AI, systems, and agency
operations without the hype.
Field notes for PR + marketing agency owners who want AI-native operations—and have no interest in adding tools that the team will quietly abandon.
Inside an Agency Running Entirely on AI-Built Systems
Every system Agency Owner Lab sells has run inside a real agency first, doing real client work, before it was ever offered to anyone else. That is not a mark…
Read the articleWhat One Agency's AI Workflows Actually Looked Like a Year In
A founder asked me a year after we first worked together what had actually stuck. Not what we built. What she was still using, a year later, without anyone r…
Read the articleHiring In-House vs. Bringing in Outside AI Help: A Real Cost Comparison
A founder was drafting a job posting for an in-house "AI and operations" hire when she called me, mostly to sanity check the salary range. By the end of the…
Read the articleWhat Happened When We Built Our Own AI Media Relations System
Before this ever became something we built for other agencies, it was something we built because our own PR work needed it. That distinction matters, because…
Read the articleAI Implementation Pricing: What Should It Actually Cost an Agency?
A founder asked me point blank what this actually costs, before she would agree to a single call. That is a completely reasonable question, and most of the i…
Read the articleWhat to Look for in a Client Dashboard for PR and Marketing Agencies
A marketing agency founder showed me the client dashboard she had set up eighteen months earlier. It still had the same three demo clients loaded in it that…
Read the articleRunning a Solo Agency or Small Team? Here's How to Actually Implement AI
A solo founder told me she reads about AI tools constantly and has never actually implemented one properly, because by the time she has an afternoon free, sh…
Read the articleWhat a Fractional AI Ops Consultant Actually Does
A founder asked me what happens after a new system gets built for her team. Not the week it launches. The third week, when someone hits an edge case nobody p…
Read the articleHow to Choose AI Tools for Your Agency Without Wasting Weeks Testing Them
A founder told me she had spent parts of six different weekends over four months testing AI tools for her agency and still had not settled on anything. Not b…
Read the articleHow PR Agencies Can Use AI for Media Relations Without Losing the Human Touch
A PR founder told me she was hesitant to touch AI in her media relations work because pitching is relationship work, and she did not want to hand relationshi…
Read the articleWhat Happens on an Agency Strategy Call—and What Comes Next
A founder told me she wanted to "do AI" for her agency but had no idea where to start. That sentence, more than any other, is why the audit exists as its own…
Read the articleChatGPT vs. a Real AI Implementation, Explained Honestly
A founder asked me recently why she would pay for anything when she already has ChatGPT. It is a fair question, and it deserves a real answer instead of a de…
Read the articleThe Real Cost of Your Agency's Software Stack
A ten-person PR agency I worked with ran her project management in one tool, social scheduling in another, and client approvals through email threads because…
Read the articleShould Your Agency Build AI Tools In-House or Bring in Someone Who Already Has?
A creative agency founder spent a weekend building a Notion-based system to track client approvals using AI to help her set it up. It worked, for about three…
Read the articleHow AI Is Actually Changing How Agencies Operate
A PR agency founder told me last month that she had ChatGPT open in one tab and her actual agency running in three other tabs that had nothing to do with it.
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