AI for Strategists
Part of Spark AI Accelerator
Give your strategy team an unfair advantage
Deeper research. Sharper insights. Pitches that land. AI for Strategists gives your team the skills and the workflow to operate at a level that sets them apart.
Most AI training teaches you the tools and leaves you to figure out the rest. AI for Strategists is a structured, practical programme for strategy teams and planners, designed to weave AI across the entire strategic process – building a high-velocity strategic function with human intuition firmly at the centre.
Delivery: In person or online
Duration:
In person: Full-day core workshop, half - day build day
Online: Delivered across three half - days
For: Strategy teams and planners in-house and at agencies
Typical cohort size: Up to 20 participants
Investment: Part of the Spark AI Accelerator
Trusted by creative agencies and ambitious brands
Most strategy teams are only scratching the surface.
The potential is real and it's significant. AI can compress weeks of research into hours, surface insights that manual analysis would miss, broaden the range of strategic options on the table, and make the ideas your team presents land harder in the room.
But most strategy teams aren't there yet. While some individuals are pulling ahead, others are uncertain where to start or whether what they're doing with AI is robust enough to be trusted. The result is fragmented use, inconsistent output, and a growing gap between what your team is capable of and what AI could help them achieve.
From fragmented use to strategic edge
AI for Strategists gives your team three things that change the quality of their output – immediately and permanently.
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The thinking
The mindset and methods to use AI as a strategic partner that raises the ambition of every project your team touches – while keeping human intuition and creativity firmly in the driving seat.
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The capability
Advanced research capabilities your team will use from day one – surfacing insights that manual analysis might miss, validating decisions against market data and customer personas, and arriving at more nuanced strategies, faster.
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The workflows
The ability to build and operationalise AI processes across your team's daily work – so the momentum continues to build, long after the programme ends.
The result?
A strategy team that doesn't just work faster – but has the clarity, the skills and the systems to operate at a consistently higher level, on every project.
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.
And it compounds. 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 strategy teams and planners who are responsible for market research, audience planning, brand strategy and positioning. Ideal for those looking to increase efficiency and sharpen their insights without sacrificing their human intuition.
Agency strategy, planning and insight teams
In-house brand and marketing strategy, planning and insight teams
The programme works best when your whole strategy team attends together. Alignment – not individual capability – is the point.
What you’ll cover
AI for Strategists runs across a full day – navigating the entire strategic journey from research to storytelling – with a half-day build day two weeks later to embed the skills into live work.
The programme is made up of five chapters:
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Before you can use AI well, you need to understand what it's great for – and where your human instinct remains irreplaceable.
We'll introduce the AI Sandwich: the human–AI–human approach that keeps your judgement at the centre of the process, every time.
We'll reframe how your team thinks about AI – from a tool that saves time to a partner that raises the quality and ambition of the work.
We'll explore where AI creates genuine advantage in a strategy workflow – and where it creates risk if used without care.
You'll leave with a clear mental model for using AI as a thinking partner – and the confidence to apply it immediately.
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The research phase is where AI delivers its most dramatic impact for strategists. This chapter teaches your team to conduct richer, more thorough research in a fraction of the traditional time.
We'll teach advanced techniques using tools like Perplexity, Google NotebookLM and Microsoft Notebook – building robust research plans and accelerating customer discovery.
You'll learn how to explore new sectors, audiences and markets you don't yet know well – and get up to speed faster than was previously possible.
You’ll learn to build AI assistants tailored to your most common research tasks – benchmarks, audience analysis, competitive landscapes – and share them across your team.
You'll leave knowing how to conduct market and customer research that used to take days in a matter of hours – without sacrificing depth or rigour.
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Great research only matters if it leads to better insights. This chapter focuses on synthesising data, developing strategy and raising the ceiling on the range of ideas your team is able to explore.
You’ll learn how to harness AI to synthesise large datasets into sharp, actionable insights and build data-backed brand strategies.
We'll cover how to use AI to develop more nuanced strategies and map positioning options more thoroughly – using it as a thinking partner that challenges and expands your strategic range.
We'll explore the difference between using AI to generate ideas and using it to pressure-test them.
You'll leave with deeper analytical capability and a wider, more thoroughly mapped range of strategic options to bring to clients.
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This chapter introduces your team to one of AI's most powerful capabilities: validating ideas against the market before pitching them to the client.
We'll explore how to build sophisticated, insight-rich customer personas using AI.
You'll learn how to test your strategic ideas against simulated personas – pressure-testing positioning, messaging and brand narratives with confidence.
We'll cover how to use AI to surface the gaps, contradictions and opportunities your initial thinking may have missed.
You'll leave with a validation capability that makes your strategic recommendations more robust – and your confidence in presenting them considerably higher.
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Even the sharpest strategy can fall flat in a client presentation. This chapter shows your team how to harness AI to tell stories in ways that really land.
We'll cover how to develop compelling strategic narratives using AI as a creative and structural collaborator.
We'll introduce AI-powered storytelling tools that bring strategic concepts to life – moving beyond static slides to more immersive, memorable presentations.
We'll share top-of-class examples of how leading strategy teams are changing the way they present and sell their thinking.
You'll leave with the skills to turn your strategic output into something clients remember – and buy into.
What you take back to the studio
By the end of the programme, your strategy team will have:
The ability to conduct market and customer research at a fraction of the traditional time
Enhanced data analysis capabilities that lead to deeper, more nuanced strategic thinking
A clear framework for using AI as a trusted thinking partner – with human instinct firmly at the centre
Sophisticated prompt structures and AI agents built around their most common strategic tasks
AI embedded into their day-to-day strategy process – from research to positioning to storytelling
Client success
Case studies
FAQs about AI for Strategists
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No. The programme is designed for strategists at all levels of AI familiarity – from those who've barely touched it to those who use it regularly. What matters is strategic instinct and curiosity; we'll provide everything else. Even experienced AI users consistently tell us they leave with new skills and a new way of thinking.
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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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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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AI for Strategists is one of five streams within Spark AI Accelerator – each designed for a different function within an agency or brand team. Some organisations run this stream standalone; others run it alongside streams for creative, client services, operations and leadership. We can advise on the right approach for your organisation.
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AI Foundations is a half-day foundation session for your whole team – building shared language, confidence and responsible use across all roles. AI for Strategists goes significantly deeper, focusing specifically on how to embed AI into the strategic workflow: research, insight generation, positioning, validation and storytelling. Most organisations start with AI Foundations and progress to the role-specific streams of the AI Accelerator soon after.
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Your team will need paid subscriptions to at least one AI platform – ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude. Access to a deep research tool such as Perplexity is also helpful. 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 Strategists 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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While the core of this stream stays consistent, we ground the examples, the tools and the challenges in what's shared in your briefing calls. The result is a session built around how your strategy team actually works - not a generic version of it.
Ready to give your strategy team the edge?
Deeper research. Sharper insights. Pitches that land. And momentum that keeps building long after the programme ends. Book a call to discuss AI for Strategists.
Our expertise
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Trusted by
70+ 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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