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You are here: Home / The Agency Leadership Podcast / ALP 305: How agency owners can use AI as an always-on thought partner

ALP 305: How agency owners can use AI as an always-on thought partner

May 18, 2026 by Chip Griffin Leave a Comment

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Most agency owners know AI can write a first draft or clean up copy. Far fewer have figured out how to use it as the strategic sounding board they’ve always needed.

In this episode, Chip and Gini explore how to use AI tools as a thought partner, not just a content machine.

Gini’s example is a client who asked her to map what a PESO model maturity ladder would look like for an organization. She described the situation and constraints to Chat GPT, and keep pushing the conversation forward. Six weeks of iterative back-and-forth surfaced ideas she wouldn’t have reached on her own, including finding the gaps when the AI was willing to poke holes in her thinking.

Chip points out that for owner-led agencies, that 8pm Friday idea you don’t want to dump on your team now has somewhere to go. The tool doesn’t care what time it is, and it has no stake in whether your idea succeeds or embarrasses you. Both hosts advise to direct the AI to ask you questions rather than just answer them. It takes some coaching to get a tool that genuinely engages rather than validates everything you propose, but once you’re there, you start getting real value.

One warning they have is that these tools are not always consistent. The same AI that helped you build a strategy three weeks ago might question it today with equally compelling reasoning. Stay in the driver’s seat, and treat AI-generated recommendations as input, not conclusions. [read the transcript]

Related Posts

  • ALP 192: Setting AI policies for your agency
  • ALP 267: Agency owners review 2024 performance, assess outlook
  • ALP 213: The value of outside perspective to agency owners

About Chip Griffin

Chip Griffin is the founder of SAGA and creator of the Build to Own approach, helping PR and marketing agency owners get more profit, time, and choices from the businesses they run. Full bio

Filed Under: The Agency Leadership Podcast

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