Building AI Fluency Across a Communications Agency Team

A boutique agency's team used AI informally and inconsistently.

Monthly coaching turned it into a shared, repeatable practice, tested against real client work from day one.

Company Southern Palm Communications

Industry Boutique PR Agency

Engagement AI Coaching & Advisory + Management AI Operations

Challenge

A boutique PR agency team—spanning up to eight members plus the owner/CEO—used AI informally and inconsistently, with no shared workflows, no structure, and no consistent standard for what good AI-assisted work looked like across the team.

Approach

I ran a structured monthly coaching program built around the team's actual workflows, not generic training: weekly group sessions moving the team through four stages — from foundational AI literacy, to structuring repeatable workflows, to connecting those workflows into systems, to operating at scale — plus separate 1:1 strategic advisory sessions for the owner/CEO on high-impact AI decisions. Each session followed the same hands-on structure: confirm the opportunity, work the problem live against the team's actual work, and leave with something reusable, not just notes.

Early in the program, the team migrated from informal ChatGPT use to a structured Claude Team setup, and built a live, reusable “Media Outreach” AI Project — tested the same session against a real client pitch.

Results

  • Migrated the entire team from informal, inconsistent AI use to a structured, shared practice — one tool, consistent workflows, and a shared standard for what good AI-assisted work looked like.

  • Built and tested a working, reusable AI Project against live client work within the first month — not a hypothetical exercise, a tool the team could point at a real deliverable and trust.

  • Gave the owner/CEO direct, as-needed strategic advisory for high-impact AI decisions, separate from and in addition to the team's weekly coaching.

  • One team member put it directly: “It's almost like training a new team member.”

  • Delivered a scoped AI search-visibility strategy the team could use directly in client-facing conversations.

  • Stayed responsive as the agency's own business needs shifted, restructuring priorities within the existing engagement rather than requiring a new scope or a new price.

Why This Matters

The real value wasn't a curriculum delivered on a fixed schedule — it was a team that came out the other side with a shared, working AI practice, tested against real client work from the very first sessions, not just concepts on a slide.

Want this for your team?

Let’s talk through how this works for you.

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An AI Workshop with Global Coverage and Many Functions in the Same Room

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