Skip to content

AI Use Cases

AI for Creative Agencies

What the route looks like for an agency where the studio is already using AI, the contracts are silent on it and the next big client's questionnaire has a section about it. Then eighteen places the work could change once the rules exist.

Certified in the Claude Partner Network Microsoft Solutions Partner ISO 27001 ISO 9001 Independent since 1999

See the candidates Read how the route plays out

Worked example

The questionnaire arrives the week of the pitch

Six steps, from the first question to AI in daily use and kept running.

An enterprise prospect sends its supplier questionnaire the week of the pitch. Alongside the usual questions on security and data handling there is a new section: does the agency use AI, which tools, on whose work, and can the client opt out? The studio has been using three of them for a year, the contracts say nothing either way and the managing director has to sign the answers.

That is the moment the route is built for, with the questionnaire open and the pitch date fixed. What follows is what happens next for an agency with a studio working to deadlines, an account team writing up client calls, a new business lead answering tenders, a strategist doing research, freelancers arriving and leaving by the week, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 underneath it all, and clients whose confidential material is the agency's whole reputation. These examples are invented, and the findings are the ones we would expect in an agency like yours.

Govern

The snapshot gives the managing director the tool list the client asked for.

The readiness snapshot finds personal accounts on free tiers across the studio and the account team, several image tools nobody has registered, and a strategist who has been pasting client research into a chatbot to sum it up. None of it is misconduct. The half-day workshop produces the policy, the register of approved tools and the one-sentence rule on client material.

You hold: The AI section of the questionnaire answered from fact, a register of every tool the agency uses and a policy to attach to the answers.

Stays human: The decision about generating creative, which is a contract question before it is a tool question. Your leadership takes it in the room, with the client contracts open.

Adopt

The managing director, client services and new business go first.

The managing director, the head of client services and the new business lead connect to your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 under a signed waiver that names them and caps the team. A company voice skill is built from how the agency writes about itself, so credentials and proposals sound like you and never like a template.

You hold: A connection for those three, the agency voice skill and the result of a test on one of your questionnaires and one of your credentials drafts.

Stays human: Every claim in a credentials document and every result in a case study. The skill carries the voice, and the person who ran the work owns the facts.

The review

The studio is connected after the freelancer logins are closed.

The studio wants in, because that is where the repeated writing is. The review checks what studio accounts can already open, and finds freelancer logins that outlived their jobs by months and a client folder of embargoed work open to the whole agency.

You hold: Closed logins, a locked client folder, onboarding and offboarding automated for freelancers, and then a studio cohort scoped to the agency's own material.

Stays human: Which client work, if any, the studio cohort may touch. That is decided client by client against the contract, and the waiver cannot decide it for you.

Discover

Questionnaire answers rank first and timesheet chasing goes back.

Workshops with client services and new business produce a ranked list. Questionnaire and RFP answers rank top, because the positions now exist and a person reads every answer before it goes. Contact reports from call transcripts rank second, because the before is easy to measure. Chasing approvals and timesheets is sent back, because the project tool does that on a rule.

You hold: The ranked list, with timesheet chasing marked as sent back and the project tool rule that replaces it named.

Stays human: Which comes first. It is scored against the pitches in the pipeline and the studio's capacity, and the head of client services agrees it before anything is built.

Make and Test

Two skills, tested on the last questionnaire and a week of client calls.

The questionnaire skill is built from your documented positions, the contact report skill from your own format, both in the tools your people already open. Test is us running the last questionnaire and a week of call write-ups through the skills and setting the output against what the team would have sent, with the head of client services seeing the result. If it does not do the job, it goes back to Make.

You hold: The questionnaire skill and the contact report skill, each with the result of a test on your own work, and no figure from us about account manager hours.

Stays human: Every representation to a client, in a questionnaire or in a report of what was agreed. A person signs both.

Trackside

New tools are noticed before a client notices them.

We keep the connection and the two skills working, watch for new unapproved tools on the domain, keep the policy current as the tools change every month, and feed the answers that got corrected back into the skill. The account team and the studio join the monthly shared session, which is where the studio's own candidates start to be argued for.

