Home Case Studies Custom AI Workflows: How We He...
Marketing · Content Operations · Entexis

Custom AI Workflows: How We Helped a Marketing Team Get On-Brand Pictures Without the Monthly Stock Photos Bill

A marketing team was paying every month for a stock photo subscription, plus per-picture licenses on top. We built a tool that reads their article and hands them an on-brand set in...

The Problem Space

Every Blog Post Needs Pictures. Every Month, the Bill Just Grows.

Every week, a marketing team publishes something worth reading. Every post needs three to six pictures. The current options each cost you something. Stock libraries are fast, but generic and shared with every competitor. A designer is on-brand, but their queue is three days deep. Chat-based AI tools are quick, but off-brand and spell your product name wrong.

Underneath all of it is the same recurring bill: a stock photo subscription that renews on autopilot every month, plus a per-picture license every time the plan does not have the right thing. It grows quietly as the team publishes more, and most teams stopped noticing years ago.

So we built the tool we wished existed. Paste a blog link, or drop in a Word file or PDF. The tool reads it, plans a set of pictures around what the article actually says, and hands you the whole set in about two minutes. In your brand colors. With no strange text inside them. And the monthly stock photos bill stops being needed at all.

So we built the tool we wished existed. Paste a blog link, or drop in a Word file or PDF. The tool reads it, plans a set of pictures around what the article actually says, and hands you the whole set in about two minutes. In your brand colors. With no strange text inside them. Fix one without redoing the rest.

Monthly Bill
Renewing on Autopilot
A stock photo subscription that has been renewing every month for years, plus per-picture licenses on top when the plan does not have the right thing.
Same Stock
Your Competitor Just Used
You are paying for it every month, and stock libraries hand out the same handshakes and headshots to everyone. Your post ends up looking like a copy of theirs.
3 Days
If You Want On-Brand
A designer can make an on-brand picture, but their queue is deep. Choosing on-brand over generic means the publish date slips by three to five days per post.
Wrong Words
In Every Generic AI Try
Generic AI picture tools are fast and cheap, but they try to write your product name and get it wrong. You end up hunting through returns for a usable picture.

"A good picture starts with reading the article. Most tools skip that step."

The idea behind this build

The Impact

What Changes for the Team
the Day They Start Using It

This is not one more chat tool to open. It changes how pictures get made in a marketing team: who is on the critical path, how long each post waits, and what the pictures have to do with the article they sit next to. The points below come from the live demo, so you can try it on your own blog and see for yourself.

Today
Not Next Week
The pictures arrive while the writer finishes their coffee. The blog post goes out the same day it was written, not five to seven days later. The publish date is no longer a function of someone else's queue.
On-Brand
Every Single Time
The tool is set up with your brand colors and style rules. Every picture comes back looking like it belongs on your site, not on a stranger's, no matter which team member ran the tool.
One Fix
Not a Full Redo
If one picture is off, tell the tool what to change and only that one is re-done. The other five stay exactly as you approved them. No paying for six new pictures to fix one.
0 Text
Inside Any Picture
The tool refuses to put text inside the pictures. No mangled product names, no strange chart labels, no gibberish. If you want text on top, you add it later in your normal design tool, where it belongs.
Before
The writer finishes and the wait starts. A brief goes to the designer. Three to five days pass. The picture misses the point. Notes go out. Wait again. Publish a week late with tired stock as backup.
After
The writer pastes the blog link. The tool reads it and plans a set. Three or six pictures arrive together, on-brand, with no text inside. Fix one without redoing the rest. Publish the same day, everywhere the article goes.
What It Unlocked
The marketing calendar moves at the speed of the writers, not the picture queue. Every post gets pictures on the same day it is written. And the recurring stock photo subscription line item on the marketing budget stops being needed: no more monthly stock photo plan, no more per-picture licenses on top.
How It Works

From Blog Link
to Finished Pictures

Four steps, on your terms. The whole flow takes about two minutes. Your team learns it in one try, then never has to think about it again.

01

Paste Your Blog Link

Or drop in a PDF, a Word file, or a plain-text brief. Anything your team already writes goes in. Nothing else to fill in.

02

The Tool Reads It

The tool reads what you gave it, ignores menus and ads, and plans a set of picture ideas that match your article's actual points, not generic ideas about the topic.

03

All the Pictures Come Together

Three or six pictures arrive at once, using your brand colors, with no text inside them. Six pictures in about the same time as one.

04

Tweak One, Keep the Rest

If one picture is off, tell the tool what to change and only that one is re-done. The other five stay approved. Download the set and publish.

