The Leading Edge Agency.
A twelve-week rebuild of the agency operating model for PR firms that want the rewards of AI without the risks. Built by AI Comms Academy — a working public relations agency under the PRSA Code of Ethics — for the firms that intend to lead this profession into its next era, not be reshaped by it. Twelve topic areas across three movements: grounding, the new operating model, and leading.
Every team member becomes the functional equivalent of three to five people.
When AI Comms Academy implemented these systems across our own agency, individual team members became between 100% and 500% more productive — producing billable, high-quality, client-ready work in a fraction of the time.
For a mid-sized PR agency, that's the functional equivalent of expanding headcount by several people — without the payroll, benefits, recruiting, onboarding, or management overhead.
Twelve topic areas. Three movements.
Participants work through the curriculum at their team's capacity and speed across twelve weeks, with live touchpoints at key moments. Each topic area delivers something your team can apply to client work immediately — and something they'll keep using long after the program ends.
Grounding: Understanding what has changed.
Before teaching a team to use AI, we make sure they understand the era they are now operating in — what has shifted in our profession, what the new ethical landscape requires, and where AI fits in the longer arc of public relations.
The deep shift underway in public relations — the movement from earned media relationships to AI-mediated meaning, why AI search now matters more than traditional search for many brands, and why communications professionals sit at the center of this transition rather than on its edges. This topic establishes the intellectual foundation the rest of the program is built on.
A clear framework for explaining to leadership, clients, and your own team why AI is not a passing technology trend but a restructuring of how communication works — and why your firm's response to it is a strategic decision, not just an operational one.
How the six provisions of the PRSA Code of Ethics — honesty, advocacy, expertise, independence, loyalty, fairness — apply directly to AI-mediated work. What counts as disclosure. How to handle AI-generated content in pitched stories. Where your firm's ethical exposure actually sits. The specific risks our profession is underestimating, and the ethical protocols that separate leading firms from reckless ones.
An ethics framework your firm can formally adopt — covering disclosure, review standards, human oversight requirements, and client-facing transparency — built directly on PRSA principles and adaptable to your firm's voice.
What AI slop actually is, where it comes from, and why it's the single largest quality risk facing AI-using agencies today. How bias enters AI outputs — at the training level, the prompt level, the review level. The techniques AI Comms Academy uses to systematically reduce and eliminate bias in AI outputs. Why unexamined AI outputs put client trust at risk, and how to build review practices that catch what matters.
A prompt deck and review framework for reducing bias and slop in AI outputs — including the specific language patterns, reasoning structures, and verification steps our team uses to keep client work high-fidelity.
The four major large language models — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity — and what each does well. Why pro-tier versions matter for agency work, and why the free versions create real risks for client confidentiality. What to tell your clients about your AI practices. The specific privacy settings and organizational account structures that keep sensitive client information contained.
A documented AI stack decision for your firm — which tools your team is authorized to use, at which tier, for which kinds of work — and a client-facing disclosure standard that reflects current best practice.
The New Operating Model: changing how the work is done.
With the grounding in place, we rebuild the day-to-day work of public relations — pitching, content, research, media — and show what changes when AI is integrated with rigor.
Why no single AI tool should be doing all of your firm's work, and how to run ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity as a coordinated team where each tool does what it's best at. Research in one, drafting in another, fact-checking in the third, final polish in the fourth. The specific workflows our agency uses for research reports, executive briefings, and client deliverables.
A set of orchestration workflows your team can adopt directly — with decision points, handoff protocols, and quality checks at each stage.
Why talking to AI produces radically better outputs than typing to it, and the specific techniques — vocabulary, framing, context-setting — that turn a general-purpose AI into an expert specialist on your client's work. The language of power prompting, including the specific words and structures that dramatically improve reasoning quality.
A master prompt library covering research, analysis, drafting, and review — adaptable to any client or industry, and structured so your team can extend it over time.
Why every meeting, interview, and brainstorm is now a trainable asset — and how to build the capture, transcription, and retrieval system that turns your agency's collective knowledge into infrastructure. How transcript libraries become training material for AI, executive coaching material for your team, and institutional memory that does not leave when people do.
A transcript-capture workflow scoped to your firm's meeting cadence and client mix — including naming conventions, storage structure, and the standards that keep it genuinely useful over time.
What AI changes about media list building, pitch angle development, and newsjacking — and where it does not help. The overnight agents our firm uses to scan, curate, and prioritize media opportunities. How to maintain genuine journalist relationships in an era where cold pitch volume is exploding. When to accelerate with AI and when speed becomes a liability.
An overnight media-monitoring workflow, a pitch angle generation deck, and a review rubric for deciding which AI-accelerated outreach is appropriate to send and which is not.
How to produce the full range of content a client needs — press releases, newsletters, social content, stakeholder communications, executive posts, thought leadership — from the same source material, in voice, at high quality. The specific voice-governance techniques that keep AI-produced content recognizably human and recognizably your client. What the full universe of possible content looks like when your team is no longer capacity-limited.
A content production framework that covers sourcing, voice-calibration, review, and output — with templates for the major content types a PR firm produces regularly.
Leading: claiming new territory and building new value.
The final movement equips your team to do what only the leading firms are doing — turning AI capability into new revenue, new service lines, and a position of authority with clients who are looking for guidance.
