AI Literacy and Strategy for PR

Upskill your team with AI that drives value & protects your brand

AI:101 is a training programme for modern PR agencies, delivered by Sally Whittle, tech journalist and member of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Citizen-Centred AI. Sally is joined by Pouyan Bizeh, technology consultant, futurist and PhD researcher specialising in AI and speculative design.

Our training isn’t just another pretty slide deck about prompt engineering, or how to use GenAI to make more generic content. It’s a course for agencies that want to take their use of AI to the next level, to address real challenges of modern PR.

• The content quality drift: When people rely too heavily on AI for content creation, the result is middle of the road content that doesn’t help clients to stand out. You’re wasting time personalising content and fixing mistakes, when you’re not worrying that this AI content is damaging your client’s credibility.
• The client fee squeeze: Your clients see headlines about AI automation and they’re asking why they’re paying you the same fee, when AI could be doing all the work? You’re under constant pressure to demonstrate the human strategy and premium value your team delivers.
• The data sovereignty minefield: Your people are handling sensitive, pre-release client data and intellectual property. The thought of a junior account executive pasting a confidential brief into a public LLM is enough to keep you up at night.

If that sounds familiar, we can help. The agencies that win in the AI era won’t be the ones automating away their competitive advantage – they’ll be the ones who build true AI literacy and know and how to use AI to build value. Those are the skills we can help you with.

Practical, ethical AI literacy

We tailor our programme to your agency’s real-world challenges, helping you create real, bespoke AI workflows that deliver value from day one.

Imagine automating your end-of-month coverage reports, vetting media lists in 30 seconds, or setting up a brand-voice guardian that checks every piece of junior copy before it hits the client’s desk. AI:101 teaches you how to design smart, safe systems that drive real insight, free up your team’s time, and start saving your agency money on day one.

We currently offer two workshops, designed to help agencies no matter their current level of AI literacy or experience:

Option 1: The AI:101 leadership briefing

• Best for: Agency founders, managing directors, and leadership teams

• Format: 2-hour interactive session (In-person or virtual)

As an agency leader, you don’t need to become a data scientist overnight – but you can’t lead what you haven’t used and understood. Before you can set policies or guide your team’s output, you need a solid, practical handle on what these tools can actually do.

This focused, two-hour session (available in-person or remotely) is designed specifically for leaders who want to cut through the tech hype. It is a beginner-friendly, jargon-free zone where we will get hands-on with basic AI tools and establish what high-quality, professional AI generation actually looks like.

What we cover in 2 hours:

• The AI landscape for beginners: A clear, fluff-free overview of the primary tools shaping the creative industries today
• Hands-on AI literacy: You’ll learn how to navigate AI interfaces confidently, structure practical prompts, and get predictable, useful results
• Professional content generation: How to use AI to support your workflows without sacrificing quality
• Setting the baseline: Understanding what “good” AI looks like so you can evaluate your team’s work, spot generic AI-isms, and maintain high standards across the agency.

This session is about giving you the critical literacy you need to lead your agency into the next phase of digital transformation.

Option 2: The AI:101 workshop

• Best for: Account executives, managers, and creative content teams
• Format: One-day hands-on workshop

Some AI training is too generic to be helpful, while other courses are so technical that everyone is left demoralised and confused. This full day programme is built specifically for communications professionals. We don’t just talk about what AI can do – we spend the day giving your team the AI literacy, confidence, and practical tools to build their own secure, automated workflows. We split the day into two distinct halves. In the morning, we focus on building foundational AI literacy, and in the afternoon we get hands-on with live AI tools.

