under thirty minutes. Work through it in a fortnight and you move from "we'll look into it" to "we have this in hand".
- A board-ready one-pager, so you can brief upward in three minutes
- A readiness check that shows where you stand, in about twenty minutes
- A disclosure decision guide, for when to tell audiences AI was involved
- An approval and accountability map for your real content types
- A claims and accuracy check for anything AI touched
- Confidentiality red lines and a plain-English IP note
- A 30-day adoption path for the whole team
Free download. No sign-up wall, no email required.
It supports good governance and responsible adoption. It is not legal advice, and it does not claim to make you compliant with any specific regulation. What it gives you is the structure to get there with your own advisers.
Why this, and why now
Comms With AI is built by Michael MacLennan, twenty years in communications across Red Bull, Brunswick, Barclaycard and the BBC, now advising leaders through Faur and building practical AI tools for the profession.
- Winner at the 2026 AI Comms Awards: Gold for Best Innovation in AI Tools, and AI Communications Leader of the Year
- Imperial College London certification in Machine Learning and AI (top-quartile)
- Comms With AI: 60+ practitioner-built templates across the five-phase Operating System
Common questions on AI governance for communications
What is AI governance for a communications team?
AI governance for communications is the set of decisions a comms leader owns about how their team uses AI: when to disclose it, who signs off AI-assisted work, what must never be put into a tool, and who is accountable when something goes wrong. It is narrower and more practical than a generic corporate AI policy, because it is built around real communications tasks like drafting, research, monitoring and approvals.
Do communications teams need a written AI policy?
Yes. Most comms teams adopted AI faster than they governed it, so the tools are already in the workflow while the rules are not written down. A short, specific written policy turns ad hoc judgement into something you can brief to your board and defend to a journalist, and the free toolkit on this page gives you a starting structure.
What should an AI use policy for communications or PR cover?
At a minimum it should cover disclosure (when you tell audiences AI was involved), accountability (who approves AI-assisted work), confidentiality and IP red lines (what must never go into a tool), and capability (how the team is trained). The Leadership AI Governance Toolkit organises these into four controls, each one usable in under thirty minutes.
Should you disclose when communications content was produced with AI?
Disclose when the use is material to how an audience would judge the content, for example AI-generated imagery, synthetic voice, or text presented as a named person's own words. Routine assistance such as research or first-draft support usually does not need a label, but the team should agree where the line sits in advance rather than case by case. The toolkit includes a disclosure decision guide for this.
Is there a free AI governance template for communications leaders?
Yes. The Leadership AI Governance Toolkit on this page is free, ten pages, and downloadable with no sign-up wall. It gives you a board-ready one-pager, a readiness check, a disclosure guide, an approval and accountability map, a claims and accuracy check, confidentiality red lines, and a thirty-day adoption path.
Who in a communications team is accountable for how AI is used?
Accountability sits with the communications leader, the Head of Comms or Communications Director, not with the individual using the tool or with the IT function. AI does not approve its own work, so a named human signs off anything it touches. The toolkit accountability map helps you set this out for your real content types.
More on this in the governed AI for communications reference and the governance template library.
The full series, all free
Governance comes first because it is where the risk is highest and the gaps are widest, then capability, strategy, board confidence, and measurement. All five modules are live now and free. Take the one you need today, or work through the set.
- Module 0 · Leadership AI governance
- Module 1 · Capability and team readiness
- Module 2 · Leadership-level strategy with AI
- Module 3 · Board and stakeholder confidence
- Module 4 · Measurement and assurance
Where this comes from
Inspired by our Leader Interviews
This toolkit is shaped by the Leader Interviews on Applied / Comms With AI, an ongoing series of honest conversations with senior communicators, agency leaders and AI practitioners about how they actually govern and use AI. Read the full series.
- Ben Verinder on AI, PR and the honesty gap
- Rik Turner on PR for AI search
- Neal Mann (NOAN) on the living fact layer
- Joyce Higgins (FleishmanHillard) on building AI into agency work
- Barney Evison (Flipside) on navigating the AI shift
Coming soon
Elif Güvençer of RepTrak, author of The Two Clocks, on reputation and AI in the next Leader Interview. Follow Applied / Comms With AI to catch it.
Start with the part you're accountable for
If your team is using AI and your governance hasn't caught up, the toolkit is the fastest way to close that gap. It is free, and it is built to be used, not filed.
Get the Governance ToolkitWant to talk this through before you roll it out? Consult Comms With AI is a 45-minute working session plus a written advisory note, and it counts towards any Deploy package. Book a Consult
Content on this page was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.