"You were in my favourite band" - and now… Simon Douglass, Curated & Tom Hastings, Beta Shift

Picture this: you're hiring someone for your agency. They casually mention they used to be in a band. You ask which one, expecting you've never heard of them. They name it. You say, "What? My favourite band." That's how Simon Douglass met Tom Hastings. Simon had seen Tom's band, Goldheart Assembly, perform live 4 or 5 times. He even had a video of Tom on stage saved on his phone.Fast forward 11 years. Tom exits his performance marketing agency after scaling it from 5 people to 80+, opening a New York office, and working with some of the biggest names in live entertainment. He's on gardening leave, thinking about AI. First person he calls? Simon. Because whilst most people were still figuring out what ChatGPT meant for business, these two had been experimenting since its third birthday, building AI into processes, testing tools, making mistakes, learning what actually works.When an agency approached them to help embed AI into their business, Simon and Tom had to make it up. There was no framework. Most AI training was generic, theoretical, disconnected from real work. So they built something different: bespoke programmes starting with questionnaires to gauge where teams actually were, moving through orientation, prompting, automation, and culminating in hands-on implementation. Three sessions with gaps between to iterate based on feedback. Practical demonstrations on real client examples, not abstract tutorials.About Supo:Supo provides people-first intelligence software for professional services firms, helping businesses maximise profit and motivate their people through powerful, AI-enabled business intelligence dashboards. By connecting over 500+ platforms and providing real-time data analysis, Supo helps firms make better data-driven decisions about their profit, projects, and people.For more information about Supo: ⁠www.supo.co.ukAbout Curated:Curated is a digital marketing consultancy founded by Simon Douglass in 2014. After repositioning in 2020 from traditional agency work, they focus on business goals through a three-stage strategy: Enhance (identify competitive advantage), Expand (understand customer needs), and Evolve (refine with customer experience focus). With 21 years of digital marketing experience including PPC, SEO, analytics, and content marketing, Curated offers consultancy from content strategy to SEO auditing. The agency now specialises in AI training and consultancy for marketing and PR teams, delivered by Simon and Tom Hastings, focusing on bespoke programmes tailored to specific client workflows rather than generic training.For more information about Curated: https://curated-digital.com/About Beta Shift:Beta Shift is a growth marketing and AI consultancy founded and led by Tom Hastings, drawing on over 20 years of digital marketing experience including senior leadership in global agencies. The company helps brands adapt to the rapidly changing marketing landscape by integrating insights-led strategy with practical AI transformation and digital growth tactics. Its services span digital strategy, integrated search-everywhere optimisation, SEO, paid media, content engineering, data measurement, and tailored AI strategy and training, all designed around a client’s business reality rather than generic frameworks. Beta Shift works with marketing leaders, founders, and leadership teams through flexible engagements like fractional chief marketing leadership, project-based consultancy, strategic audits, and hands-on workshops. The firm emphasises using AI to enhance performance and sustainable growth, with bespoke solutions shaped to client workflows and goals rather than off-the-shelf models.For more information about Beta Shift: https://betashift.ai/