What a crisis looks like when AI is involved — in the crisis itself, in your response, or in your client's operations. The governance documentation that protects your firm when things go wrong, grounded in the six provisions of the PRSA Code of Ethics. How to build an AI content review system that catches problems before they reach clients. Specifically how to govern AI outputs across multiple practitioners, including situations where your firm oversees work produced by others.
A crisis-response framework adapted for AI-era incidents, and a PRSA-aligned governance document set covering writing rules, review protocols, and escalation procedures — ready to be customized for your firm.
What GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) actually are, why they're fundamentally a public relations discipline rather than an SEO discipline, and why PR agencies are positioned to own this new service category. Specifically: what content structure changes drive AI citation, what schema matters, how to audit a client's current AI visibility, what a 90-day GEO engagement looks like in practice, and how to price this work as a retained service. Hands-on and detailed — participants leave able to deliver GEO work, not just describe it.
A complete GEO service blueprint — methodology, audit template, client intake structure, deliverables framework, and pricing guidance — your firm can begin offering to clients as a new practice area.
How to integrate what your team has learned into sustainable firm-wide practice. Measuring productivity gains and protecting against regression. Client communication about your firm's AI posture. Where AI is heading next, and how to stay on the leading edge without chasing every new release. The ongoing habits and review cadences that keep an AI-forward firm AI-forward.
A firm-level integration plan including measurement framework, team development pathways, client communication standards, and an operating rhythm designed to sustain the gains this program delivers.
Built for how agencies actually work.
Live sessions at key moments. Asynchronous curriculum your team can work through at their own pace. A growing library of working documents they'll keep long after the program ends.
Full curriculum access.
Twelve topic areas across three movements, available asynchronously for your team to move through at their own capacity and speed across the duration of the program.
A growing library of working documents.
Prompt decks, writing-rule sets, governance frameworks, content templates, audit tools, and more — delivered across the program, yours to keep.
Live group touchpoints.
Scheduled across the program to surface real questions from the team's actual client work as they progress through the curriculum.
Direct engagement with AI Comms Academy leadership.
On the most advanced and custom-facing topics — where your team can ask senior-level questions about their specific client work.
Session recordings.
Full access to recordings throughout and after the program, so team members who miss live can catch up — and reference the material later.
A clear graduation path.
Teams that want to continue can engage Implementation Support — private, custom-scoped consulting that installs and refines the program material inside your firm.
Enroll now. Help us shape it.
The first wave of Leading Edge Agency participants will not just take the program. They will shape it — providing the case studies, testimonials, and curriculum feedback that define how this body of work scales across our profession. In exchange, they receive a meaningful discount and recognition that compounds across their firm's positioning.
This is the only time you will see the program at this price. The Founding Cohort discount is 20% off any seat tier — offered with our explicit thanks to the firms that choose to move first.
Founding Cohort members receive.
- 20% off any tier. Apply to Individual, Team Bundle, Department, or Firm-Wide pricing.
- Lifetime pricing protection. Future AI Comms Academy programs re-enroll at Founding Cohort rates — permanently.
- Founding Cohort designation. Recognized in our public materials, case studies, and any future publishing of this body of work.
- Direct curriculum input. A dedicated feedback channel to Elizabeth and the AI Comms Academy team, shaping how Cohort 2 and Cohort 3 are built.
- Showcase access. Invitation to participate in AI Comms Academy's 2026 showcase session at PRSA ICON or equivalent industry venue.
Founding members agree to provide detailed program feedback, supply a testimonial or case study at completion, and participate in one showcase session within twelve months of completing the program. This is the work of building the field.
This is not a webinar. It is a college-level course.
A twelve-week structured curriculum at university intensity, designed to restructure how your firm operates. You are not enrolling in training. You are restructuring how your team works in the new era of communications. Priced accordingly — with the financial math documented openly.
Members in good standing of the associations AI Comms Academy partners with receive 15% off any seat tier, stackable with bundle pricing. Confirmation of membership required at enrollment.
A limited number of scholarship seats are available each cohort for early-career professionals, students, and communicators working without organizational support. Apply →
Invoice, ACH, and credit cards accepted. A 3% processing fee applies to credit card payments — many participants prefer this to capture AMEX or business card rewards on the program investment.
Implementation Support.
The Leading Edge Agency program is a structured curriculum every participating agency moves through together. But every agency is different.
Some teams arrive with established AI habits that need to be elevated and governed. Others are starting from zero. Some need workflow integration across forty people. Others need private coaching for a senior leadership team. A fixed scope can't do justice to that range.
Implementation Support is AI Comms Academy's private, custom-scoped consulting layer — scoped separately for each firm, engaged alongside the Leading Edge program, following it, or as a standalone ongoing relationship. The right container depends entirely on where your firm is starting and where you want to go.
Scope an engagement →Custom-scoped for your firm.
- A private audit of your firm's current AI practices and internal systems.
- Custom integration of the curriculum into your specific workflows.
- Private coaching for your leadership team or specific practice groups.
- Custom playbooks built around your firm's voice, client mix, and service offerings.
- Ongoing governance and quality audits of AI outputs going to clients.
- On-call senior counsel on crisis situations, client AI questions, or strategic decisions.
- Support launching GEO or other new service lines — scoping, pricing, go-to-market.