The Power User Gap for luxury and heritage houses
AI training for luxury brands, with the house voice kept in human hands.
AI training for luxury brands, for a house's own client advisors, marketing and head-office teams. I look at how they work, find where AI can take on the first draft and the long read, and teach your people to use it there with restraint, so the voice clients know stays with the people who own it.
For whoever is responsible for getting non-technical people using AI. Nothing to code.
74 talks and 77 workshops in 35 countries since 2014. Google Developer Expert, Agentic AI Foundation ambassador.
Luxury doesn't transform. It refines.
Where the gap shows in a luxury house.
The Power User Gap for luxury and heritage houses teaches a house's client advisors, marketing and head-office teams to use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini on their own work with restraint, judgement and taste, while the house voice stays with the people who own it.
AI for luxury and heritage houses starts from the work that already carries the house's name. These are the kinds I'd look at first; your team leads decide where we start.
The thinking behind this is in Artisanal Intelligence, my short book on AI deployed with restraint, judgement and taste, for luxury leaders and the technologists who serve them. It is finished in draft and not out yet.
About the bookClient follow-ups and clienteling notes
The advisor's notes after an appointment become a client record and a first draft of the follow-up. The advisor rewrites it, decides whether it goes, and sends it.
Product and heritage copy
First drafts of product descriptions and heritage stories from the archive notes and the brief, in the house's tone, for the copy and brand teams to rework and approve.
One text, many markets
Approved copy adapted for each market and language as a first pass, with phrases that may not travel flagged, for the local team and the translator to review.
Market and press reading
Market reports and press coverage summarised into what changed for the house, with the source of each point, for whoever briefs the leadership.
The house answer, found
What the brand guidelines or the client-service standards say on a point, with the passage quoted, so an advisor gets the answer the house would give.
Event and launch planning
Run sheets, briefing packs and the follow-up plan for an event or launch, drafted from past ones, for the team to correct and own.
What the teaching looks like there
First the people attending say how they handle this work today, which is the baseline. Then they practise on their own client notes, copy and reports with the tools the house already pays for. Much of the time goes on restraint: which work to give the tool and which to keep, and how to tell when a draft has slid into the voice every brand gets from the same prompt. The teaching assumes a person reads everything before it reaches a client. Afterwards the same people say what they now hand to AI and what they still keep by hand.
You see what changed, team by team.
The people attending say how they use AI before anything is taught, and what they hand to it after. It works with whatever tools you've already bought. Remote or on-site, so teams in different countries get the same teaching without anyone flying anywhere. No pre-work for attendees.
For when the house asks what changed.
You hear from the people attending how they handle this work before anything is taught, and from the same people afterwards what they now hand to AI and what they keep by hand. That shows, team by team, where AI earned a place and where the house voice held.
The teaching comes as named courses, one per group of teams, and the call picks which.
A 30-minute call
Where your rollout is, and which teams or workflows you'd like to start with.
I look at how your teams work
I talk to the team leads and go through the process documents for the workflows you've chosen, and suggest others where I see a better place to start. How long it takes depends on the scope we agree.
A baseline before anything is taught
The people attending say how they use AI on those workflows today and how that work gets done. That is the mark everything after is measured against.
I teach your people to use AI there
Remote or on-site, for the people who haven't worked it out yet. They learn to use AI on those workflows, so they do that work more efficiently and AI becomes the first thing they reach for. Your power users are welcome to join.
What changed
After the teaching, the same people say what they now hand to AI and where they still don't. You see the change against the baseline, team by team, and we decide where the next cohort starts.
Same task, same tool, two different jobs.
What most people send
Write a follow-up email to a client who came in yesterday.
What the few who use it well send
Here are my notes from yesterday's appointment, and our last three emails to this client.
Draft a short follow-up in the voice of those emails. Mention the piece they tried on and the strap we are ordering for them.
No superlatives and no urgency. I'll rewrite it before it goes.
Nobody taught anyone the second version. It gives the tool the house's own material and leaves the advisor to decide what goes out. I teach it on your own work.
Why the gap is still there.
You have probably tried some of these already. This is what each one leaves you with.
The vendor's own course
Teaches the product: the features, the modes, what the assistant can do. Your power users didn't learn there. They worked it out on your documents and your approvals, which no vendor has seen.
An e-learning platform
Produces completion rates. Everyone finishes the module, and on Monday the same one-line prompts go out as before.
Your own power users
They can show what they do, and they often will. They can't see where their habits came from, and they have their own jobs, so the rest of the team gets a lunchtime demo and a link.
A generic AI trainer
Runs the same day for every organisation, on prepared examples. Here the teaching starts from your workflows, so what people practise is the work they go back to.
Who is in the room
Client advisors and store teams; marketing, brand, CRM and e-commerce; head-office teams such as HR, finance and operations. No technical background, and nothing to code. It works with the tools the house already pays for.
Your digital and engineering team is different work: the AI Engineering Workshop teaches them to work with coding agents and to build agents, by the same person, so one conversation can cover both.
What they leave able to do
They use AI on their own workflows to do that work more efficiently, and reach for it first in their day-to-day work.
What else the engagement can include.
A talk for the whole company
The split, shown to everyone at once, so the teams being taught know why before the teaching starts.
Talks for leadersMore cohorts
The same teaching for the next teams.
Briefings for managers
For the managers of the teams being taught.
Follow-up clinics
Time with the people who attended, on what they run into back at work.
Change management
Working with whoever owns the rollout on the change around it.
Agents in the workflows
Putting agents into the workflows we reviewed, for one person, one team or the organisation, as extra work alongside the teaching.
Before you book
- Will it make our communications sound generic?
- It shouldn't, and the teaching works against it. People learn to give the tool the house's own material (past copy, the guidelines, the advisor's notes) and to treat what comes back as a first draft. A person rewrites anything in the house voice and decides what goes out, and spotting a draft that has drifted into generic language is part of what they practise.
- Who is it for: client advisors, marketing, or head office?
- Any of them, and often more than one. Client advisors and store teams; marketing, brand, CRM and e-commerce; head-office teams such as HR, finance and operations. We agree on the call which teams go first. No technical background, and nothing to code.
- Does it work with the tools we already have?
- Yes. It uses ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, whichever the house already pays for, inside the AI policy you already have. Which tools are approved and what client information can go into them stays the house's decision.
- How does this relate to Artisanal Intelligence?
- The book sets out the thinking: AI deployed with restraint, judgement and taste. This teaching applies that thinking to your house's own work, with your own teams. The book is not out yet, and nobody needs to have read it.
- What do attendees need to prepare?
- Nothing. There is no pre-work. The scoping happens between us before the teaching.
- What does it cost?
- It is quoted against the scope we agree on the call. Nothing is priced on this site because no two organisations need the same amount of work.
Questions about the tools, who attends and recording are answered on the Power User Gap page.
The same teaching, for other kinds of work: professional services, financial services and insurance, technology and telecoms and legal.
Who you'd be working with
I've spent twenty-five years teaching engineers and their organisations whatever technology had just arrived, and the last few building with these tools.
Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies, Agentic AI Foundation ambassador, MBA. 25 years across software engineering, developer relations and technical training, and 151 talks and workshops in 35 countries.
More about meStart with a 30-minute call
Tell me which teams you'd start with: client advisors, marketing or head office. It's one quote, for the workflow review and the teaching of the teams we agree on the call, so the figure you forward covers all of it.