“I’ve been stunned by how anti-AI some marketing professionals have been. Let’s not take the piss out of it, or dismiss it. It’s going to affect our jobs, so let’s all do something about it,” says Kate Ross, founder of eight&four. 

And do something they did. At eight&four, they’ve been developing their own bespoke AI tools over the last two years. The aim? To streamline client services on both sides. 

Now, Kate’s agency has four tools integrated into a single user interface – Platform12. 

“There’s such an overwhelm with AI tools coming out, you can be jumping all over the place. What we wanted to do was centralise that,” says Kate. 

“Our bespoke tools are client-specific and customised to each individual client’s way of working. This also gives complete customisation to clients’ workflows, which is imperative.” 

“The ambition is to have a system whereby our accounts team is running on an interface for a client that is totally client-trained, with all the copy and creative tools trained in the client’s products, their tone of voice – everything.” 

Focusing specifically on client needs was key to creating tools that would genuinely help them work smarter, tackling the areas that matter most. 

“From a research perspective, having that client problem as the sole focus meant we remained committed to just that one thing. If you go out as a small to mid-sized agency and ask broadly, ‘How can we use AI?’ that’s going to become very distracting very quickly.” 

In this month’s AI Whisperers, Kate will be telling us how the agency created their bespoke AI interface, why it’s important to investigate and create something like this, and the positive effects it has had on client-agency relationships.