Solo PR Founders Use AI to Reclaim Strategy Work From Admin Tasks
Three boutique communications agency founders have spent the past two years testing ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude to handle the operational grunt work that eats into client-facing time. The result: proposal drafting that takes hours instead of weeks, and systems that let one person run a full-service business without sacrificing quality.
Adebukola Ajao founded B.D.Y. CONSULT a decade ago and now runs it solo. She leads strategy, creative direction, marketing execution, partnerships, and operations by herself - a workload that typically requires an account manager, project coordinator, and junior strategist at larger agencies.
Turning proposal drafting into a day-long task
Ajao's most time-saving use of AI involves research and proposal writing. She feeds Gemini her discovery call notes, recordings, emails, and Google Docs about a prospect, then asks it to draft a proposal using templates she created. The process used to consume more than a week. Now it takes a day or less.
She strengthens these drafts with Read AI, which transcribes meetings and flags engagement patterns - moments when a prospect leaned in versus tuned out. She uses that data to double down on what resonated and rework sections that fell flat.
"If a client says no, I don't feel burned out from having spent a week doing their proposal," Ajao said. "It's just onto the next one."
AI as a brainstorming partner for strategy work
Ciara Siegel founded brand consultancy CJC in 2022. She uses Gemini to transcribe client conversations, then feeds those transcripts and client questionnaires into ChatGPT to identify patterns - pulling out how often a client mentioned a specific word or concept, work that would take her hours manually.
That efficiency matters. Research-heavy strategy projects that once took weeks now take a quarter of that time, Siegel estimated.
She also uses ChatGPT's voice-to-text feature as a substitute for the collaborative brainstorming she'd have on a larger team. Speaking her thinking aloud to an AI that responds creates momentum and surfaces ideas she'd otherwise keep locked in her head.
"Half the value isn't what AI says back, it's what surfaces once I hear my own thinking out loud," Siegel said.
Building operational systems from scratch
Lisa Chensvold started Chensvold Communications in 2025 with AI already available. She was skeptical until she felt overwhelmed trying to build business systems alone.
Early AI suggestions over-engineered solutions designed for teams. Once she told ChatGPT she works solo and values simplicity, it became useful for identifying workflow gaps and suggesting tools.
When tracking prospects and clients became unwieldy, ChatGPT helped her design a Notion database as a "scrappy CRM." She uses Claude to cross-check and challenge ChatGPT's proposals, catching gaps the first tool missed.
Chensvold now relies on Claude to build documentation: client acquisition processes, a detailed writing style guide, and a weekly business checklist the AI walks her through. This frees her to focus on work that requires human judgment.
"The least creative things about the work that I do, I can use a non-human system to help build, so that I can have my humanity show up for my clients," Chensvold said.
For PR and communications professionals, the pattern is clear: AI handles research synthesis, documentation, and proposal scaffolding. The strategy, client relationships, and creative direction remain human work.
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