This isn’t an AI-led massacre, it’s death from one-thousand cuts
Simon Gawn from customer insights platform Ideally writes that it’s easy to blame artificial intelligence for the bloodbath seen in agencies over the past few years, but the truth is a lot less simple — and far more uncomfortable.
Simon Gawn - author
If you’re in an agency right now, it’s hard to avoid the truth. It’s a bit grim.
I don’t hear many growth stories. What I hear, over and over, is rapid decline. Shrinking margins. Fewer big bets. And a natural (if slightly unpleasant) instinct for leadership to protect themselves inside corporate structures, which slowly drains the joy and hope out of everyone below.
Layer in cost-of-living and the maths gets uglier. The “best” agencies are clustered in expensive cities. Life is expensive. Salomons are expensive. Ketamine is expensive. The cultural payoff of agency life starts to feel paper thin.
