Road to the Conference: From AI Hype to Real Impact with Catherine Toms, Founder of AI Growth Marketing
You’ve helped so many teams navigate change in AI. What’s feeling different about this moment in marketing right now versus 2025?
In 2025, the AI conversation was almost entirely about speed. How can we save time, do more with less and create faster. Which is fine - if it's done strategically. But in the rush to tick things off the to-do list we started drawing in “AI slop” feeds flooded with obvious AI generated posts, inboxes full of generic emails that sounded nothing like your colleague.
That hasn't gone away, but thankfully as people learn how to work with AI we’re seeing a real shift - from outputs and time saved, towards effectiveness. Learning to work alongside AI to help us think better and improve the quality of our work - not just get it done faster. We call this AI² - when you combine your actual intelligence + AI literacy - and that’s the most valuable combination anyone can learn right now.
With so many tools out there, how should not-for-profits think about choosing what’s worth their time and attention? The most effective approach is to start with what you already have. Most organisations have enterprise licences with Copilot, Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT and are barely scratching the surface. When you properly learn the features inside your core tools, they can support a huge chunk of your day-to-day work.
Small integrations into your inbox, spreadsheets, documents and data can deliver big time savings. Organising your workspace with projects and agents squeezes even more value - handling research, summarising, communications, insight generation, proposal writing and planning without you needing to start from scratch every time. Only once you're sure you’ve maxed out what you have should you start looking at additional tools. And even then, it should be driven by a clear problem - not curiosity, or a shiny new tool - but a real gap in what your current setup can do. That's how you avoid tech sprawl and keep things safe and manageable, especially when resources are tight.
What’s one thing people often overcomplicate when it comes to AI?
One of the biggest things people overcomplicate with AI is the idea that it requires technical expertise. But using AI well comes down to two simple things; clear thinking and clear communication. Understanding what the tool is actually good at, where it adds value in your day, and how to guide it to get a useful result. That’s prompting. And it’s not a technical skill, it’s a critical thinking and communication skill.
The people getting the most value from AI aren’t the ones trying to engineer the perfect prompt or master every feature. They’re the ones who can articulate what they need, apply their own judgement to what comes back, and refine from there. There’s also a tendency to jump way ahead. People assume they need agents, automations and a whole stack of tools before they can get any real benefit. In reality, most of the gains come from getting the basics right. Get your foundations right first, then move into more complex integrations once you’ve identified your priority use cases and have the data, tools and skills to support them.
Your sessions are always highly practical and energising. What kind of experience are you hoping to create for attendees this year?
We know your attendees are busy, stretched thin and wearing lots of hats. No-one wants to waste an hour listening to abstract conversations about what AI could do. They want clarity on what AI can do for them - in their role - in a way that’s safe, effective, and ethically sound. And, importantly, they want to see exactly how to do it. That’s why our sessions will be practical, hands-on and grounded in real NFP work. Attendees will be jumping online, rolling up their sleeves and following along in real time or observing.
The focus is on real NFP scenarios, not hypothetical use cases, using examples that reflect the kinds of challenges you and your teams face day to day. The aim is for everyone to leave with skills, confidence and new AI use cases they can apply immediately.
From your experience, what separates organisations that are getting real value from AI from those that aren’t seeing much impact yet?
Across the organisations we work with, the difference rarely comes down to access to tools. It's about how seriously they're investing in people, capability and structure around AI. The teams seeing real value have made AI a priority and recognised it isn't something that can sit on the sidelines or get picked up "when there's time." They're investing in upskilling across the whole team, not just a few individuals. Building baseline confidence so people actually know how to use the tools, where they add value, and how to apply them safely to their day-to-day work.
They're putting clear guardrails in place. Not heavy governance to restrict access - but enough structure so people feel safe using AI, understand what's appropriate, and aren't accidentally taking risks. And they're aligning around priority problems to solve - not letting AI fragment into disconnected experiments across the business. The organisations pulling ahead also tend to have a small group or council responsible for driving AI initiatives forward, focusing on where it can make the biggest difference and keeping momentum going across the whole team.
Catherine and Stephen Toms will be delivering the workshop, 'NFP AI for Under Resource Teams: 10X Your Outputs in 50 Minutes" of Thursday 7 May.