I had a boss at R/GA once, when I was a Production Coordinator, take me aside because she needed me to send something overnight to a client. She handed me a blank FedEx form and then a piece of paper where she had written down the name, address, phone number and all the pertinent info. I remember looking at her and saying “Why didn’t you just write it down on the form?” She looked at me blankly for a beat, turned and walked away without saying anything. Years later I marvel at 1) how RUDE that was of me to say and; 2) how true it is to this day. Agency “process” defies logic and common sense and continues to pump up bloat and inefficiencies. Any creative in this business knows the true danger in AI is not to our jobs as creatives - we have always adapted to new tech well. (the camera, moving pictures, photoshop, etc…) The people that should fear AI in the agency world are the account folks and managers who thrive on the the billable hours and allocations reports and utilization meetings. If I was a client paying an agency to help me solve my problems I would want them to focus on…well, solving my problems! Not spend copious amounts of human time managing the thing they want to sell me the most of. Which ironically is not the actual thing I want. The problem is that agencies continue to foundationally have a model where the more they tally hours, the more they can make money. If that was how you made your money wouldn’t you spend more of your time focusing on that as well? As AI begins to take over the role of Account person (and it will), perhaps this forcing function will cause a real reckoning in the industry and we will see a healthy focus shift to the work itself, and to the dwindling human relationships that will remain at the core. In the meantime, agencies who abandon this draconian past sooner will be first to be there for the new world.