Why should you redesign your AI workflow?
Summary: AI is changing the way we work, but most agencies are only using it to speed up the process they already have ā which just means doing the same work faster for the same fee. Here's why redesigning the workflow instead is where the real commercial upside sits. We also share a practical exercise to help you do it.
Author: Asta Vallis
Read length: 4 minutes
Spark AI is the AI performance partner that builds organisation-wide AI capability for creative agencies and brand teams. We take ambitious teams from fragmented experimentation to AI embedded across their people, processes and systems ā so it delivers real commercial impact.
Why redesign rather than bolt on?
AI is changing the way we work. But it's often being bolted on to existing ways of working to make them quicker.
Redesigning the workflow around what AI doesn't just make the old process quicker, it changes what's possible altogether.
Why does AI change what's possible?
The first is collapsing steps. Humans tend to work through a process one stage at a time, brief, write, check, build. AI can run several of those stages at once, so the process doesn't need to be broken down that way to begin with.
So instead of using AI to speed up each step, it can run these steps all at once for you. During a Spark Session, Jason Bradwell shared an example of this from building a landing page. Through one prompt, he could cover copy, imagery and build, referencing his brand guidelines and tone of voice, and create a new page. A page that would normally take four separate stages came back as a working first draft.
The second is capability that didn't exist before. Not new in the sense of magic, more that something which would have taken so long by hand it was never realistically attempted becomes possible within a normal working day. Jason built a tool for exactly this: his team can put a real decision to eight different perspectives, a risk analyst, a customer advocate and a sceptic playing devil's advocate among them, and get a considered recommendation back in under five minutes.
As the models constantly update, both of these will improve over time. Having these processes in place sets you up to harness those future developments, not just today's.
How is redesigning the workflow a commercial advantage?
If you're only speeding up existing steps, you're only undercutting your own commercial model, doing the same work faster, for the same fee. Redesigning the workflow changes what you're delivering, not just how fast you deliver it. It allows you to start pricing against the outcome or the value created, protecting your margin as client expectations shift.
How do you actually redesign a workflow?
This exercise comes from our co-founder Jules Love's book, Shift ā AI for Agencies. Jules argues that most agencies treat AI like a Swiss Army knife, a handy tool people reach for when they need a quick fix. The outcome of this exercise is that you stop thinking of AI as a neat bolt-on and start integrating it as a core process.
1. Document what should happen. Don't map how things are done today, workarounds and habits included. Design the ideal version of the process, client onboarding, creative ideation, whatever you're looking at, from a blank slate.
2. Break each activity into key tasks. Take that ideal process and pull out what's actually needed to make it excellent. Don't worry about efficiency yet.
3. Identify the data needed. For each task, work out what AI would need to be briefed properly, institutional memory, briefs, guidelines, whatever applies.
4. Run the human-or-AI-lead test. For every task, decide who's actually in charge. AI should lead the graft, data synthesis, competitor research, with a human keeping oversight. Humans should lead wherever relationship building or creative judgement is doing the real work, with AI supporting.
5. Only once the process is fully re-mapped should you choose which AI tools you need to build.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to redesign your whole process at once?
No ā pick one workflow to start with, something with a clear, repeatable shape like client onboarding or a first-draft process. Changing how a team works day to day is a lot to ask of people, so turn the new process into a clear SOP. Roll it out properly, and make sure everyone understands what's changed and why before you move on to redesigning the next one.
Where can you find more content like this?
This piece draws on our fortnightly newsletter, where we cover exactly this kind of thing every two weeks. You can sign up here. If you want to see a redesign in action, watch the webinar where Jason Bradwell walks through how he rebuilt B2B Better's workflows into his own AI operating system.
Does this only work for small, agile teams, or can bigger agencies do it too?
Being small helps ā decisions move faster with fewer layers of approval. But it works at any size, as long as there's clear ownership of the redesign and senior people are visibly involved, not just signing it off from a distance.
