The AI-Powered Agency · Thursdays · 3:00 PM Pacific

Leadership for agency owners deciding what AI actually means for their firm.

Next session: Thursday, August 13, 2026 · 3:00 PM Pacific · 100 live seats

Every Thursday, for two kinds of agency owner: the ones who haven't started with AI and are tired of hype with no direction, and the ones already underway who want to know what's next. Strategy, staffing, margin, positioning, and the calls you can't hand to a tool.

Hosted by Charles Montgomery — twenty years running an agency, now running one where Claude and I do the work of a shop many times our size.

Save one of 100 seats What we cover
Charles M. Montgomery

Charles M. Montgomery — I run NW eSource, and I'm rebuilding it around AI in public. This is the room where I show my work to other owners.

The Format

Direction first. Tactics second. Your agenda throughout.

Same shape every week, so you can drop into any Thursday. This isn't a screen-share of me working — it's the thinking an owner has to do before any of the tooling matters, and it runs as long as the questions do.

Start here

Where your agency actually is

An honest read on the two positions most firms are in: nothing meaningful adopted yet, or a few tools bolted on with no strategy underneath. Different problems, different next moves — we name which one you're in before talking solutions.

The hard part

The decisions you can't delegate to a tool

What changes about staffing, pricing, scope, and margin when delivery gets faster. What you stop selling. What you start charging for. Where AI quietly costs an agency more than it saves.

Already underway

What comes after the easy wins

For owners past the first phase: moving from assisted tasks to genuinely rebuilt delivery, and what that does to your team structure, your positioning, and what a client is actually buying from you.

Your agenda

The questions you sent in

Every registrant is asked what they most want to know. Those set the agenda — yours gets answered whether or not you're in the room, and I'll keep your name off it if you'd rather.

No clock

Open Q&A

Chat is open the whole session and the last stretch is dedicated to it. There's no hard stop — when the questions run out, we're done, and if they don't, we keep going.

Proposed focus for August 13: where AI genuinely replaces agency labor — site builds, client reporting, content, internal ops — and the three places it quietly costs an agency more than it saves. Subject to whatever registrants ask for instead.
Who It's For

Agency owners. Specifically.

Marketing, web, design, SEO, creative — the shops with somewhere between one and a few dozen people, where the owner is still close enough to production to change how the work gets done.

You'll get something out of this if…

  • You run an agency and you're the one who decides how work gets produced
  • You're quoting timelines your team can't hit, and pricing against shops that somehow can
  • You've used ChatGPT or Claude and got a blog post out of it, not a system
  • You want to see the failures and the cleanup, not a polished five-minute demo
  • You'd rather ask a specific question about your operation than sit through a generic overview

It's probably not for you if…

  • You want a certification, a framework PDF, or a course funnel — none of that exists here
  • You're looking to hire the work out; that's a different conversation and it starts with an email, not a webinar
  • You need enterprise procurement, compliance sign-off, and a vendor security review
  • You want the tool list without the judgment calls — the judgment calls are the whole session
Where I'm standing: I run NW eSource in Portland, Oregon. Client sites, dashboards, client portals, and automation ship out of here on a cadence I couldn't have staffed for five years ago — because Claude and I build them together. That's the entire basis for this hour. If you want the longer written version, the Agency AI Operating System page lays it out.
Real businesses · Real systems · Really shipped — the work these sessions come out of
Goldstar ATM◆ Dateline Concrete◆ Professional Formulas◆ Revolution Dental Implants◆ Practice Management Systems◆ Hero Fence◆
You Set the Agenda

The registration form has a box on it. What you put in that box is the session.

The last field asks what you most want to know. It's optional, and it's the most useful thing on the page — for you and for me. I read every one of them before Thursday and build the middle of the hour around what came in.

01

It shapes the session

If eleven people ask how to keep an AI from wrecking a client's live site, that's what the build demonstrates. The topic list isn't set in advance — it's assembled from what registrants send.

02

You own the answer

Your question gets answered specifically, not folded into a generic overview. Say so in the box and I'll read it anonymously — plenty of the good questions are ones an owner wouldn't ask with their name attached.

03

Everyone benefits

Agency problems rhyme. The question you think is embarrassingly specific to your shop is usually the one three other owners were too polite to ask.

Capped at 100 live seats. I read the chat and answer live, and past a hundred people that stops being possible — so registration for each Thursday closes when the seats are gone, and the following week opens immediately. If a session fills before you get in, you go on the list for the next one.
Register

Save one of 100 seats.

Thursday, August 13, 2026 · 3:00 PM Pacific. The join link comes by email the morning of the session.

Registrations land in the NW eDash console. You'll get the join link by email before the session — nothing else, and no list you have to unsubscribe from twice.

FAQ

The questions that come up before the questions.

What does it cost?
Nothing to attend. There's no pitch deck at minute 50, no course at the end, and no follow-up sequence. If you eventually want work done, you'll email me — that's the whole funnel.
Do I have to be there live?
No, and every session is recorded and posted. But the live hour is where your question gets answered and where you can push back mid-build, which is most of the reason to come.
I can't make August 13.
It runs every Thursday at the same hour. The calendar file on this page repeats weekly, so you can drop into whichever Thursday you have free.
What do I need to join?
A browser. It's streamed to YouTube through StreamYard — you'll get the link by email the morning of the session. Nothing to install, no account to create.
Will you show your actual prompts and setup?
Yes. The instructions, the project structure, the deploy step, and the corrections when it gets something wrong. A demo that only shows the parts that worked isn't worth an hour of an owner's week.
Is this a sales pitch for your agency?
I run NW eSource and I'm not hiding that — it's where every example comes from. But the hour is spent on how the work gets done, not on hiring me. Agency owners are mostly not my customers; they're the people doing the same job I am.
Will my competitors see that I registered?
No. Attendee names aren't displayed, and I don't publish the list. Questions may be read aloud during the session — ask in the box for it to be anonymous and it will be.
What if the session is already full?
The form will tell you plainly, and it'll put you on the list for the following Thursday rather than pretending you got in.
Something the FAQ doesn't answer? Send it through the Start a Project form — it reaches the same inbox.
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