You hold: A service with a named person watching for drift, which in an agency means a new image tool in the studio showing up on the register before it shows up in a client's audit.

Stays human: Every piece of client confidential material. Nothing of a client's goes into a tool that client has not agreed to, and the policy says so in its first rule.

See your agency in this? Book thirty minutes →

Potential AI candidates

Pick the part of your agency you are thinking about

Eighteen pieces of an agency's week across new business, client services, the studio, strategy, freelancers and finance, each with what changes and what stays with the account lead or the creative director. The idea and the client's confidential material each appear once on the list and are marked never.

Part of the business

Verdict

18 candidates, across 7 parts of the business.

New business and pitches

Answering the questionnaire a big client sends before a pitch

AI candidate

Draft answers from the positions the agency has written down and the last three questionnaires it returned, with every question it has never answered left blank and flagged.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
An enterprise prospect sends forty questions on security, data handling and now AI use, and it lands on the studio manager the week of the pitch.
Stays human
The managing director reads every answer before it goes, because the client will attach it to the contract and hold the agency to it on the first renewal.
In place first
Written positions on data handling, freelancer access and AI use. Govern produces the AI one, and the questionnaire usually reveals that the first two were never written down either.

Credentials and case study first drafts

AI candidate

First drafts from your approved credentials and case studies, cut to the brief, leaving the team the part that is about this client.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Every pitch deck opens with the same agency story and case studies, rewritten each time to a new brief and a new length.
Stays human
Every result claimed, every client named and the idea itself.

Responding to a formal RFP

AI candidate

A first draft of the repeated sections from your previous responses, to the word count, with the client-specific sections left blank for the team.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
The tender asks the same questions about methodology, team and process that the last three did, and the answers get rewritten from scratch.
Stays human
Every figure, every reference, every commitment on price and timing, and the win theme.

The creative idea

Stays with a person

Nothing here, and we would say so. A tool can generate options, but the idea that wins the pitch is a call about a client, a market and a moment, and it carries your name.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
The thing clients pay an agency for.
Stays human
All of it.

Client services and account management

Contact reports and meeting notes

AI candidate

A first draft of the contact report from a transcript, in your format, with actions and owners pulled out, for the account manager to correct and send.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
The account manager writes up every client call afterwards, from memory, usually late and sometimes never.
Stays human
The report as a record of what was agreed. The account manager signs it, and nothing contentious goes out without being read.
In place first
The client's agreement to the call being transcribed, which belongs in the engagement terms.

Weekly status reports

AI candidate

A first draft from the project tool's own data, in your format, for the account lead to shape.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Status across every live job gets compiled by hand from the project tool, the timesheets and three conversations.
Stays human
Anything about budget, scope or a slipping date. Those are conversations before they are lines in a report.

Spotting scope creep before it costs you

AI candidate

Requests compared against the signed scope, with the differences flagged for the account lead, from the brief and the change log.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Extra rounds of amends and additions get absorbed until the job loses money.
Stays human
The conversation with the client and every decision about what to charge.

Chasing approvals and timesheets

Plain workflow wins

A reminder rule in the project tool the agency already pays for. No AI in it.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Someone sends the same reminders every week to clients who have not approved and people who have not filled in their time.
Stays human
The awkward follow-up call.

Studio and production

Copy variants for approved concepts

AI candidate

Variants and adaptations from the approved concept and the client's tone guide, for the copywriter to choose from and refine.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Once a concept is approved, the team writes the twelve headline variants, the six lengths and the four formats by hand.
Stays human
The choice, every claim and anything legal, regulated or about a real person.
In place first
The client's agreement, in the contract, to AI being used on their work. Many enterprise contracts now say either way.

Generating client creative

Stays with a person

a contract question before it is a candidate

Nothing until the client has agreed in writing and you know who owns the output. For many agencies the contract settles it before any tool does. Where both are true, it is a studio decision like any other.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Imagery, video and finished copy for a client's campaign.
Stays human
The decision, the client conversation and the rights.

Checking a brief before the studio starts

AI candidate

A brief checked against your own template, with the gaps and the contradictions listed, before anyone opens a file.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Briefs arrive incomplete and the studio finds out what was missing halfway through.
Stays human
The call on whether the brief is good, and the conversation back to the client.

