London, 21 September 2026 – Andy Parton, an AI marketing pioneer with over sixteen years of experience in commercial, customer, consumer, and digital marketing, has announced the launch of his independent London-based consultancy, Destreza. This new consultancy aims to provide AI-Native Marketing Consulting to leaders in consumer businesses, helping them leverage artificial intelligence in their brand-building decisions, operating models, and execution.
Parton, who has held senior leadership roles in more than sixty global markets, has worked with some of the world’s most well-known consumer brands, including Guinness, Vuse, and Johnnie Walker. His latest venture, Destreza, was founded in May 2026 to assist brands and founders in effectively utilizing AI in all aspects of brand building, from strategic decisions to daily operations.
Parton’s track record in AI marketing dates back to before the current generative-AI cycle. At Diageo, he led the launch of What’s Your Whisky in 2019, the world’s first AI-powered whisky selector. This innovative tool, designed to help consumers navigate the world of whisky by taste, has reached over a million people worldwide. Since then, Parton has continued to develop and deploy AI throughout the marketing and brand-building lifecycle, from consumer insight and strategy to creative development, activation, measurement, and evaluation.
During his time at BAT, Parton’s work spanned global brand building, premiumisation, and AI-enabled marketing across the entire customer journey, from awareness to conversion and retention. His expertise in this area has led him to focus on the strategic and operational choices that precede any campaign or content creation at Destreza.
“AI is now a ubiquitous tool in marketing, but the results are not always evident,” Parton stated. “The availability of AI tools is no longer a competitive advantage, and almost every marketing team can produce more research, ideas, and content. What sets good brands apart from great ones is the ability to strategically and effectively apply AI, knowing what to believe, what to reject, and which decisions are best left to humans. Destreza bridges that gap by providing judgement and precision, ensuring that AI enhances the quality of brand-building rather than simply increasing output or reducing costs. Our goal is to help consumer businesses emerge from the AI revolution with stronger brands, not just cheaper marketing.”
Destreza operates on its own operating system, the Destreza Operating Model. This unique approach involves a team of specialist AI agents, led by one accountable senior practitioner, and an Agentic Council that reviews and refines every output. These agents handle tasks such as research, brand and campaign strategy, creative development, evaluation, and market-by-market adaptation, while Parton remains responsible for diagnosis, strategic decisions, and the final recommendation. This method allows for more work to be done before involving an agency, resulting in cost savings without compromising the outcome.
Destreza’s initial focus is on marketing leaders grappling with questions about AI operating models, brand strategy, capability, and agency configuration. The consultancy offers three types of engagements: Survey, a fixed-fee diagnostic; Shift, a defined change delivered end-to-end; and Focus, a long-term partnership with a senior practitioner. In late September 2026, Destreza will launch The Playbook for AI Brand Building, a ten-stage working method that provides founders and lean marketing teams with a professional framework for building their brands with AI. The name of this method, La Verdadera Destreza, is derived from the sixteenth-century Spanish school of swordsmanship, which emphasizes strategy and precision over brute force.
Destreza is an AI-native marketing consultancy founded in 2026 by Andy Parton, an AI marketing pioneer. The consultancy utilizes the brand-building methods employed by some of the world’s largest consumer brands, advances them with AI, and offers them in two forms. For marketing leaders, Destreza advises on the role of AI in brand strategy, operating models, capability, and agency configuration, with one accountable senior practitioner directing a proprietary network of in-house specialist AI agents. For founders and lean marketing teams, The Playbook for AI Brand Building adapts this method for one person, with four foundations and ten stages in over a thousand configurations, enabling founders to build their brands with AI while making all critical decisions. Learn more about Destreza at destreza.ai.
Media Contact:
Andy Parton, Founder, Destreza
hello@destreza.ai
destreza.ai
