Gana Media Group — Introducing AI into Creative and Product Workflows

Overview

As a Fractional Product Design and AI Advisor for Gana Media Group, I worked directly with the leadership team to explore how AI could support the company's creative, product, and business development workflows.

The business recognised the opportunity to use AI not just as a productivity tool, but as a way to move faster from idea to execution.

Rather than relying solely on external design and development cycles, AI could help leadership research opportunities, generate creative directions, prototype concepts, and prepare stronger outputs for board and pitch meetings.

This work helped establish a more practical, maker-led approach to AI adoption, giving the business greater confidence in how emerging tools could support day-to-day decision-making and future product opportunities.

The Challenge

Gana Media Group operated as a lean business, with much of its creative and design execution supported by external partners.

This created flexibility, but also introduced friction when exploring early-stage ideas.

As a result:

— Concepts could take time to visualise
— Creative exploration was dependent on external availability
— Product ideas often remained abstract for too long
— Prototypes for pitches and board discussions required additional effort
— AI tools were emerging quickly, but there was no clear view on where they could create practical value

The challenge wasn't simply introducing AI tools.

It was helping leadership understand how AI could become part of the company's creative and product operating model.

My Role

I partnered directly with the leadership team in a fractional advisory role, providing guidance on how AI could be introduced into the business in a practical and focused way.

My responsibilities included:

— Advising leadership on AI adoption opportunities
— Researching and evaluating emerging AI tools
— Identifying where AI could support creative and product workflows
— Introducing AI-assisted research, ideation, and design practices
— Guiding the business towards a maker mentality through tools such as Cursor
— Helping translate ideas into tangible prototypes for pitches, board meetings, and product exploration

The focus was not on building a large internal design function.

It was about giving leadership the capability, confidence, and workflows to move faster.

The Vision

The key shift was moving AI from a topic of exploration to a practical creative and product capability.

Instead of treating AI as something separate from the business, the goal was to embed it into everyday workflows.

AI could support the business across four connected areas:

Research Faster exploration of markets, audiences, competitors, and product opportunities.	Creative Direction Rapid generation of ideas, narratives, visual territories, and campaign concepts.
Product Prototyping Using tools such as Cursor to move from concept to interactive prototype more quickly.	Stakeholder Communication Creating stronger, more tangible outputs for board discussions, client pitches, and strategic decision-making.

Key Design Principles

AI as a Creative Accelerator AI was positioned as a way to expand creative exploration, not replace human judgement.	Maker Mentality The business was encouraged to move beyond discussion and create tangible prototypes that could be tested, shared, and refined.
Practical Adoption The focus was on immediate, useful workflows rather than abstract AI strategy.	Lightweight Operating Model For a smaller business, AI adoption needed to be simple, flexible, and easy to apply without adding unnecessary process.

Impact

Although this was an advisory engagement rather than a traditional product delivery programme, the work helped Gana Media Group:

— Establish a clearer approach to AI adoption
— Identify practical use cases across creative and product workflows
— Reduce creative blocks through AI-assisted exploration
— Speed up the creation of concepts and prototypes
— Improve the quality of outputs for pitch and board meetings
— Build confidence in using tools such as Cursor to support product thinking
— Create a foundation for future AI-enabled ways of working

Reflection

This work reinforced that AI adoption is rarely just about tooling.

For smaller businesses, the real value comes from helping leadership understand what is possible, where to focus, and how to build confidence through practical use.

By introducing lightweight workflows and a maker-led mindset, AI became less of an abstract technology trend and more of a hands-on capability for accelerating ideas, decisions, and opportunities.