What Makes It Work

A Generic Chat Tool
Cannot Do Any of This

Paste a topic into a public chat tool and you get a generic picture, disconnected from what you actually wrote. It never reads your article, never keeps your brand, and forgets everything by tomorrow. The difference is not the model. It is that this one reads your content and follows your rules.

Feature 01

Reads Your Actual Article

A chat tool only sees the sentence you type. This reads the whole article and plans pictures around the specific examples in it, not around generic ideas of the topic. The writer does not have to turn their own post into a clever prompt. They just paste the link.

Your Blog Post, As Input
Link
yoursite.com/post/how-teams-move-faster
What the tool reads
"The team runs three standups a week, uses Notion for docs, and picks tickets in Linear. Their calendar is a wall of green blocks."
A chat tool would draw a generic office. This tool draws what your post actually describes.
Feature 02

Refuses to Put Text Inside

The biggest reason marketing teams give up on AI pictures is misspelled words rendered into the image. This tool blocks that at the source. If a picture concept would need text on it, the tool re-plans it. If you want a headline on the image, you add it later in your normal design tool, crisply.

What the Tool Will Not Make
Blocked
Charts with fake axis labels
Blocked
Screens with mangled product names
Made
Clean scenes and abstract concepts
Every picture is usable. Nothing has to be hunted through and thrown away.
Feature 03

A Whole Set, All at Once

Three or six pictures come back together, in about the same time as one. You are not clicking Regenerate over and over. The set is planned as a set, so the pictures work together on the same post: header, inline images, email header.

One Set, Six Uses
Picture 1
Blog header
Picture 2
LinkedIn share card
Picture 3
Email header
One run covers the whole rollout. No re-briefing for every platform.
Feature 04

Fix One, Keep the Rest

Five pictures land right. One is too dark. Click Tweak on that one, type "brighter, warmer light", and only that picture is re-made. The other five stay exactly as you approved them. No paying for six new pictures to fix one, and no drift on the ones that already worked.

Per-Picture Tweak
Kept
Picture 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Tweak
Picture 6: "brighter, warmer light"
Result
Only picture 6 is re-made
The work you approved is kept. Only the one that missed is re-done.
Feature 05

Your Brand, Locked In

Your brand colors, your picture sizes, your allowed and blocked subjects, your mood keywords: all of it sits in one settings screen the tool reads before every run. Nobody types a brand-guide paragraph into every prompt. Nobody sends off-brand pictures by mistake.

Your Brand Settings
Colors
Your palette, locked
Sizes
Blog, LinkedIn, email, OG
Rules
No stock look, no gimmicks
Set once. Respected forever. Every teammate gets the same result.
Feature 06

Pick How Many You Need

Three pictures for a short blog post. Six for a long article or when you also need social versions. One dial, sensible defaults, no configuration to memorise. The team picks the count that matches the post and the tool does the rest.

Two Sizes, Nothing Else
3
Short posts, quick updates
6
Long articles, social sets
Two options. Both sensible. No settings to explain to a new joiner.
Feature 07

Reads Files, Not Just Links

A blog link, a PDF, a Word file, or a plain-text brief. Whatever your team already writes goes in. In your version, we can connect the tool to Notion or Google Docs so nobody has to copy and paste. The source of the writing decides nothing about the pictures the tool can make.

What Goes In
URL
Blog post, article page
PDF
Whitepaper, one-pager
DOC
Word file, draft brief
Any input, one workflow. Nobody re-writes what the team already wrote.
Feature 08

About Two Minutes, Every Time

From pasting the link to downloading the set: about two minutes. The tool makes the pictures in parallel, not one after the other, so a set of six lands in roughly the same time as a set of one. No hourglass to watch. No coffee break to plan around it.

Timing a Real Run
0:00
Paste link, click Generate
0:20
Tool has read the article, planning
2:00
Six pictures ready to download
The whole set is ready before the writer finishes their coffee.
Feature 09

Lands Where Your Team Publishes

The pictures do not sit in another folder nobody opens. In your version, they can drop straight into your CMS, your Google Drive folder for the week's posts, or the shared inbox your social team pulls from. The pictures land where the next step happens.

Where the Set Shows Up
CMS
Attached to the draft post
Drive
This week's picture folder
Inbox
Ready for social to schedule
The pictures become the work, not a report someone has to fetch.
Feature 10

The Stock Subscription Bill Ends

Most marketing teams pay for a stock photo subscription every month, plus per-picture licenses on top when the plan does not have the right thing. A recurring bill that only grows as the team publishes more. This tool replaces it. The subscription does not renew. The per-picture licenses stop being needed. The picture line on the budget shrinks.

