How Gamification Helped Build AI Confidence Across Our Agency

AI Powered Penguins 

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Be Your Best Fest kicked off with a showcase of AI projects from across the agency, built by our AI Team and AI Champions – people with the curiosity and permission to turn pilots into production with measurable value. It ended with a golden penguin trophy.

We created 'Emperor Penguins' to gamify BYBF with Pokémon-style collectable cards to boost participation. The idea was simple: make BYBF fun! The original plan was for the creative teams to create cute collectible penguins - each one unlocked with a code exclusive to every session.

"Can you collect 'em all?" we asked with a nod to the iconic slogan of the Pokémon franchise.

Before the launch I read "The case for letting people mess around with AI" by Michael Domanic - Section's Head of AI

In short, Domanic says that companies that strictly focus on serious ROI use cases struggle with adoption. He argues that "play" lowers barriers and naturally converts casual experimentation into regular, sustained tool adoption.

As a result we decided to crowdsource the penguin production across the whole agency and collectively build the penguin collectables. See the teaser video.

The game worked because it made AI feel easy, immediate and inviting. Nobody needed to understand prompting, models or the theory behind generative AI. They had a simple and fun reason to start: create a penguin.

The results exceeded our expectations - 260 cute penguins were submitted that celebrated the people and personalities from all our teams and offices.

That first act of play mattered. It reduced friction.

Creation led to collection.

Collection led to curiosity.

Curiosity spread through the agency.

That is the point of AI fluency at Emperor. Making the knowledge our people already hold faster, more scalable and more valuable to them, their clients and the business.

We are not just AI ready.

We are building the confidence and capability to stay ahead.

Why not check out our creative's Penguin Collection?

To discuss any of these topics in more detail or speak to one of our AI & Growth team about how to better your AI efforts, email [email protected] - we'd love to hear from you.