Make a mid-size marketing agency genuinely AI-operational in a single quarter — without freezing client work, without buying twelve new tools, and without losing the team. Replace tooling sprawl with a coherent stack, replace AI anxiety with practical fluency, and turn AI from a buzzword the agency talks about into a craft the agency runs.
Stack mapping and consolidation across creative, copy, project ops, and client reporting. Three working sessions with the leadership team to align on what stays, what goes, and what gets replaced. Hands-on workshops with the full team on AI-assisted creative briefs, copy iteration, client reporting, and quality control. Workflow rebuild for the agency's three highest-volume deliverable types. Mindset and language work to shift the team from "AI will replace us" to "AI is the leverage we wanted."
Team came out the quarter using AI inside daily work, not as a side experiment. Tooling cost down through consolidation. Output per client deliverable up without headcount. Leadership now pitches AI-augmented services as part of the agency's core offer — and clients buy it.
The challenge
A mid-size marketing and creative agency was running solid client work but feeling pressure from two directions at once. Clients were starting to ask whether the agency could run AI-augmented engagements — the kind that compress timelines and drop costs — and the agency's honest answer was that it couldn't, not yet. Internally, the team was watching the same AI noise everyone was watching, and underneath the curiosity there was a quiet anxiety: does this make us cheaper, or does it make us obsolete?
The agency had tools. Plenty of them. What it didn't have was a stack — meaning a coherent set of tools that fit together, were used the same way across the team, and produced output the agency could actually charge for. Three different tools were doing overlapping work in three different functions. Nobody had time to clean it up because everyone was in client work.
The brief I was given was wide: get us AI-operational. One quarter. Don't break client work.
What I did
This was a transformation engagement, not a course. The team didn't need another generic "intro to AI" deck. They needed a stack they could run, workflows they could repeat, and the confidence to use AI in front of a client without flinching.
Stack mapping and consolidation
- Mapped every tool the agency was paying for — what it did, who used it, what it actually produced — across creative, copy, project ops, and client reporting
- Killed three overlapping tools and replaced them with a single AI-native equivalent the team could share across functions
- Wrote a one-page stack diagram so a new hire could understand the agency's tooling on day one
Watching your agency's stack sprawl out of control? Book your free 30-min slot →
Hands-on workshops with the team
- Three working sessions with the leadership team to align on what stays, what goes, and what gets replaced — before bringing the rest of the team in
- Workshop series with the full team on AI-assisted creative briefs, copy iteration, client reporting, and quality control — using real client work in progress, not made-up exercises
- Pair sessions for anyone who needed a second pass — nobody was left behind because they were quieter in the group setting
Workflow rebuild on the three highest-volume deliverables
- Identified the three deliverable types that ate the most agency hours and rebuilt each one with AI in the loop — not as a magic shortcut, as a craft step
- Wrote SOPs in the agency's actual voice so the workflows would survive turnover
- Built a quality bar: AI-assisted output gets reviewed against the same craft standard as fully human work, not a softer one
Mindset and language work
- Reframed the team conversation from "will AI replace us" to "AI is the leverage we asked for"
- Helped leadership write the language for client-facing pitches that name the AI augmentation honestly — not as a discount, as a capability
The outcome
By the end of the quarter the agency was running AI inside daily work, not as a side experiment. Tooling cost was down through consolidation. Output per client deliverable was up without adding headcount. The team came out of the engagement with the language and the muscle memory to talk about AI in front of a client without overpromising or undercharging. And the agency's leadership now pitches AI-augmented services as part of the core offer — and clients buy it.
Not every transformation needs a slide deck. This one needed three months, real client work, and a leader willing to let me retool the inside of the business while it was open.
She didn't come in to lecture us about AI. She came in, mapped what we actually do, and then we built it together. Three months later AI is just how we work — not a thing we talk about in offsites.
.jpg?width=72&height=72&name=Shani%20Headshots-7710%20(1).jpg)