Recurring Bills That End
Ends
Monthly stock-library subscription
Ends
Per-picture license top-ups
Stays
One custom-built tool
A recurring subscription bill collapses into one custom build.
Feature 11

Same Idea, Different Jobs

Pictures are one job. The way this tool works (read what you give it, plan what to make, make it) is the same way every custom AI tool we build works. Swap the reader and the maker and the same shape helps support, finance, onboarding, or any team that starts with reading and ends with an output.

The Same Idea, Elsewhere
Support
Ticket to reply drafts
Finance
Invoices to weekly to-do
Onboarding
Product spec to email series
One shape. Many jobs. This is what a custom AI workflow looks like.
Under the Hood

A Closer Look at
The Moment It Pays Off

Deep Dive 01

Pictures That Match Your Actual Article

This is the moment the whole approach earns its keep. A chat tool sees a five-word topic and returns a stock-looking scene. This tool reads the actual article, notices the specific examples in it, and plans the pictures around those.

Same Topic, Two Very Different Sets
CHAT
Given the topic "how remote teams stay in sync", returns a generic laptop-on-a-desk shot. Same picture ten other blogs also got this week.
READS
Given your actual article, sees you use short standups, Notion pages, and Linear tickets. Plans pictures around those specific rituals.
RESULT
Pictures your reader recognises. The set matches what the article says, so the reader spots the through-line instead of scrolling past.
  • Reads your whole article, not just a five-word topic
  • Plans pictures around the specific examples in your post
  • Your reader spots the connection between the words and the pictures
  • Nobody has to turn the article into a clever prompt first
Deep Dive 02

The One Firm Rule: No Text Inside

Every marketing team that tries AI pictures runs into the same wall. The tool tries to write your product name inside the image and gets the letters wrong. Charts have gibberish axis labels. Screens show mangled words. You end up hunting for the one usable picture out of six.

Blocked at Two Layers
PLANNING LAYER
If a picture concept would need text on it (a chart label, a headline, a screenshot), the tool re-plans it as a clean scene or abstract idea instead.
MAKING LAYER
Every request to the picture-maker carries an explicit "no text in image" instruction, so nothing slips through by accident.
  • Every picture is clean, every picture is usable
  • No hunting through returns for a spelled-right product name
  • Text on top of a picture belongs in your design tool, crisply
  • Removes the biggest reason marketing teams give up on AI pictures
Deep Dive 03

Fix One Picture, Keep the Rest

Most tools force a full re-run for any change. You end up paying for six new pictures to fix one, and the other five drift too. Now the set no longer feels cohesive. Now the writer is back to square one.

A Real Adjustment, in One Try
START
Six pictures. Five look great. One is too dark and too formal for the tone of your post.
TWEAK
You click Tweak on that one picture. You type "brighter, warmer, less formal". The tool re-makes that slot.
DONE
The other five stay exactly as you approved them. No drift. No new bill for pictures that already worked.
  • The work that landed right is kept, always
  • You iterate on the one picture that missed, in plain English
  • You do not pay for six new pictures to fix one
  • This is the difference between a demo and a workflow
Deep Dive 04

Your Brand, Locked In Once

Chat tools forget your brand the moment you close the window. Marketers copy-paste a brand paragraph into every prompt, and even then the pictures come back inconsistent. Different team members get different results from the same tool.

One Settings Screen, Every Run
COLORS
Your brand palette locked in. Every picture picks from your colors, not a random rainbow the model reached for.
MOOD
The tone you want (warm, sharp, playful, corporate) sits in the settings, not in every prompt.
RULES
Subjects to avoid (fake screenshots, cheesy handshakes, stock-photo boardrooms) are set once and honored on every run.
  • Brand rules set once, respected every run, by every team member
  • No brand-guide paragraph typed into every prompt
  • Change a color once, tomorrow's pictures use it
  • Every team member gets the same on-brand result
Deep Dive 05

A Whole Set, Made in Parallel

The set is made together, not one after the other. That is why six pictures land in roughly the same time as one. Your team is not sitting through a hourglass six times over. The set is planned as a set, so the pictures also hang together as a group.

One Set, Ready for Every Slot
SIX PICTURES
Header, three inline images, email header, and one for reuse. One run, six pictures, one download.
TWO MINUTES
In parallel, not one after the other. Waiting for six pictures takes about the same time as waiting for one.
  • Six pictures ready before the writer finishes their coffee
  • The set is planned together, so the pictures work together
  • One run covers the blog header, the inline images, and the email header
  • No re-briefing for every platform
Deep Dive 06

The Stock Photo Subscription That Quietly Ends

Most marketing teams pay for a stock photo subscription every month. It got signed years ago. It has been renewing on autopilot ever since, whether the team uses it much or not. On top of that, per-picture licenses get added every time the plan does not have the right thing. Together, that recurring picture bill only grows as the team publishes more.

