How can agency account managers stop writing status updates?

Account managers can stop writing status updates from scratch by having AI draft each client's update from the project tool, Slack threads and the email trail: what shipped, what is waiting on the client, what is late and why. The account manager reads the draft, fixes the tone, adds judgement and sends it. Nothing goes to a client unread.

#Key takeaways

• Status updates eat account managers' time because the facts sit in five places: Asana or ClickUp, Slack, email, the shared drive and meeting notes.
• AI is good at collecting those facts into a first draft; it is bad at deciding what a nervous client needs to hear.
• The biggest win is often the 'waiting on you' list, which turns a vague update into clear asks for the client.
• Keep the account manager as the sender, and log what was drafted and what was changed.
• If your project tool already produces a clean client-facing summary, use it before building anything.

#Why do status updates take so much of an account manager's week?

A typical account manager at a digital agency runs six to ten clients. Each one gets a status email or a deck slide before the weekly call, plus answers to 'where are we on this?' messages in WhatsApp. To write them, the account manager opens Asana, Monday.com or ClickUp, scrolls Slack for what the designer said, and checks email for the last client approval.

None of it is hard, but all of it is switching. Hubstaff's state of agencies research (checked november 2026) reports that agency teams spend 49% of their time on core work, with the rest going to meetings, coordination and admin, and that 26% of respondents struggle to get team members to submit updates at all.

#What should an ai-drafted status update contain?

• done since the last update, linked to the task or file, not described from memory.
• in progress, with the next step and who owns it.
• waiting on the client: approvals, assets, access, feedback, each with the date it was requested.
• at risk: anything late or blocked, with the reason in one sentence.
• decisions needed on the next call.
• one line of judgement from the account manager, written by the account manager.

The 'waiting on the client' section matters most. Many delays at agencies are approvals sitting in a client inbox, and a dated list of open requests makes that visible without anyone sounding defensive.

#How do you roll it out across accounts?

1. Agree one status template for all clients, with the sections above, in Arabic and English versions where needed.
2. Tidy the basics in the project tool: every task has an owner, a due date and a client-visible flag.
3. Connect the project tool and the client channels the update should read from, account by account.
4. Run it on three accounts: AI drafts, the account manager edits and sends, and keeps a note of every correction.
5. Fix the patterns in the corrections, usually stale tasks and internal comments that should never reach a client.
6. Widen to more accounts once account managers say they would not go back.

#What can go wrong?

Two things. Internal comments leak into a client draft, such as a frank Slack remark about the client or a staffing discussion; the fix is to limit what the draft can read and to mark internal channels as off limits. And stale tasks produce false updates, so the draft says something is in progress when it quietly died. Both are data hygiene problems first.

Keep it simple. Anthropic's guidance on building effective agents, december 2024 recommends starting with the simplest approach and adding complexity only when needed. A status update is a fixed workflow with a person approving it, not an autonomous agent chatting with clients.

#When is your project tool enough?

Check whether your project tool has a built-in AI summary. If it does, your client work lives entirely in that tool, tasks are kept current, and clients are happy with a short summary, turn it on and write a template. That is enough for many agencies, and it needs no project.

A custom workflow earns its place when the facts are spread across tools and channels, when updates go out in Arabic and English, or when account managers carry many clients and the drafting itself is the bottleneck.

#How Stennir runs this

In an AI consulting audit, Stennir maps where your account managers' week actually goes and ranks status updates against reporting, briefs and feedback rounds. If updates come out on top, AI implementation builds the drafting workflow on your project tool and channels, with the account manager approving every update, then keeps it monitored and improved.

#What should an agency head of accounts do next?

Ask three account managers to track how they build one status update, step by step. Then read the AI for marketing page and AI for meeting notes that become action items. When ready, take the free readiness assessment or book a 30-minute call.

#Common questions