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Building AI Capability

Responsibly Across GTM

AI Enablement Case Study | Smart Home Tech Company

Computer monitor on a desk displaying an AI image generator creating smart doorbell images, with a lamp, plant, headphones, and notebook nearby.

Overview

Onward Search equipped a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest tech company’s Go-to-Market teams with the strategic guidance, upskilling, and resources to scale AI fluency, creativity and productivity responsibly.

The Challenge

Turn fragmented enthusiasm into coordinated capability.

Close-up of a smartphone screen displaying AI app icons, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Copilot.Owned by one of the world’s largest tech companies, our client is a leading manufacturer of smart home security devices, and their Go-to-Market (GTM) teams have had no shortage of AI enthusiasm. Between marketing, creative, and retail activation, they’ve tested hundreds of tools. But they initially experimented independently and lacked a cohesive strategy.

Over time, leadership recognized that scattered efforts could not scale responsibly within the company’s strict compliance and security frameworks. 245+ tools were in play, approvals were unclear, and access as well as fluency varied from team to team.

Plus, while leaders championed AI publicly, they didn’t all model its use in daily work, leaving others hesitant to follow suit. The company’s goal was to move from experimentation to enablement and turn creative curiosity into measurable capability, giving its GTM teams the confidence and structure to innovate safely and effectively.

The Solution

A structured path from insight to implementation.

A woman sits at a desk in a modern office, smiling while participating in an AI Training video call displayed across multiple monitors showing a grid of people.Onward Search led a multi-phase AI Enablement engagement built to empower leadership, uncover blockers, and scale responsible AI use. During the discovery stage, we interviewed department heads, surveyed power users, audited the organization’s tools, and reviewed their policies.

Our analysis revealed that the company’s challenge wasn’t skill; it was systems. Teams were capable, but constrained, by access barriers, tool overload, and ambiguous guidance. With those insights, we designed and delivered a six-week upskilling program blending strategic consulting, hands-on training, and real-time implementation.

The next phase began with an organization-wide AI 101 Workshop introducing foundational concepts, approved tools, and use cases from GTM’s real workflows. Together, we explored AI-powered brief development, campaign planning, creative review, and more.

Finally, we led four live 90-minute Champion Labs focused on practical adoption. Participants mapped daily workflows, tested the company’s internal tools, and built reusable prompt libraries as well as AI assistants. Each session ended with open office hours to ensure teams could immediately apply what they learned. Upon the engagement’s completion, we delivered session recordings, a friction map detailing adoption barriers, and strategic recommendations for continued growth.

 

The Impact

AI Fluency, consistent standards, and the tools to move forward.


Our client’s GTM teams now have the structure, confidence, and clarity to use AI responsibly and the foundation to measure progress in the next phase of their AI journey.


Embedded text reads: "Complete your AI journey." An arrow depicts the journey across the following stages: AI Resistor, AI Follower, AI Forward, AI First, and AI Native.

 

By The Numbers

After our six-week upskilling program, our measurable achievements included:

150+
team members advanced through AI workshops and labs

4 AI Labs

delivered and recorded to sustain AI integration

245+ AI Tools

audited against client’s compliance standards

3+ Prompt Libraries

created for reusable, on-brand experimentation

86.7% of Users

reported strong AI proficiency at the engagement’s end

By the Deliverables

Throughout the course of the engagement, we equipped our client with a / an:

PHASE 1

  • Comprehensive Tool Audit
  • Employee Survey
  • Leadership Interview Series
  • Policy Review

Promotional graphic for an AI training program for creative professionals. The image shows screenshots of several AI tools including Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Flow, displaying example prompts, responses, and a video generation interface. In the lower right, a badge reads “Onward Search – AI Essentials for Creative Work – Certified.” The layout highlights multiple AI platforms used for research, writing, image generation, and video creation against a purple gradient background.

PHASE 2

  • AI Discovery Report
  • AI 101 Enablement Workshop
  • Experimentation Framework
  • AI Prompt Guides

Diagram of an AI workflow showing how a user query is processed and evaluated before returning a response. On the left, a UI panel displays a “User query” input and a “Response” output. Inside the AI workflow, the process moves through three steps: “Analyze input” (analysis), “Generate response” (generation), and “Evaluate output” (evaluation). Arrows show the sequence and feedback loops. If the evaluation result is not acceptable, the process loops back for further analysis and generation. When the result is acceptable, the final response is returned to the user interface.

PHASE 3

  • Champion Lab Series
  • Custom AI Assistants
  • Strategic Recommendations

Close-up of a person wearing round glasses focused on a laptop screen while coding. A blurred monitor with lines of code appears in the background, suggesting a software development or engineering workspace. The person’s face is illuminated by the computer screen in a dimly lit environment.

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