Two Recurring Bills That End
ENDS
Monthly stock-library subscription. The plan that has been renewing quietly for years. It does not get renewed next cycle.
ENDS
Per-picture license top-ups. The one-offs the team pays every time the plan does not have the right thing. A slow leak that stops.
STAYS
One custom-built tool. Running on your servers. No monthly subscription. No per-picture license on top. The picture line shrinks.
  • The recurring stock subscription stops renewing
  • Per-picture licenses stop being needed on top
  • The picture line on the marketing budget shrinks to near zero
  • A recurring bill collapses into one custom build
Deep Dive 07

The Same Shape, Beyond Pictures

The way this tool works (read what you give it, plan what to make, make it) is the same way every custom AI tool we build works. Pictures are one job. The same shape helps support, finance, onboarding, or any team whose work starts with reading and ends with a specific output.

Same Idea, Different Jobs
SUPPORT
Ticket to reply drafts. Reads the ticket and the customer history, plans two or three tone options, hands your agent the drafts.
FINANCE
Unpaid invoices to weekly to-do. Reads every open invoice, plans the action for each, hands the finance team the ranked list.
ONBOARDING
Product spec to email series. Reads the spec, plans a five-touch email sequence, drafts each one for your customer type.
  • One shape, many jobs, one custom build per team
  • Read the input, plan the output, make it
  • If your team spends hours on it, we can build a tool for it
  • This is what "custom AI workflows" means in one sentence
What It Connects

The Pieces That Make It Work.

The public demo runs on your blog link and your uploaded files. A custom build connects the tool to the systems your team already uses, so pictures land where the next step happens, not in another folder someone has to remember to check.

Blog CMS
WordPress, Ghost, Webflow, or your custom CMS. The picture set drops straight onto the draft post, so the writer never leaves the editor.
Source
Google Docs
Your writers already draft here. The tool reads the doc directly, so nobody has to copy the text into a form or export a PDF first.
Source
Notion
The content calendar and briefs your team keeps in Notion. The tool pulls the article body, so the source of truth stays where the writers work.
Source
PDFs and Word Files
Whitepapers, one-pagers, executive briefs. Upload directly and the tool reads the text layer, no manual copy-paste.
Source
Brand Settings
Colors, picture sizes, mood keywords, allowed and blocked subjects. One settings screen the tool reads before every run.
Your Rules
The Planner
Reads the article, drafts a set of picture ideas that match the content, blocks anything text-heavy before it reaches the maker.
AI Layer
The Picture Maker
Makes all the pictures in parallel with your brand palette locked in and the no-text rule enforced. Six pictures, about two minutes.
AI Layer
Google Drive
This week's picture folder, ready for your social team to grab. Every picture lands where the next step happens, not in a fresh download folder.
Delivery
Publishing Tools
Buffer, Hootsuite, your CRM's newsletter tool. The set can drop directly into the scheduled posts, so the picture never travels through email.
Delivery
Architecture

The System at a Glance

Your content and your brand rules sit at the center. Every step is small and clear, and you can change what happens at any layer without rewriting the rest.

INPUTS
Blog URL
PDF
Word file
Plain text
CONTENT READER
Pulls the article, strips menus and ads, hands clean text to the planner. The same reader for any input.
INTELLIGENCE
Read article
Your brand
Plan the set
No text rule
OUTPUTS
Blog header
Inline images
Email header
Downloadable set
RUNS ON YOUR FOUNDATION
Your servers Your brand config Your team drives it Fits your CMS
Ingestion

Getting Your Content In

Your writing tools connect once. Nothing is exported by hand, nothing is copy-pasted, and the source of truth stays where your writers already work.

YOUR SOURCES
Blog CMS Google Docs Notion PDF Word file Plain text
1 · Connect
Via your writing tool's normal share link or file upload. No re-keying, no manual copy-paste.
2 · Read
Strip menus, footers, and ads. Extract the article body. Hand clean text to the planner.
3 · Ready
The planner reads the article and drafts picture ideas around your brand settings.
Your content stays in your systems. The tool reads what it needs for each run, nothing more.
A Real Run

How One Run Actually Flows

The marketer sees "paste link, click, wait, review". Underneath, four small steps make the output land right.

