Despite success stories in Unilever and Keranova, skepticism about generative AI has emerged in the wider business world. A MIT study published last week estimated that 95% of organizations that wanted to implement generated AI into their workflows found zero returns on their investments, and that AI-related stocks sent tumbling.
Small businesses, including all striped institutions, are at the most risk from the negatives of AI adoption. This is due to misuse of the tool (a recent IBM survey found that only 37% of organizations track employee use of AI). Clients have always wanted more work with less money. Now they hope that institutions will fulfill their promises through technology. However, if a tool like ChatGpt has not reached the task, it's up to the hardworking agency staff to fill the gap.
In this candid conversation, an indie agency executive speaks to us about the agency's collapse that slipped into management in July after they've been convinced that founders and creative figures will provide a silver bullet solution to existential business threats.
Agency – Small production stores specializing in animated film production are like the companies you see in every advertising market on the planet, and there are lessons in cautionary substances across the advertising industry. Executives currently working as freelancers discussed the factors that led to the agency's disbandment.
We agreed not to identify them or agents, and certain parts of the conversation were compiled for length and clarity.
What was your role in the agency?
He joined as an animator in 2011. [The agency] It was very small and very built at the time [the founder] Creative work and everyone else supports it. My final job description was managing senior creatives.
I had a senior creative team that I was leading and worked directly with clients. There was an illustration team and an animation team. We worked with all sorts of truly renowned clients, including NGOs, charities, education organizations and more. It was an attractive job. You were talking to experts about early tsunami detection, circular economy, or reusing food waste to produce biofertilizers and objects. It's attractive, very information-heavy. Accuracy was important.
[When the call came about its insolvency] I was actually on camping holidays. I got a call from my boss and told me the administrator had been called, and that was it. When it got into management, the company had 24 staff members.
And should AI be held responsible?
I don't think that responsibility can be fixed on that. [The founder] I really didn't like people saying “We can't take on that project” or “I don't have enough time.”
People were always frustrated [the founder]. I still had a lot of respect for him, but perhaps a year ago it started steadily eroding through his reaction to AI. It was also a potential threat to the business, and, as he saw it, a potential tool to probably try to expand. It has created many problems.
What caused the agency founder to pin his hopes to the AI generated?
Some of them were budgets and low timescales. We were always told that our older clients weren't willing to pay that much. It had a knock-on effect – that everyone needs to do things faster.
I think there was also a sense that it was still relevant. We are trying to capture a declining era. He is considered an innovator. I think there was a bit of a fear once [generative AI] It seemed to be possible to make things on that surface. And a little lazy. Sometimes it was a straight corner cut.
Why?
The first thing that creeped up was the script and narration. If I'm doing a proof of concept, I always record it on the phone and give a scratch voiceover. I try to give a kind of rhythm and a sense of dynamic movement. The rhythm of how the sound happens and how the speech happens…it's really the lifeblood of animation. People said, “Don't worry about it. Get the AI narration.” It sucked up life from a very important point in the process, had a Polish sense, and ended. Clients don't always realize that they are AI.
People were blogging for SEO reasons, so ChatGpt was used for that. [But] I'll quote a paper that didn't exist. We were a company that was meant to convey complex ideas through visualization. That must have been the central point of the company. I was very concerned that I was basically a nonsense blog.
[In 2022] We made the move to recruit full-time screenwriters. It reached a point that was a bit of a bottleneck. The client's work was still going well. We were still doing many interesting projects, interesting clients. [But] People began to suggest to screenwriters, “You can get ChatGpt and write. You can send your notes to ChatGpt.” To me, the script was sacred. It was very important to do that right and get the right person to do it. I found this writer's talent extremely rude. The whole attitude felt like he was bleeding from everything we did.
In the meantime, are you working and struggling to resist the projects you have been undertaken?
Yeah. The morale was very low. After that, people came to me with concern and I was about to report. These tools weren't really working. They really didn't save us that time [the founder] I thought they were saving him. They were causing problems. They were doing more work for everyone.
Also – and I have this talent. [the founder] How much I learned from him – he used chatgpt to generate images to use as references [and then] Draw on it and go where it led him. He stopped thinking about what he was drawing. I realized this in his work. He had a lovely line quality… but what was underneath was dead.
