Atomicon 2026: Judgement Day
In 1995 Los Angeles, Sarah Connor was incarcerated in a State Hospital. In the real world it’s 1991, I am thirteen years old sitting in a darkened movie theatre with my brother. We’re holding our breath watching Sarah desperately try to escape the hospital to get back to her son, John. With a stolen set of keys she races through corridors, unlocking and locking metal gates, pursued by hospital security. Time slows down. She rounds a corner and comes face to face with the six-foot-two, muscle-bound cybernetic assassin sent from the future ten years earlier to murder her. She backs into the wall, feet skidding out from under her, trapped. I gasp loudly and my fingernails dig into my brother’s arm. That’s when it clicks — he isn’t the villain this time. He’s the one who’s been sent to save her. My mouth gapes. My brother and I look at each other, stupefied.
“Which part of this is the Atomicon vibe, Clair? Is the Terminator AI?”
AI got a mixed reception at Atomicon 2026. Some speakers were there to explain how to leverage it for maximum results and accelerate your business. Others cautioned against over-reliance and misuse. It certainly got a lot of attention on the day. So let me explain what I took away from Atomicon 2026, and why I don’t think AI is the Terminator assassin or the Terminator sent to save us.
Andrew and Pete: average content doesn’t lead to change
Andrew and Pete opened Atomicon with a line that made me sag with relief (because it’s what I’ve been saying it for ages): average content doesn’t lead to change. More isn’t better. It’s just more.
My key takeaway from their keynote was the importance of discernment. Focus, test, systemise — and then, and only then, scale. Look for reaction spikes and lean in. The questions they asked are big ones: What is our marketing for? What is working for me? What do I enjoy?
Being discerning involves some scary decisions. Letting go of busy work. Letting go of what feels safe and known. Paying attention to what people are actually responding to and leaning in, even when it feels risky. It wasn’t all about doing less, but it was about investing energy and resources in a targeted, thoughtful way.
And they weren’t the only ones drawing a line in the sand about slowing down and doing less in a go-faster world that mistakes volume for value.
Jamie Laing: authentic over prolific
Jamie Laing was the celebrity guest speaker and I did not have high hopes. I haven’t listened to his podcast or paid him any attention since his Made in Chelsea days. I thought he was posh, rich and not much else.
I could not have been more wrong. Jamie was thoughtful, engaging and incredibly self-aware. He talked about taming our egos, playing to your strengths, and not losing the elements of playfulness in your business. Returning to a familiar theme, he stressed the importance of being authentic over prolific. Be yourself, consistently and constantly, and eventually it will work. It might take six months, two years, three years — but eventually it will work.
After eight years in business, supporting countless clients, listening to Jamie tell the room what I’ve been telling them — this is not a popular message, I thought. Success takes time is not what people want to hear. And I get it. Nothing is getting cheaper, is it?
Jamie ended with some solid advice:
- Go against the grain.
- Don’t do what everyone else is doing.
- Spreading your bets is a bad idea.
When asked where he’d focus if he were starting his business again in this climate, he said: “Content. Double down on your content.”
Jamie Laing owns multiple successful businesses and has a net worth of roughly £7m — and he just said content is his number one priority. He was always my favourite Chelsea boy.
Richard Moore: experts lead confidently
My next session was Richard Moore on selling in the DMs. I love it when an expert tells you what you already tell your clients. Nothing like a bit of positive affirmation to remind you that you do know your stuff and you are doing a good job — especially in a brutal marketing climate.
The one message I’d share from Richard’s talk is this: experts lead confidently. When someone comes to you for your service, you’re the expert. His analogy was perfect — a doctor wouldn’t present you with treatment options and ask which one you thought was best. They’d tell you which one you’re doing. Our clients feel safe when we lead with confidence and authority. Options, Richard said, are commercial suicide. Listen, diagnose, prescribe.
Ann Handley: when speed is cheap, judgement is premium
The closing speech was given by Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes and partner at MarketingProfs. Any attempt at summarising Ann’s talk will feel like butchery, but there are things you need to hear if you couldn’t be in the room — so here goes (and my apologies to Ann if this is a brutal misrepresentation of her beautiful, articulate words).
Ann’s argument was that marketing has quietly made speed its default setting. We celebrate efficiency, volume, ROI — and we avoid the slower, more deliberate work that actually lands harder. We do it for understandable reasons: marketing sits close to revenue, visibility feels like survival, and every tool we use rewards volume over value. So we chase what’s easy to measure, even when it matters least. Ann calls this the performance paradox, and it’s a trap.
AI didn’t create the problem, she said — it poured fuel on it. But the villain was never AI, or even efficiency. The villain is speed without judgement. She told the story of a £440k report, riddled with fabricated AI citations, that torched a reputation overnight. That’s what happens when speed runs loose and nobody’s steering.
Her point wasn’t “slow everything down”. It was knowing when to slow down — finding the moments where care produces deeper trust and lasting impact, and protecting them (there’s a whole framework for this in her new book, out February 2027). Because customers don’t choose what’s familiar. They choose what feels known and true. And the line that’s now living rent free in my head (and I will be parroting back to my own clients): when speed is cheap, judgement carries a premium.
My own takeaway? Profitable marketing depends on your willingness to show up with connection and heart. AI can’t do that bit for you.
So what does this mean for me and my clients?
Another great conference, and I’ve already booked my ticket for next year. But before then — what do I do with everything I heard and saw?
My clients often tell me they feel invisible, ignored and worn out. They’ve jumped onto the content churn treadmill, it’s going faster than their legs can carry them, and they’re wondering why they’re miserable, exhausted and no one is listening.
I get that AI feels like support. But it’s de-skilling you. It took the best patterns of the best copywriters, overused them, and now they sound shit. It doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t have your heart or your energy.
The majority of my clients are coaches. They’re doing deep thinking work every day, supporting their own clients, designing workshops and delivering training. Their heads are full. So when AI offers to take the writing off their plate, of course it’s tempting. But if you’re not a marketer and your brain doesn’t think in a marketing way, handing the writing to a machine doesn’t fix that — it just hides it.
So what’s the solution? I think Jamie, Andrew, Pete and Ann all hit the same nail on the head: slow down, do less, listen, and lean in.
Is AI the assassin, or the one sent to save us?
Neither. That was always the wrong question.
The Terminator is just a machine. What changed everything in that cinema in 1991 wasn’t the machine — it was who was steering it, and what they’d sent it to do. The same metal, the same speed, the same relentless efficiency: protector or killer, depending entirely on the human behind the decision.
AI is the machine. You’re the one deciding what it’s for.
And here’s where I’ve landed. When it comes to writing — to taking what’s in your heart and your head and putting it on a page so a real person feels it, in a world full of white noise – your voice is the differentiator. Your voice is premium.
When I’m reading a piece of content and I realise AI wrote it, I don’t believe you anymore. I stopped listening the moment you stopped writing.
And this isn’t just me being precious about voice. Experts are warning of a trust recession. We’re in a fast marketing environment, yet sales are taking longer and content matters more than ever. Which means your marketing has to be a truer reflection of your heart, your culture and your values. Your customers need you to be more you — they need to see you and hear you in everything you share.
Don’t hand your voice to the machine.