What we cover in one day:

MORNING: AI FOUNDATIONS

We start at the beginning. We unpack how Large Language Models (LLMs) are constructed, giving your team a good understanding of their strengths and limitations. From there, we cover:

• The mechanics of prompting: Understanding the different ways we can use AI to generate, query and sort information, moving beyond guess work to predictable, high-quality results
• Generative AI: How to use AI to write better content for humans (while still optimising for machines)
• Data sovereignty and security: How to use AI safely without leaking confidential client data or risking intellectual property loss
• Ethical guardrails: Live, practical exercises to help your team understand core AI issues including bias, copyright and hallucination
• Customising AI: How to build a consistent brand identity and create simple workplace routines

AFTERNOON: THE HANDS-ON BUILD

After lunch, your team becomes builders. Even if they have never written a line of code in their lives, we will demystify modern developer tools like Claude Code and Codex.

We’ll guide the team through understanding APIs, finding and using Model Context Protocols (MCPs), and connecting them to build one or two pre-agreed workflows chosen directly from our AI:101 service menu.

Build your custom training day

Every agency operates differently. Before the workshop, you can select the specific projects you’d like your team to work on with us. You can get a flavour of the kind of projects we can support below. Don’t see what you need? Let us know your ideas!

GOAL	THE AI-ENABLED SOLUTION YOU’LL BUILD
Better media targeting	A bespoke pitch-list tool that generates highly tailored distribution lists in moments.
Real-time monitoring	Custom AI agents deployed to monitor the web for emerging conversations affecting your clients.
Interactive media training	An audio-driven AI tool to develop bespoke crisis simulation and media training exercises for executives.
Automated coverage reporting	A streamlined pipeline to speed up the process of media coverage analysis, sentiment checking, and client reporting.
Smarter journalist profiles	An intelligence-gathering tool that creates comprehensive profiles of key media contacts, including their recent bylines and specific pitching pet peeves.
Visual concept generation	A secure brand-asset library that uses your client’s existing design guidelines to instantly spin up on-brand concept headers.

WHAT YOUR TEAM TAKES AWAY:

At the end of the day, your team will have moved from AI beginners to confident users. They’ll have a comprehensive understanding of how to use AI to develop intelligent, secure workflows that ensure high-quality results!

Meet the trainers

Both AI:101 workshops are delivered by two industry experts, blending journalism expertise, agency consulting experience, and cutting-edge academic AI research.

Cost & Booking info:

Investing in your agency’s AI confidence isn’t just a training expense; it’s an investment that starts paying for itself the first time your team automates a coverage report, builds a bespoke monitoring pipeline, or understands how to protect sensitive client IP.

We offer two entry points depending on whether you want to build foundational leadership understanding, or upskill your entire team.

Option 1: The AI:101 leadership masterclass

Best for: Agency founders, senior leadership team, experienced freelancers

Duration: 2 Hours (In-person or remote)

The focus: Hands-on AI literacy for decision-makers. We know that you can’t lead what you don’t understand, so this focused session gets leaders comfortable with core tools, baseline quality control, and risk management.

Investment: £600 based on 1-3 delegates

Option 2: The full-day workshop

Best for: account executives, content creatives, managers

Duration: Full day (delivered at your premises or via a secure remote session)

The focus: Moving your team from AI beginners to confident builders. Includes the morning session on data sovereignty, safety, and LLM mechanics, followed by a fully hands-on afternoon building 1–2 custom workflows from our services menu.

Investment: £1,800 (based on 3-10 delegates)

What’s Included:

• Comprehensive, expert-led training: All sessions delivered directly to your team by Sally and Pouyan.
• Custom AI tool development:* We don’t just talk, we build. You’ll leave with 1-2 fully functioning, tailored AI workflows ready to deploy for your clients on day one.
• The “Go Ask” digital booklet: A curated, post-workshop resource packaged with automation tips, safe-use guidelines and best practices to keep your team building long after the session ends.
• Peace of mind: The absolute confidence that your agency is using generative AI safely, securely, and effectively, without risking client confidentiality

* available with the full day AI:101 workshop

Ready to stop tinkering and start building real AI value?

Due to the intensive, custom nature of the afternoon workflow builds, we only run a limited number of sessions each quarter. Get in touch to check availability for upcoming dates or to discuss a fully customised consulting package.