Jon Peters Insurance Agency.

Please describe how you are currently leveraging the AI tool above at your agency. What was the main goal or friction point you were trying to solve for when implementing it?
We primarily leverage AI to improve communication, marketing, and workflow efficiency within our agency. ChatGPT is used to help draft and polish client emails, create branded marketing content, build HTML-coded email templates (the coolest!), brainstorm campaign ideas, develop educational blog content, and improve internal processes. Agency Revolution First Draft is another blog generation tool, and Canva is used for manual marketing design support.

The main friction point we were trying to solve was time. As a small hometown agency, our team wears several hats, and AI has helped us move faster without losing the personal, local voice our clients expect from us. It allows us to turn ideas into usable content more efficiently, refine client-facing communication, create more consistent branded messaging, and scale campaigns that would otherwise take significantly more manual work.

How did you find the tool or approach you chose, and what made you pick it over other options?
I started using ChatGPT shortly after it became widely available and spent time experimenting with different ways it could support our agency. What began as multi-day back-and-forth coding sessions has developed into a much more efficient workflow. Now, depending on the content and complexity, we can take a branded email campaign from concept to implementation within one business day, or even within a few focused hours.

We chose this approach because ChatGPT was flexible, easy to use, and adaptable to several different agency needs. It allowed us to build practical solutions around our existing workflow instead of forcing us into a rigid platform. While there are other AI tools available, we have continued using ChatGPT because we are comfortable with the interface, happy with the quality of the output, and able to refine the results in a way that fits our agency’s brand and voice.

Over time, ChatGPT became the tool that gave us the most control, creativity, and speed while still allowing us to keep the final product personal, polished, and agency-specific.

What does your AI use actually look like day-to-day — who uses it, how often, and how long did it take to get going?
Our AI use is currently concentrated among about 30% of our team, and those users are engaging with it on a daily basis. Day-to-day, we primarily use AI to polish client emails, generate branded images and content, create agency-specific clip art and insurance-related visuals, and build HTML-coded email templates that can be sent to our clients through our CRM.

It did take some time to get going, especially for more technical uses like HTML-coded branded emails. There was a learning curve in understanding how to give clear direction, refine the output, and make sure the final product matched our agency’s voice and brand standards. At this point, the team members using AI regularly have made it part of their daily workflow.

The remaining team members have not fully adopted it yet, mostly due to comfort level and familiarity with new technology. As we continue finding practical use cases, we expect adoption to grow naturally.

What worked better than expected? What didn’t go as planned?
What worked better than expected was HTML coding and branded email creation. I expected that to be much more difficult, but AI made it surprisingly approachable. Once we learned how to give clear direction and refine the output, we were able to create polished, brand-specific email templates that could be customized with CRM merge fields and used for client communication.

What did not go as planned was automation. While AI has been extremely helpful with drafting, polishing, coding, and content generation, I have not yet figured out how to make it actually “do” tasks for us in the way some agencies describe. I hear about agencies using bots with login credentials or automated workflows, and that is still the part where I am wondering, “How, what, where?” For now, AI is excellent as a support and creation tool, but true hands-off automation is still an area we are learning how to approach.

What’s the one thing you’d tell another agent/agency who’s thinking about starting — and what do you wish someone had told you first?
The biggest thing I would tell another agent or agency is to just start. Do not be intimidated by it, and do not overthink it. AI is not a magic replacement for your knowledge, judgment, or client relationships. It is simply another tool on your superhero belt.

Start with something simple, like polishing an email, brainstorming a campaign idea, or creating a piece of client-facing material. The more you use it, the better you get at giving clear direction and shaping the final result. I wish someone had told me earlier that AI works best when you treat it like a support tool, not a finished-product machine. You still need your agency voice, your expertise, and your common sense, but it can help you create some truly wonderful client-facing materials much faster.

Anything else worth sharing?
In the spirit of full transparency, ChatGPT helped polish all of my responses for this survey!