"The future is here today..."

“From the first time we connected to today your work simply blows me away, it’s such an amazing proposition in terms of quality and time saving… fantastic and honestly feels like the future is here today.” - Dan Chadwick - CMI Director - Unilever

Given we only started the ONE Strategy studio less than a year ago it can be hard to take a step back and appreciate how much progress we’ve made.

AI automation is here, now. And it works.

John Wakefield and I set out a clear vision for ONE Strategy Studio right from the start. To use Gen AI to 100% automate the insight, strategy and innovation agency project process and deliver projects as good as or better than human agencies, in a fraction of the time.

When we started we didn’t even know if this was possible, or if it was, how good the automation would be and how long it would take to make it happen. To be honest we’ve been blown by what our models can do… how strong the results are and how quickly we’ve been able to get there.

We only started live projects with clients seven months ago. In that time we’ve worked with 25 Global clients on 60+ live client projects across a wide range of brands, categories and challenges. (All from a standing start as a totally new business).

Gen AI automation works. It really does.

We’ve run all kinds of Gen AI automated projects… Innovation, brand positioning, topic based insight, trends, semiotics, needs and occasions mapping, comms and activation and more. This way of working is new, it’s exciting and we’re learning all the time. But it’s also tried and tested.

There have been project challenges along the way of course. Anyone who’s worked with or for an agency knows it’s never plain sailing. Brands have very specific questions and challenges and agencies need to adapt their approaches to meet these needs.

But with automation comes iteration. The ability to run a project that might normally take weeks in as little as an hour, review the results and if needed debrief, refocus and rerun… until you get to the optimum result. This approach has helped us to meet those specific needs.

AI automation brings ultimate flexibility .

What about the future?…

The arrival of AI automation has implications for how our industry will evolve. And I think we’re only just at the start of this journey. If this is where we are in under a year what will be possible in 5 years, or 10?

When generative AI first arrived there was obviously concerned… ‘Is AI going to sweep in and take our jobs?’ An understandable response. But it isn’t about AI operating autonomously.  The major narrative now is humans augmented by the power of AI. 

But which humans, how many of them, adding value in what ways? With AI automation we may see a huge change in the answers to these questions and a transformation in the way our industry works. Does it mean fewer people adding more value, more quickly and simply across a wider range of projects? If so what are the implications of that?

Overall I think this is an exciting prospect. Yes there will be disruption and challenges to overcome.  But ultimately AI automation opens up opportunities for us to work in new and exciting ways, and fix some of the issues in existing business models that have been far from perfect for many years.

It may take time, but it feels like major changes are coming, and it’s started already.