1
Fetch and clean
The tool fetches your link (or opens your file), ignores menus and ads, and hands clean article text to the planner.
2
Plan the set
The planner drafts three or six picture ideas that match your article. Anything text-heavy is re-planned. Every idea carries your brand colors and the no-text rule.
3
Make them in parallel
All the pictures are made at once, not one after the other. Six pictures land in roughly the same time as one.
4
Review, tweak, download
You see the set in a grid. If one picture is off, tweak that one. Download the folder. Publish today.
What's Possible

Start With One Blog Post,
Then Grow From There

The live demo proves the loop on any URL you paste. A real build starts with the tool wired into where your team already writes, then adds the outputs your marketing team actually needs.

Live

Public Demo, Any URL

Paste any blog link or upload a file. Get three or six pictures back in about two minutes. See how close it lands on your brand out of the box.

Live

Per-Picture Tweak

Fix one picture without redoing the rest. Type the adjustment in plain English. The other five stay approved.

Live

No-Text Rule, Enforced

The planner rejects text-heavy concepts. Every picture-making call carries the no-text-in-image constraint. Nothing to hunt through.

Next

Connect Your Writing Tools

Wire in your CMS, Google Docs, or Notion. The tool reads directly from where your writers already work, no copy-pasting.

Next

Land in Your Publishing Tools

Drop the set straight into your CMS draft, Google Drive folder, or scheduler. The pictures never travel through email.

Next

More Jobs, Same Shape

Beyond pictures. Turn tickets into reply drafts, invoices into to-do lists, product docs into email series. One custom workflow at a time.

Try It on Your Own Blog Right Now

Open the demo, paste a link from your blog, and watch the tool read the article and hand you a set of pictures in about two minutes. Then tell us the job your team spends hours on every week, and we plan the custom workflow around it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why not just use ChatGPT or Midjourney for our pictures?
For one picture, they are fine. For a marketing team publishing every week, a chat window is not a workflow. A chat tool only sees the sentence you typed, forgets your brand between sessions, and cannot make six pictures at once with the option to fix only one. This tool reads your article, keeps your brand rules in place, makes the whole set together, and lets you re-do a single picture without touching the others.
What can we give it besides a blog link?
A blog link, a PDF, a Word file, or a plain-text brief. Anything your team already writes. If you use a system like Notion or Google Docs, we can connect the tool to read from there directly, so nobody has to copy and paste.
Does it keep our uploads or our brand assets?
In the public demo, nothing is kept after the pictures are made. In your version, storage is your choice. You can keep every run for reference, or hold nothing at all once the download is done. Your content and your brand assets never leave your side.
Why does it refuse to put text inside the pictures?
Because it is the number one reason marketing teams give up on AI pictures. Image tools try to spell your product name and get the letters wrong. Every failure is a picture you cannot use. Blocking text inside pictures removes that whole problem. If you want a headline on top of an image, add it later in your normal design tool, where the text is crisp and easy to change.
Can we set our own brand colors and style rules?
Yes. That is the point of a custom build. Your brand colors, the picture sizes you use, the moods you like, the subjects you never want to see: all of it lives in one settings screen the tool reads before every run. Change a color, save, and tomorrow's pictures use the new color. Nobody needs to type prompts by hand for every post.
Where does it run for our company?
On your servers. Your team's content, your brand assets, and the pictures the tool makes all stay in your setup. The pictures are also easy to send straight into whatever tool your team already uses to publish posts.
Can this same idea do things other than pictures?
Yes. The way this tool works (read what you give it, plan what to make, make it) is the same way every custom AI tool we build works. It can turn a blog post into a LinkedIn thread, a support ticket into reply drafts, an unpaid invoice list into a weekly to-do list, or a product spec into an email series. Pictures are one job. The idea fits many others.
Can Entexis build a custom AI workflow for us?
Yes. Tell us the job your team spends hours on every week (writing image briefs, drafting reply after reply, chasing unpaid invoices, sorting expenses) and we plan a tool that reads the input, follows your rules, and hands back the output your team actually needs. The first working version lives on your servers, and your team drives it every day.

Need Something Similar
for Marketing · Content Operations?

We built this for Entexis. We can build it for you, same rigour, your domain.

No spam. Just a conversation about your project.

NGO & Social Sector

A US Nonprofit: Most Nonprofit Websites Look Like They Were Built in 2012. Donors Notice.

Nonprofits spend months crafting campaigns and building donor relationships, then send people to a website that looks like it was abandoned years ago. This nonprofit needed a platf...

Read Case Study →
All Case Studies
← Previous Case Study
AI Business Accounting: How We Helped a Finance Team Turn Monday-Morning Triage Into a Ranked To-Do List
Next Case Study →
Entexis AI On Your Own Data: Your Model Is a Commodity. Your Data Is the Moat.
Thinking about building something similar? Tell us about your project. We'll respond within one business day.
Start a Conversation →