Writing up the process that lives in the studio manager's head

AI candidate

The job process written up from an hour with the studio manager and the project tool's history, as the stages a new producer can follow, for the studio manager to correct.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
How a job moves from brief to delivery is known by two people and written down by none.
Stays human
The correction and the sign-off.
In place first
An hour of the studio manager's time, because what goes in is how the agency runs a job and never a client's work. For a studio it is usually the first candidate that can start before anything is connected.

Strategy and research

Desk research summaries

AI candidate

Summaries of public sources with references, so the strategist reviews rather than reads from scratch.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
A strategist reads for two days under deadline and condenses it all into a page.
Stays human
The insight, which is the job, and every fact that will be presented to a client as true.

Transcribing and coding interviews

AI candidate

Transcripts coded against your own coding scheme with representative quotes pulled out for the researcher to check.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Research interviews get transcribed and coded by hand, or not coded at all.
Stays human
The analysis, and every quote attributed to a participant.
In place first
Participants' consent to the recording being processed, which belongs in the research terms.

Competitor and category reviews

AI candidate

A structured review of public campaigns in a category, with sources, for the strategist to judge.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Someone looks at what the competition has run, from memory and a few screenshots.
Stays human
What it means for this client.

People and freelancers

Onboarding and offboarding freelancers

Plain workflow wins

One form that creates the email account, the file share access and the project tool seat with the job's end date on all three, and removes them when it arrives. Process automation with no AI in it, and the single change that makes the next client questionnaire easier to answer.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
A freelancer gets an email account, a file share login and a project tool seat by hand on day one, and keeps some of them long after the job ends.
Stays human
The decision to hire and the end date.

Finance and operations

Raising invoices from the job system

Plain workflow wins

A rule between the project tool and the accounts package that both already support. No AI in it.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Invoices get built by hand from the project tool and the timesheets.
Stays human
The decision to invoice and any write-off.

Client due diligence

Client confidential material

Stays with a person

never without the client's agreement

Nothing of a client's goes into a tool that client has not agreed to. The contract usually says so, and the next questionnaire will ask.

How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Unreleased products, embargoed campaigns, financial results before announcement and everything else a client has trusted you with.
Stays human
All of it, and the policy says so in its first rule.

Nothing on this page matches both of those. Try another part of the business or another verdict, or tell us what you had in mind.

The hard rule

Nothing of a client's goes into a tool that client has not agreed to

Unreleased products, embargoed campaigns, results before announcement and everything else a client has trusted you with: that is the first rule in your policy and it is one sentence long. The contract usually says so already, and the next enterprise questionnaire will ask you to confirm it. Generating the creative itself is the same question in a different form, and the contract answers it before any tool does.

The permissions review is where the rule gets tested. An agency that runs on freelancers usually has logins that outlived their jobs and client folders open to everyone, and that is true whether or not anyone connects a tool. Connecting one would turn a dormant permission into a live one, which is why onboarding and offboarding get automated before the studio is connected.

The policy for your sector

An AI policy for a creative agency: what to write down →

Proof

What we can stand behind today

Independent since 1999, audited to ISO 27001 and ISO 9001, and already supporting teams like yours.

Agencies and studios are part of the managed IT base, and deadline nights, freelancer churn and enterprise due diligence are the three things we get asked about most from them. The process behind it is the same ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 audited one that has run every client engagement since 1999.

No agency is named here, because none has yet given permission to be. Proof carries the full position.

See the whole route How we judge a candidate →

Read next

Back on the route

  1. AI Readiness Start here
  2. AI Rollout Track
  3. AI Delivery Build
  4. AI Continuity Trackside

See the whole route, stage by stage →

Bring the questionnaire you have to answer

Thirty minutes with the person who has to sign it. We will tell you where an agency like yours would start, which of the candidates above are worth doing first and which we would send back.

Book a free review See where you stand first
If the pitch is next week
The readiness snapshot is a short piece of work, and the answers to the AI section of a questionnaire come out of it. Say so when you book and we will start there.