How a media company saves time and improves collaboration with AI Studio

We Are Era, part of RTL Group (Bertelsmann), is Europe's leading studio and talent agency. From  talent management to digital content production and branded entertainment, the media company reaches communities across all major platforms.

As demand has grown, We are Era  has relied on clearly structured processes and modern tools to keep projects on track and quality high. Even before integrating Asana AI, Asana was central to the company’s daily work routine, powering over 400,000 tasks and saving an average of 90 days per year. Now, We Are Era has significantly improved its processes once again by integrating Asana AI Studio, automating routines and optimizing internal and external collaboration.

Find out exactly how We Are Era implemented these steps with AI Studio here.

Why We Are Era relies on automation

As an agency with many parallel projects and cross-functional teams, the burden of manual tasks remained high despite the processes already in place. Follow-ups, contract coordination and status reports cost valuable time and repeatedly led to friction, both internally and externally.

Senior Process Operations Manager Laura Heidkamp partnered with the COO to find the greatest efficiency levers. Their goal was to simplify processes to reduce repetitive tasks and free up time for more creative work.

We Are Era was able to optimize these three processes with Asana AI

These three examples show how We Are Era integrated AI Studio into existing sales, onboarding, and reporting workflows to improve efficiency, drive clarity, and create time savings.

1. Deal follow-ups

In a highly project-driven environment, it’s crucial for We Are Era to efficiently identify new business opportunities and respond quickly. However, the coordination effort in sales was high: up to 15 people from sales, account management, and campaign planning met weekly to discuss open HubSpot deals.

These meetings cost over £1,000 per week and blocked valuable time, increasing the risk of losing potential deals due to delays.

AI Studio solved this problem with an automated reminder workflow. When a deal remains unprocessed for too long or a due date approaches, the team gets an automated reminder  to update it. The result:

• Fewer meetings, from weekly to monthly

• Clearer responsibilities 

• Reduced workload and more up-to-date data

This workflow reduced  meeting costs, improved transparency and collaboration between departments, and reduced the risk of delaying sales deals.

2. Onboarding and contract processes

We Are Era supports a large number of creators on a daily basis, overseeing their onboarding and contract processing. Recurring tasks include obtaining documents, creating tasks for team members and following up on open items.

Before switching to Asana AI Studio, teams manually created tasks, gathered information, and sent reminders via Microsoft Teams, which increased the risk of steps being forgotten or not documented.

With AI Studio, a form-based intake process was developed:

• A form collects all relevant information.

• A task is created and automatically routed to the talent manager with a personalized message.

• Assignments are made using custom fields depending on team membership.

This automation has saved 1–2 hours per employee each week and reduced the risk of information loss and forgotten steps. Now, the Administrative details for onboarding creators and processing their contracts are now automated and easy to track in Asana. 

3. Status reporting

In a dynamic agency environment, it’s essential that managers, project teams, and external stakeholders have a clear view of work. This allows them to plan capacities sensibly, set priorities correctly, and make informed decisions without back-and-forth or manual reporting.

For We Are Era, this used to mean manually preparing status reports, writing emails, and making update calls. Now, project summaries and goal updates are automatically created in the appropriate format for management and for the operational teams.

• Smart status delivers executive summaries at the touch of a button.

• Teams use it for updates and reporting.

• Reports take less time to prepare and are more consistent.

These automated reports facilitate communication and ensure a consistent understanding across teams, which is especially useful for cross-functional projects.

The results: Fewer meetings, more clarity, greater scalability

Since introducing AI Studio, everyday work at We Are Era has changed noticeably:

• Fewer weekly meetings, freeing up time for strategic work.

• Clearer communication: that takes place centrally via Asana, instead of in multiple tools like Microsoft Teams or email.

• Fewer manual tasks and more space for creative work.

• Improved customer engagement thanks to Workflows that can be shared directly with customers.

The information in the project hasn't changed–but the way we work with it has. That's the difference AI Studio makes.”

Plus, thanks to practical training, internal mentoring, and easy-to-understand workflows, Asana adoption within the company is strong. AI Studio is also increasingly becoming a natural part of the way teams work.

The next step: using AI in recruiting

Early results have motivated We Are Era to optimize even more processes. The HR team is currently working with Laura on another AI-supported workflow: the automation of job advertisements. This workflow includes:

• An intake form for the team leads to request new positions. 

• A workflow for standardised, brand-compliant job advertisement texts.

The goal is to speed up recruiting, reduce back-and-forth, and ensure a consistent branding.

The focus remains the same: reducing workload and increasing efficiency. The company hopes to save one hour per week with this workflow, and there are plans to manage all recruiting project communication exclusively in Asana in the future.

Asana AI Studio as a natural extension of proven workflows

We Are Era’s success shows how Asana AI Studio build on proven processes to unlock new potential:

• Automation instead of extra work

• Clarity instead of chaos

• Creativity instead of busywork

After successfully scaling core Asana workflows, using AI Studio is the logical next step. It delivers measurable time savings, clearer workflows, and improved collaboration.For teams that want to combine operational excellence with creative excellence, this path is a strong model to follow.