AI for Media Planners
Part of Spark AI Accelerator
Turn every brief into a plan that wins the business
Duration:
Full-day core workshop + half-day build day (in person) or three half-days (online)
Delivery: In person or online
For: Media planners, in-house and at agencies
Typical cohort size: Up to 20 participants
Investment:
£5,000 + VAT for a team of 10
£8,000 + VAT for a team of 20
Part of the Spark AI Accelerator
Stronger logic. Tested scenarios. Plans that land.
AI for Media Planners gives your team a structured workflow for building the trusted recommendations that stand up in client conversations.
Trusted by ambitious agencies and brands
Every decision has to hold together
A plan is built by multiple hands across multiple stages. Along the way, assumptions can go unchallenged and market conditions can shift. By the time it reaches the client, it still has to be the right call.
Build the logic that turns briefs into trusted plans
AI for Media Planners gives your team the thinking, capability and workflows to move from brief to recommendation with a consistent process.
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The thinking
A clear framework for using AI as a planning partner that expands opportunities, while keeping human judgement firmly at the centre.
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The capability
Practical skills your planners can use from day one: interrogating briefs, connecting channel logic, modelling scenarios and pressure-testing recommendations.
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The workflows
A repeatable AI process across the planning cycle, from first brief to client narrative. Your team will also build a Media Planning Agent around your own briefs, tools and formats.
The result?
A planning team that brings clearer logic and better-tested options to every brief.
Why Spark AI?
Spark AI works with you to build AI capability inside your organisation – providing the training, governance, roadmap and AI workflows your team needs to lead AI adoption for yourselves. When the programme ends, the capability stays.
Once the flywheel is in motion, your team has all the skills to implement your strategy, build AI enabled workflows, and continually gain momentum.
Who it's for
This programme is designed for the team responsible for turning strategy into media plans.
Media planning, investment and full-funnel planning teams
In-house media, marketing and brand planning teams
The programme works best when your whole planning team attends together. Alignment – not individual capability – is the point.
What your team will gain
A repeatable process for diagnosing complex briefs and identifying the questions that need answering
A structured way to connect channel roles across upper-funnel, lower-funnel, performance, commerce and retail media
A scenario-planning process for comparing budget and channel options without handing investment decisions to AI
A review and approval process for finding gaps, duplication and unsupported assumptions before the work reaches the client
A client-ready planning narrative that connects every channel decision to the business outcome
A Media Planning agent built around your own briefs, tools and formats
Spark AI Accelerator certification – a mark of their literacy in cutting-edge planning tools
What you’ll cover
AI for Media Planners runs across a full day of hands-on training – covering the full planning process, brief to pitch – with a half-day build day two weeks later to embed the skills into live client plans.
The programme is made up of five chapters, plus a build day:
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Weak briefs lead to weak plans.This chapter is about diagnosing the brief before planning starts. We'll cover how to use AI to summarise complex client briefs and identify the objectives, audiences, KPIs, budgets, constraints and dependencies hiding inside them.
You'll build a structured set of clarification questions and turn a real brief into a planning workflow your team can act on immediately.
You'll leave with a repeatable way to diagnose a brief properly. -
Every channel needs a clear job. This chapter connects those jobs across upper-funnel, lower-funnel, performance, commerce and retail media.
We'll cover how to define the role of each channel within the wider strategy, and how to connect audience journeys to communications tasks across the funnel.
You'll build initial media mix options against a defined set of objectives and constraints, using AI to widen the range of credible options on the table.You'll leave with a structured process for building planning logic that's connected end to end.
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Budgets change and markets move. This chapter is about being ready for that – with plans that can flex. We'll cover how to model alternative budget allocations and explore the trade-offs between reach, frequency, performance and conversion.
You'll build and pressure-test scenarios against a live brief – comparing options with AI, while keeping the investment decision firmly with the team.
You'll leave with the ability to model other scenarios, faster, with the human judgement placed at the centre. -
The work needs to stand up before it goes out. This chapter builds scrutiny into the process before the recommendation reaches the client.
We'll cover how to review a plan against business objectives, strategic direction and channel roles, and how to spot gaps, duplication or unsupported assumptions.
You'll build a structured planning review process, and compare a local market plan against your agency's global planning principles.
You'll leave with a repeatable quality control process that catches the weak points in a plan before your client does.
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Held two weeks after the core workshop. Your team brings a live, in-progress brief, and together we apply the frameworks, workflows and scenario models directly to it.
Your team will build the Media Planning agent and test it against the work it needs to support.
The result is a working agent and a set of skills your planners can keep using long after the programme ends.
We track your AI progress
We measure the impact of your programme from before Foundations through to the end of Accelerator, using team-wide surveys and leadership surveys to capture what has changed for your agency.
Your progress is benchmarked against the Spark AI Maturity Score, built from our Spark AI Maturity Model® - backed two years of proprietary data gathered through our work with 80+ agencies.
At the end of the programme, we share your results – showing how far your organisation has moved, where the biggest gains have been and where to focus next.
Want to see where you stand with AI now?
Take our free 5-minute assessment to see your Spark AI Maturity Score.
Client success
Case studies
FAQs about AI for Planners
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No. The programme works for planners with different levels of AI experience. We’ll establish a shared approach through our half - day Foundations programme before applying it to your team’s planning work.
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Yes. We interview you and survey your team during the onboarding process, to get a clear idea of where you are on your AI journey and what's most important to you. We then tailor the programme to your needs
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AI for Strategists focuses on developing the strategic direction. AI for Planning focuses on turning that direction into a media recommendation, comparing possible routes and preparing the work for the client.
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We don't offer hybrid delivery. The programme works best – and your team gets the most from it – when everyone participates in the same format, in the same way. You can choose in person or online, but we ask that the whole team commits to one.
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Your team will need paid subscriptions to at least one AI platform – ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude. Not sure what to use? We'll be happy to advise based on your existing setup.
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After the full-day workshop, your team will be applying what they've learned to live briefs immediately. The build day – two weeks later – is where we come back to embed the skills further, work through any challenges and help your team build the AI agents and workflows that will become a permanent part of how they operate.
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AI for Planners is part of the Spark AI Accelerator and is scoped based on your organisation's programme. Book a call and we'll give you a clear picture of the investment.
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AI for Planning is one of the role-specific streams within the Spark AI Accelerator. It can be delivered on its own or alongside streams for other teams. We can help you choose the right combination for your organisation.
Ready to build recommendations that stand up and win support?
Your team already has the planning expertise. Give them a clearer process for testing assumptions, comparing scenarios and bringing a stronger recommendation to every brief.
Our expertise
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Trusted by
80+ agencies and
brand teams -
Founded by
2 of BIMA’s 100 most influential people in digital and tech
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#1 Amazon Bestseller
Author of Shift:
Al for Agencies -
Al for Business guest lecturer
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Featured in
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