Al Byrnes - AI Advisor for Creative Business Leaders

I help creative leaders find

if and where AI makes their work,

their people and their business better.

I help creative

leaders find

if and where AI

makes

their work,

their people and their

business better.

Picture of Al Byrnes - a smiling man with short dark hair wearing a white collared shirt.

Photo by Ellius Grace

About Al Byrnes

Most people advising on AI in the creative industries have never been accountable for the work. I have. On the hook, brief to delivery, for global brands.

Work that gave a murdered American president back his final speech. Helped a mother who couldn't read tell her sons a bedtime story in her own voice. Made digital identity feel human. Found dementia hiding in a bank statement.

Those projects moved behaviours, revenue, boards and investors. Several moved industries. One moved culture.

A decade at Droga5, Accenture Song and Rothco. Projects for Google, Meta, Snap, IKEA, Morgan Stanley, Heineken. A Cannes Lions Grand Prix. Spoke at SXSW on storytelling, politics and AI. Co-author of Accenture's report on making AI accessible to everyone in society, not just the lucky ones.

Everyone asks how AI can grow their business. I think the honest question is: what's your business in an AI world?

Marketers and agencies hire me to find where AI strengthens their brand, their revenue, their teams. Some hire me to make the impossible idea possible. Boards hire me to make their AI ambitions make sense to employees, clients and investors.

I studied philosophy. And question everything, especially the commercial, cultural, legal and ethical risks, and the BS, around AI.

Fixed scope. Fixed fees. Fixed timelines.

Born, bred and based in Dublin.
Working everywhere.

Services

Every engagement starts with the same question: where does AI actually earn its place? Sometimes the answer is nowhere. These are the most common ways in, from boring workflow redesigns and scalable playbooks to new revenue and ideas that seem impossible.

001

Find What's Real

— What's being used across your teams, and by whom

— Where it's leaving you exposed

— A clear action list

For leaders who suspect most of what they're told about AI is noise, and want to know what's real inside their own teams.

002

Take Control

— What's allowed, what isn't, and who decides

— A stop list the whole business will actually follow

— Guardrails creative and legal agree on

For leaders who suspect the AI activity in their business is running ahead of anyone's permission.

003

Fix How It Runs

— Rebuilt workflows, already in use

— A brief standard that sticks

— Clear ownership at every handoff

For leaders watching good work get faster and worse at the same time.

004

AI Narratives

— The human idea your AI story can stand on

— One story that aligns your people, board and market

— A playbook for this strategic narrative framework

For leaders whose AI is real, but belief in it isn't. See Who Owns You and Moonshots.

005

Make the Impossible

— An idea that has never existed, developed

— Built and delivered the whole way from brief

— New revenue or new model, with the business case made

For leaders with an idea nobody else knows how to make real. See JFK Unsilenced and The Impossible Bedtime Story in Work.

Testimonials

"We worked together on JFK Unsilenced and a dozen other impossible briefs. The instinct was always the same: don't give up on the great idea, be relentless across craft, make the technology invisible. Of all the voices now claiming to guide creative through AI, his is one of the very few I'd trust."

Alan Kelly

Dean of Cannes Lions Creative Academy

"I've recommended Al to several CMOs to lead their creative and production work. While most are still reacting to Generative AI, he's already building the workflows and the work that will define what's next."

Liam Mc Donnell FMII

Former CEO, Dentsu Ireland

"Working with Al feels like working with someone quietly building the future, not talking about it. He works where creativity and AI meet, and makes that world feel human, not technical. He doesn't theorise about AI. He builds with it."

Katie Burke

Author Life Trends, Accenture

"I've spent my whole life studying how people think, and I haven't met many creative thinkers like Al Byrnes. He sees things others miss, says things others won't, and creates things others can't. He walks the talk."

Keith Barry

Mentalist · TED speaker