Winning Gold in the Employee Experience category at The Drum Awards for Digital Experience is Jack Morton Worldwide for its AI Fest: Choose Your Own Adventure. Here is the agency’s award-winning case study.
18 months ago, the world was introduced to Chat GPT and the workplace changed forever. Since then, the news has been dominated by conversations about the overall impacts of generative AI (GenAI) on the workforce and the creative industry.
While some individuals expressed excitement for this new era of creativity and efficiency, others remained skeptical. According to the 2023 EY Anxiety in Business survey, “75% of workers were concerned GenAI would make many jobs obsolete.”
But we have a different point of view.
Jack Morton is a global brand experience agency that connects brands to the people who matter most to them. Our people are the reason clients are eager to work with us and why our agency has a net promoter score 2.3x higher than the industry average.
Humans will always be important to our business. That’s why we believe if used strategically, AI and human partnership could improve our agency’s overall creativity, efficiency and output.
The challenge? Not all of our employees can see this vision. So, how do we put lingering fears to rest and make everyone feel comfortable and confident with using GenAI to support their work?
Research
Our December 2023 global AI employee survey revealed that nearly half (49%) of employees didn’t have plans for expanding the use of AI in designing or delivering experiences for clients.
The numbers were higher for creative and strategy teams, but we knew the impact of GenAI would be pervasive across the agency. This was proven in our interview with analysts from Forrester who called the marketing industry “the canary in the coalmine” when it comes to the impact of GenAI on tasks, roles and jobs.
Objectives
Educate and encourage adoption of AI among staff by measuring changes in key areas for improvement:
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60% rated their general understanding of GenAI as at least moderate
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20% reported using GenAI at least several times a week
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41% were at least moderately confident in using GenAI at work; 27% were not confident at all
Target audience
500+ global Jack Morton and Genuine employees from every corner of the business: client services, creative, strategy, design, production, HR and DEI+Belonging, technical services, agency communications, finance and corporate leadership/administration.
The roles and ages of these employees vary, but they share similar questions and concerns about AI.
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How will AI affect my job in the future?
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Is AI safe to use given data privacy rules?
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Isn’t AI just for creatives? How does it apply to me in my role?
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How are my colleagues using AI today?
Strategy
What we do isn’t easy, but with the help of AI, it could be easier.
Our agency averages 10,000 event activation days a year. Every project is different and while that keeps our work exciting and fresh, it also means it can be challenging and time-consuming for the people behind the scenes, both externally and internally.
So, we set out to change our employees’ view of AI and demonstrate that AI isn’t a hindrance to job performance, it’s a strategic path to success.
Our strategy was to create a virtual employee engagement program that would prove AI can provide some relief to our pain points and could accommodate the various levels of education needed as identified in our survey.
Idea and execution
Introducing AI Fest: Choose Your Own Adventure, a digital festival that demystified AI and encouraged learning through the power of play and peer-to-peer learning.
For 10 days, we engaged employees around the world from every discipline for a virtual learning and collaboration event focused exclusively on GenAI and its numerous usage applications. From Midjourney and Chat GPT to Microsoft Co-Pilot and Jack Morton’s proprietary AI. We hosted info sessions and tutorials on almost every major AI platform connected to our business.
To announce the event, our global co-presidents sent an email to the entire Jack Morton network asking them to dedicate at least five hours to expand their experimentation with AI and inviting them to ‘choose their own adventure.’
The program featured a wide range of content types and modalities:
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AI in Context. We hosted live, 45-minute sessions designed to put AI in the context of specific organizational functions. Moderators talked about the promise and the reality of AI and shared best practices. Colleagues also shared knowledge and encouraged one another on how to apply AI to their needs.
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AI in Action. 24 different teams hosted 30-minute talks about real-life examples of using AI in pitch and project work to demonstrate that no matter where you and your team may be on your journey, AI is happening right now across our organization.
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AI Introducing. We brought in vetted partners to introduce our teams to the AI products and services they offer. A sales pitch for them and a personalized tutorial for us. We also invited some of our technology clients to participate in a panel to share their insights and talk future trends.
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How I AI. To help people feel more comfortable and confident, we solicited short How I AI case studies from dozens of colleagues. These could be personal or professional. Examples include How I Make Illustrated Storybooks for My Kids and How I Analyze Data using Excel GPT. These were available immediately on-demand and authors provided contact information for colleagues who wanted to talk 1:1.
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Other resources included a one-page AI Cheat Sheet/Poster and links to free resources recommended by colleagues on Instagram and TikTok, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Substack, etc.
Internal sessions were hosted live with multiple options to accommodate time zones. Sessions with outside partners were recorded and replayed with live discussions hosted by our moderators.
Results
Jack Morton’s AI Fest was a hit with agency employees around the world. Creativity and curiosity were boundless as colleagues across offices, disciplines and professional levels engaged in lively discussions about their personal experience with AI (or lack thereof) and encouraged each other to experiment for both work and play.
The sessions were filled with laughter as the chat was filled with advice, gifs and emojis.
The results made leadership proud.
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Participation: 96% global agency
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Average number of sessions per attendee: Approximately 4+
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Average hours per attendee: 4+ hours
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94% rated the sessions as very valuable or valuable in inspiring them to experiment with AI
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AI Fest NPS Score: 60% (excellent)
We saw improvement across all major measured objectives:
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60% improvement in overall frequency of use, to 32%
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44% improvement in employees with plans to expand the use of GenAI in designing and delivering experiences, to 47%.
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44% reduction in the percentage who were not confident at all in using GenAI, down to 27%
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27% improvement in the percentage at least moderately confident in using GenAI at work, to 52%
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10% improvement in general understanding of GenAI, to 66%
Based on conservative estimates of time saved by encouraging broader use of GenAI, the program added between $2.1m and $3.15m in new annual capacity by improving productivity.
For anyone who missed a session, all content and sessions were recorded and are still available on-demand via an AI Fest microsite.
Lastly, as an internal program designed to be peer-to-peer exclusively, it cost $0 out of pocket. AI Introducing sessions were conducted by technology partners, and clients participated in the panel free of charge.
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