How I’m Using AI to Amplify the Value I Deliver to Clients
Everyone talks about AI in terms of efficiency, and sometimes productivity – but what does that really mean in terms of client value? To me, that’s about knowing the value you were already creating for clients before AI entered the picture – and how AI is able to amplify that now. What’s changed for me is how much more of my hard-won expertise, unique thinking and approach I can now bring to each client relationship, because AI has freed up time to apply more of what I already do well, and to keep improving on it. Here’s what that has looked like over the past year.
More time in my network, and using it with intent
I love to meet people, and I love to connect people – it brings me real joy.
So often I hear people say, “I know I need to make more of my networks, but it’s hard to find the time!”…and I can certainly relate. Now, I use AI to help me quickly create a targeted networking plan as I jump on a plane for short work trip, going beyond ‘Who should I reconnect with?’ or ‘What events should I catch?’ to ‘What strategic connection points can I look for in this list of coffee meetings?’
Even better, AI helps me make more of my network in service of clients, by intentionally connecting people. While AI is helping me with repeatable project management tasks, I now spend real time looking across my networks for the connections that will genuinely help a client with the problem they’re working on – a simple but meaningful way of creating extra value. That kind of matchmaking used to happen by accident, relying on my already overloaded brain to remember just the right referral at just the right time. Now I can build value-adding like this into projects on purpose.
Space to think, and the time to actually build what I think of
Creative ideas are constantly popping into my head, competing for attention with everything else in the week. Some of these are great ideas to help clients achieve even more of what they want and to gain a genuine competitive edge (for example, right now it’s helping them understand how to structure guidelines and processes for their teams to use AI in communications in a way that protects and builds their brand, rather than the brand drift and reputational faux pas we are seeing everywhere).
What’s changed is that there’s now room for me to sit with a business or client problem longer, work through something genuinely different and high-impact, and build it quickly enough to reach clients and audiences in a short amount of time, rather than leaving a great idea on a shelf for a year because the calendar never opened up.
Capturing the words, so I can focus on what’s between the lines
I often use AI to capture the fine detail of a client conversation, in a way both of us are comfortable with, so I’m not half listening while I try to take notes. That frees me to do the part clients actually pay me for, which is thinking properly about who they are, their specific context, and what they need next. I use it to interrogate my own thinking too: what haven’t I considered here, and what else should I be asking? It’s the same judgement I’ve always relied on, just tested from more angles – which provides the client with the advantage of fewer stones left unturned – fewer gaps and blind spots, more opportunities.
More time with the people who need it
There’s more time on the phone when someone needs it, an extra meeting booked in without a fight with my diary, and check-ins beyond the normal program allocation – a closer eye kept on clients, and a closer connection. I get to listen a little longer, pick up more detail in their journey, and provide extra resources and guidance.
New ways to help more people
I’ve conceived, built and launched new tools this year for measuring and planning professional confidence in the age of AI and organisational maturity levels in leadership brand development, the kind of idea that would have stayed in a notebook a few years ago. I’ve also launched and filled new public workshops on professional confidence, leadership branding and AI in communications for leadership audiences around the country, reaching and supporting far more people in a few months than I expected to.
AI has freed up time to apply more of what I already do well, and to keep improving on it.
Every one of these examples comes back to the same thing: what clients get from me is bigger and more useful than it was a year ago. The extra attention and thinking time that AI frees me to do is what make that possible. It’s also given me room to keep sharpening my own thinking on positioning in the AI era, so what I bring clients on that front keeps getting better too.
Want to know how we use AI in our work with clients? It’s in our FAQs.
Further reading
Confidence, Trust and Stronger Human Identity in an AI World
How’s your Professional Confidence in the Age of AI?