We Got Hands-On: PhilCham Connect+ x IPWS AI Productivity Workshop

On 12 September, PhilCham Shanghai and IPWS brought together roughly 30 business leaders, creatives and technology specialists at WHITESPACE for an afternoon built around one question: not whether to explore AI, but how to turn that exploration into something you actually use.

The afternoon traded the usual AI hype for something more useful: real experience from people actually using these tools, a clear-eyed look at what AI agents can and can't do, and hands-on time to walk out with something concrete.

Real Talk: What AI Actually Looks Like Day to Day

The session opened with a round table featuring Soudamini "Sau" Khurana (Creative Director, Fugu; IPWS President) and Angela Sy (Co-founder & CEO, The 25s Brand Design; PhilCham Marketing & Comms Chair), moderated by Guillaume Mallet.

Sau shared how quickly her designers at Fugu folded AI into their daily workflow, almost too seamlessly. Her caution to the room: a human still needs to be the last set of eyes before anything reaches a client. AI output that goes out unchecked is a risk, not a shortcut.

Angela pushed back on a different misconception: treating AI as an all-knowing authority. "It's not a god," she told the room, "it's a machine assimilating together existing knowledge, and it comes with real limitations." That means someone senior still has to check whether what it produces actually makes sense. She also raised a flag not enough people think about, the murky territory around who owns AI-generated work, pointing out that no one currently holds clear rights to it.

The audience also took the time to ask questions regarding AI confidentiality, where Sau and Angela both agreed careful policing of what assets we upload is key to building loyalty with clients.

Angela's last point looked back to the early days of Midjourney, when prompting itself was the barrier for the team, where everyone has to prompt in English. Her reminder to the room: the real skill isn't mastering the tool, it's learning to wield AI so it communicates your team's terms, not the other way round.

Key takeaway: AI adoption isn't a free pass to switch off judgment. The teams getting real value are the ones still checking the work, and still thinking about who it's really for.

Understanding AI Agents & Organizational Readiness

Guillaume Mallet (Founder & Virtual CIO) and Ben Chen (Senior Consultant, System in Motion) took the room through what "AI agents" actually means in practice, beyond the buzzword.

They broke down the different forms an agent can take, from ones built to answer plain-language questions against a company's own data, to agents that turn raw work logs into a live dashboard, to ones that read and route scanned documents so a team only has to review exceptions instead of retyping everything by hand. The throughline across every case study: the companies that saw results didn't start with one big platform connecting everything at once. They started with one small, frequent, painful task, and proved it worked before going further.

Key takeaway: You don't need a moonshot AI strategy to get real value. The best path is picking one repetitive, time-draining task and solving it first.

Build Your First AI Agent Brief

Laptops out for the final stretch. Guillaume and Ben walked participants through a framework for writing prompts that actually hold up (Role, Context, Format, Command, with an example when it's easier to show than explain), then set the room loose on two guided exercises: find the workflow you're personally losing the most time on, and turn that into a scored, specific use case.

By the end, every participant left with the start of their own AI agent brief, a template to optimize their work, an automated process, and a way to rank the success of their plan.

Key takeaway: Use AI for the mental, repetitive work that eats your time. The point isn't to replace what humans do best, it's to free you up to spend more time on the work that actually needs you.

Keep Connected with Us

Our thanks to Sau, Angela, Guillaume and Ben for an afternoon that was as practical as it was honest, and to IPWS for co-hosting. We'd also like to thank Ziko Kitchen for the wonderful snacks and drinks, WHITESPACE for the perfect venue, and Browhaus Brow Salon and Strip Ministry of Waxing for the vouchers for the attendees.

PhilCham Connect+ runs every month, we'll see you at the next one!