Over recent decades, drinks firm Diageo has positioned itself as a luxury goods company with great brands. 

Not just Johnnie Walker and Guinness – although they remain core – but Casamigos Tequilas, and much more.

For chief executive ‘Drastic’ Dave Lewis, the simple thing to do as it deals with changing tastes and cost-of-living struggles in Britain, the US and across the globe, would be to lop off great brands for an easy win.

Some of that will happen, with Lewis seeking to focus on competitive pricing.

The idea that somehow drinking culture is finished is overdone. I know from my Texas-based offspring that cocktails are sensationally popular in the US, along with innovative craft beer and spirits.

Moreover, soaring alcohol sales during the World Cup showed that not all young people have stopped boozing.

Much of the premium stuff Diageo makes will have to cope with fashions and changing tastes in much the same way as LVMH, Burberry and other luxury brands.

Lewis had easy wins when he was boss of Tesco, selling its Pacific operations to deal with legacy debt and pension problems.

But his real achievement was in repairing supply chains and relationships. The Diageo overhaul is doing precisely that.

The speeded-up savings target of $1billion went down well with investors. 

We know from Diageo’s past that its supply chain is wonky, as Lewis’s predecessor Debra Crew found when overstocking in Latin America overwhelmed her.

The most reassuring aspect of Lewis’s update is that Diageo believes it has the brilliant brands and distribution, particularly in North America, to halt recent declines and maintain sales. A boost is also expected to come from cost savings.

Diageo’s strength has been based on topping up its upmarket brand portfolio and developing sophisticated new products. 

Now, for the more pedestrian management stuff. One trusts Lewis will still find some time for a dram of Talisker.

Much of the hype regarding Britain’s AI potential rests on the Nobel prize-winner Demis Hassabis and Google-owned DeepMind.

The presence of Hassabis and Google’s decision to focus its work on AI at its King’s Cross campus in London has been seen as a plus for UK plc. 

But control firmly rests at ultimate parent Alphabet HQ in Mountain View, California.

A decision to reshape AI operations, after falling behind competitors Anthropic and OpenAI, shows how vulnerable British tech is to outside voices once overseas owners gain control.

That has been seen at Cambridge-based Arm Holdings where value has raced away in New York.

Hassabis is stepping aside as chief executive to be chief scientific officer. The creator of Google’s Gemini model, veteran engineer Jeff Dean, is leaving.

To ease the pain of Hassabis’ evident demotion, he is to become chairman of Google DeepMind.

Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai described the changes as giving the Nobel winner more time to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI), which seeks to make computers as smart as humans.

Word is that Hassabis has been too focused on scientific breakthroughs and prizes rather than making money. 

Google doesn’t much like being second-best in tech and the shake-up is designed to accelerate an AGI breakthrough.

Even for great scientists, being part of an overseas-owned $4.4trillion enterprise doesn’t buy job security.

Long-term investors in UK advertising group WPP have not witnessed a 25 per cent leap in the share price since 1992.

Chief executive Cindy Rose looks to have convinced the market there are green shoots to come once the holding company legacy of Martin Sorrell, who piled up the creative talent through takeovers, has been eliminated.

There have been some encouraging client gains including Estee Lauder, Tesco in Britain, and US burger chain Wendy’s.

The truth is that revenues in almost every marketing category, barring healthcare and pharma, are down. 

Although Rose’s focus on reshaping and tech, using AI tools and partnerships, is starting to work, she faces a race against the clock with private equity ghouls never far away.