According to a press release on Bizcommunity, Brandtech Group halted all scheduled meetings for a week in early September so that its people could focus on learning generative artificial intelligence (AI), the type of technology that creates text, images or code from prompts.
The initiative, called AI Culture Week, involved 4,630 employees in more than 30 countries and 14 businesses, including Brandtech+. Over the seven-day period staff logged roughly 20,000 hours, attended an average of eight sessions each, asked more than 1,200 questions and submitted 1,600 pieces of feedback.
“The world may be adopting AI faster than people have the time or opportunity to develop the skills to use it effectively,” said Gabrielle Gray, global head of capabilities at Brandtech+. In this title Gray oversees the development of skills across the group. She added that clients understood the importance of the experiment, allowing teams to immerse themselves without the usual meeting load.
What the week looked like
Sessions covered creative work, strategy, social media, sales, operations, data analysis and client leadership, with a strong focus on applying AI to real workflows rather than just learning the technology in isolation. Employees took part in practical challenges, role-specific workshops, “vibe coding” sessions and discussions about responsible AI, ethics and the future of work.
One vibe-coding challenge started as a simple idea shared on Slack and ended with five functioning applications built by people who do not consider themselves engineers. The outputs included an AI transformation dashboard for client projects and a hub that connects employee resource groups.
Gray warned that the AI skills shortage cannot simply be solved by hiring external talent. “There isn’t a generation of people with ten years of generative AI experience waiting to be hired,” she said, noting that agencies must grow capability internally by reskilling existing staff and nurturing emerging talent.
The week also encouraged staff to think critically about which tasks should be delegated to AI and which should remain distinctly human. According to Gray, judgement, craft, taste, cultural understanding, empathy and storytelling are likely to become more valuable as AI makes execution faster and more accessible.
Brandtech’s approach shows that building an AI-first workforce may start with giving people the time, space and permission to learn, experiment and feel comfortable with the technology. For agencies and other creative firms, the experiment offers a concrete example of how to embed AI learning into everyday work.
Read more about similar initiatives in the SME & Entrepreneurship section.
Gray highlighted that the programme tackles a widening industry dilemma, noting “the world may be adopting AI faster than people have the time or opportunity to develop the skills to use it effectively”. She added that simply demanding AI-readiness without allocating dedicated learning periods would leave teams stranded, and that client cooperation made the immersion possible while core work continued.
She also warned that handing employees a new tool does not guarantee uptake, explaining “the skills gap isn’t going to be solved by giving employees access to another tool and expecting adoption to happen automatically”. For lasting change, she says, learning and experimentation must become embedded in daily tasks rather than a one-off training event.
According to Gray, the shift from “AI training to AI culture” was intentional, with the week designed to embed artificial intelligence into everyday workflows. She described the distinction as deliberate, stressing that true capability emerges only when staff regularly apply AI concepts while still retaining overall project ownership.
The vibe-coding challenge illustrated how quickly ideas can become functional products, with Gray observing that “the distance between having an idea and launching it is shrinking every day”. Participants, none of whom identified as engineers, produced five working applications, including a transformation dashboard and a hub linking employee resource groups.
Gray cautioned that becoming AI-ready does not equate to becoming AI-only, stating “AI should give people more space for the thinking, judgement and creativity that make great work distinctive”. She emphasized that without this balance, organisations risk accelerating output without improving quality.
