Workshop launches AI Studio, an agentic layer designed to give internal communications teams the capacity they've never had

AI Studio adds scheduled AI agents, secure connectors to company systems, and a Workshop MCP server, so small comms teams can get work done without adding headcount. Workshop is the first internal communications platform to give communicators the ability to build their own agents and put them on a schedule. Announced today at BrightSide, Workshop's annual internal communications conference in Omaha.

OMAHA, Neb., Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Workshop, the modern internal communications platform built for employee communicators, today announced AI Studio, a new premium AI add-on that moves organizations from asking AI for help to delegating real work to it.

Most internal communications teams are one or two people responsible for reaching an entire company. They gather information from across the organization, run the same programs every week, watch what's happening on the ground, and get the right message to the right people at the right time. The work matters, and there has never been enough of them to do all of it. AI tools so far have offered help at the margins: a better subject line, a faster first draft. It's been useful, but the interaction ends there, and the communicator is still the one carrying every process from start to finish.

According to Workshop's own Internal Comms Trends Report, 68% of communicators name automating repetitive tasks as their top priority this year. AI Studio was built for that team. It adds an agentic layer to Workshop: AI agents that take on the work a comms team already knows how to do but rarely has time for, following the team's instructions, pulling from the systems where the source material already lives, and bringing finished drafts back for a person to approve.

"Comms teams don't need another tool that makes them faster at typing. They need help with the list of things that have to happen every week, whether or not anyone has time for them. Things like weekly digests from Sharepoint, performance summaries for leaderships, event or benefits reminders that have to go out for the fourth time. AI Studio takes that list and does the work, then hands it back to the communicator to review. The team stays in charge of what gets said and how. They just get to spend their time on the parts of the job that actually need them." — Rick Knudtson, co-founder and CEO of Workshop

What's new for comms teams

• Agents. Prebuilt AI teammates, plus the ability to build custom ones, that complete work end to end, from gathering information to drafting to notifying the right person when it's ready for review. Teams can hand off the programs they run on repeat and pick them back up at the approval step. Workshop is the first internal communications platform to let communicators build their own agents and put them on a schedule.
• Connectors. Secure links between Workshop's AI and the places comms teams already keep their source material, starting with SharePoint, with OneDrive, Teams, and more coming soon. No more copying context from one window into another before the work can start.
• Workshop MCP server. A secure way to use Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, or other AI tools to access Workshop context and take permitted action, so a communicator's existing AI tool of choice can pull campaign results or start a draft without leaving it.
• Enterprise AI controls. Admin-level settings for what agents are allowed to do, including which connectors are approved, whether web search is on, and what company context AI can draw from. Comms leaders can say yes to AI with IT and legal comfortable in the room.
• Unlimited AI credits. AI Studio removes metered usage so teams can put agents to work without watching a counter or rationing help.

Built on the permissions teams already have

Communicators handle some of the most sensitive information in a company, and the last thing a small team needs is a new category of risk to manage. So every one of AI Studio's capabilities runs inside the access a team already has, not around it. If someone can't open a file in SharePoint, their agents can't either, and anything an agent isn't sure about stays out of sight. The same goes for the Workshop MCP server: every request is tied to the person who's actually logged in, and the moment someone disconnects a tool or turns off AI Studio, that access goes with it.

"The easiest way to lose a team's trust is to give an agent access it shouldn't have. So we built it the other way: if you can open it, your agent can use it, and if you can't, neither can it. Nothing runs that a team didn't set up themselves. Communicators should be able to try this without a single conversation they don't want to have with security," said Mikey Chaplin, Director of Product at Workshop.

Availability

AI Studio is rolling out to existing customers starting today at BrightSide, available as an add-on to any Workshop plan. Agents, the Workshop MCP server, and enterprise AI controls are available now, with connectors expanding beyond SharePoint in the months ahead.

For more information, visit useworkshop.com/ai-studio.

About Workshop

Workshop is a modern, purpose-built internal communications platform that helps teams create, send, manage, and measure employee communications in one place — starting with email and extending to Teams, Slack, SMS, and more. With AI and automation built in, Workshop helps communicators spend less time on production and more time on strategy. Most teams are live in 2–4 weeks. Companies like HarperCollins, ServiceNow, Steve Madden, and Madison Square Garden use Workshop to reach every employee and prove the impact of their communications. Learn more at useworkshop.com.

SOURCE Workshop