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What it REALLY means for creatives is that holding companies are essentially tech stacks now and they’re looking to replace creatives and lower tier employees to cut overhead and earn higher profits.
Creative is basically given away for free by agencies anyway b/c they feel that the real profit centers are in media… even though creative is the only true tangible product that agencies manufacture.
The last 7 years have proven that quality conceptual creative isn’t valued anymore and as far as clients and agencies are concerned, “good enough” is good enough for them to pull the trigger on AI as soon as they can. The suits have won.
Not at a holding co but basically the investment at our local agency is ChatGPT licenses for the whole agency and CoPilot licenses for the Account Execs.
The agency also “invests” in us in a figurative sense where it encourages us to do our own research into what AI tools can help us with our workflow. The obnoxious part is we have weekly check-ins about our discoveries and uses with AI.
Another hurdle I run into with the whole investment thing is being asked what AI tools I recommend or want to test, but it has to pass privacy clearance and we’re on a tight budget as an agency. So even asking for a Midjourney license has yet to be approved.
TL;DR Agencies investing in AI seems like all fluff.
Rising Star
It’s 100% a fad.
There will surely be real practical uses for AI, but people are just saying “we’re going to leverage AI” without even knowing what they’re going to use it for or how it will help them.
Invetsmebt in AI companies, development of internal tools, licensing of OpenAI, Googles tech, people costs etc
I don’t think you’re dumb, you’re asking good questions..
What holdcos are doing is building models on top of models provided by others. So, yes investment goes to both layers…
Easiest way to think about it is the following tiers:
1) subscribe to the basics -- what are the current tablestakes that any agency just needs to have to be relevant (access to midjourney, chatgpt enterprise subs etc). Similar to how back in the day any strat team would have had Simmons / MRI, access to something like mintel / roper for industry / category research etc
2) establish leading partnerships-- what can we do as a holdco with the major players that would be more custom and give a competitive advantage. For example is there an enterprise solution from Msft that one holdco can secure exclusively with the right level of $$$ investment
3) custom builds to fill gaps -- above and beyond partnerships and basic subscription, is there an opportunity to build custom solutions that would make our capabilities and offering truly unique and valuable to clients, through savings, greater ROI, etc
Rising Star
It means they’re following the crowd and saying the right words.