Perowne International: AI leverage for luxury PR.
Fifty One Degrees is leading an AI implementation programme across Perowne International's four offices in London, New York, Milan and Mexico City. Perowne is a 70-person luxury travel and lifestyle communications business, and the brief was clear: remove the administrative drag, protect the human storytelling the firm is built on.
Protect the human touch, remove the admin drag
Perowne International operates in the luxury and ultra-premium sectors, where the product is nuanced storytelling and personal relationships with journalists and clients. That work sat on top of a heavy administrative layer: coverage tracked in per-team spreadsheets, media relationships living in inboxes, reporting assembled by hand. Perowne wanted AI to take the drag out of the admin without touching what makes the firm distinctive, and it wanted the change to stick across fourteen PR teams and two sales teams in four offices.
An assistant, a relationship layer, and the skills between them
Claude, tailored to Perowne
Claude is the agency's AI assistant, chosen after a hands-on evaluation of four platforms. A library of more than twenty Perowne-specific skills handles the repeatable work: journalist research, media pitch matching, coverage reporting, client report writing, award entry strategy and more, each built and QA'd on real work.
Attio as the relationship intelligence layer
Attio replaced fragmented spreadsheets and a legacy sales CRM as the single home for coverage, journalists, publications, clients and events, held as structured, queryable data and connected to Claude through Attio's official connector. Around 5,000 coverage records spanning three years and more than 6,000 contact records have been migrated.
Per-client Claude projects
More than ten client-specific Claude projects, each pre-loaded with Perowne's voice and that client's context, plus agency-wide projects and self-guided training modules, so every team works from the same foundations.
Governance before the switch was flicked
A full GDPR data inventory, a protected-recipients baseline before any email sync, and secure handling for special-category journalist data, put in place before the rollout, not after it.
Evaluate hard, pilot small, roll out by seniority
Tools chosen on evidence
Nine PR software platforms and four AI assistants were evaluated hands-on, including connector testing, before Perowne committed. Claude and Attio won on capability; the firm's specialist media databases were deliberately kept.
A builder-led pilot
A small cross-team pilot group spent four to six weeks building and QA-ing skills on real client work, so the rollout launched with proven workflows rather than promises.
Rollout tiered by seniority
Company-wide onboarding ran as separate tracks for directors, account directors, managers and account executives, with focused workflow sessions per team, because a director and an AE do not need the same training.
The technology conforms to the workflows
An embedded AI Implementation Consultant works inside Perowne's teams four days a week, shaping each skill around how the work is actually done, not the other way around.
Embedded, from evaluation to adoption
The engagement began in February 2026: a dedicated Fifty One Degrees AI Implementation Consultant embedded four days a week, with strategic oversight from the firm's CEO. The sequence ran discovery, evaluation, pilot, migration, governance, rollout, with adoption now being audited team by team.
Audit how fourteen PR teams and two sales teams actually work, and where the admin drag sits.
Test nine PR platforms and four AI assistants hands-on before recommending the stack.
A small builder group proves the skills on real client work over four to six weeks.
Move three years of coverage, journalist, client and event history into structured Attio records.
GDPR inventory, protected recipients and data safeguards in place before email sync goes on.
Seniority-tiered training across all four offices, followed by a team-by-team adoption audit.
What the programme has delivered
From rollout to embedded advantage
A team-by-team adoption audit is under way, the email and context layer is being extended under leadership review, and press trip and awards data are next to migrate. The direction of travel is the roadmap's third phase: Perowne's decades of relationships and coverage as a proprietary, queryable asset its teams interrogate through Claude.
Fifty One Degrees chose Perowne's tools the hard way: nine PR platforms and four AI assistants evaluated hands-on before a single licence was bought, then a builder-led pilot before the company-wide rollout.Fifty One Degrees x Perowne International
What is Fifty One Degrees doing for Perowne International?
Leading an AI implementation programme across Perowne's four offices: Claude as the agency's AI assistant with a library of more than twenty Perowne-specific skills, Attio as the structured relationship layer with around 5,000 coverage records migrated, and a governance-first, seniority-tiered rollout for the 70-person team.
How were the tools chosen?
By evaluation, not by default. Fifty One Degrees tested nine PR software platforms and four AI assistant platforms hands-on, including connector testing, before recommending Claude and Attio. Perowne's specialist media databases were deliberately retained alongside them.
How does the programme protect Perowne's client relationships and data?
Governance came before rollout: a full GDPR data inventory, a protected-recipients baseline configured before any email sync, and special-category journalist data kept out of email and the CRM through secure forms.
Does AI replace the PR work?
No. The programme automates the administrative layer, coverage tracking, reporting, research and CRM upkeep, so Perowne's teams spend their time on the storytelling and relationships the firm is known for. The technology was shaped around Perowne's workflows, not the other way round.
Can Fifty One Degrees run an AI implementation like this for my firm?
Yes. Fifty One Degrees embeds with professional services firms to evaluate, pilot and roll out AI properly, with governance built in. Book a Discovery Call and we will map what the programme would look like for your team.
Want AI adoption that actually sticks?
Book a 30-minute Discovery Call and we'll map an AI implementation programme for your firm, from tool evaluation to company-wide adoption.