OP #267: AI Evolution or Death

Had a lot of fun writing this week's OP which was inspired by a recent conversation I had with a company.

Author

Darren Herman
September 10, 2024

Happy Tuesday.

I’m currently in Orange County attending Creativity With a Conscience which is being co-produced by my buddy Pete. The tagline of the confab is “something good over nothing bad.”  I like this tagline a lot as it resonates with me and how I go about my business.

Speaking of resonating, the US Open (tennis) nailed it this year. Congrats to Sabelenka and Sinner. My friend Ramsey McGrory has a good write-up on his Facebook page and the NYT nailed it with this one (h/t Steven Goldberg).  As I’ve mentioned in previous OP’s and recently on LinkedIn, I’ve been going to the US Open ever since I was a little kid and it’s my favorite sporting event.  Why?  Show me another event where the players walk through the crowds to get to their courts, can watch professional seeded/ranked players 6 feet away from you with a security fence at knee height, and move around a compound which has excellent (yet pricey) food, good people, and lots to do.  There’s just so much to love.  The energy that New York brings to the US Open is second to none and it's one of the best, if not the best, tour stop.

If you watched the US Open this year, you probably noticed the players and their coaches wearing a variety of brand patches on their clothing. Or even branded t-shirts like the Carvana or Lucky Energy kitted coaching staff. Sportico dives into the patch business in-depth on their site. These patch deals are roughly $10-20,000 per patch, which is significant money for most players in the tournament.

And on the topic of sports, I am getting excited seeing these hoops videos of some of the Knicks (Brunson, Kolek) working out with each other alongside bball trainer Chris Brickley.

To get us started in this OP #267, here are some links:

I figured with the US Open ending, the NFL season ramping, and NBA about to start camp in a few weeks, I’d put a slight sports skew to this OP.

I hope you enjoy.

Darren

Naysayers and History: It Doesn’t End Well

I recently spoke with an enterprise sales rep from an AI company that’s developed a competitor to Canva. They’re out there hunting for new clients and found their way to me through a colleague. Their goal is to sell to brands and ad agencies, but they haven’t quite nailed down the path of least resistance—or the path to the greatest opportunity.

The sales rep mentioned two common reasons agencies have been lukewarm about their pitch:

  1. They believe AI-generated content isn’t as good as what their Chief Creative Officer can produce.

  2. They worry that AI could disintermediate the agency layer, making them less relevant.

I’ve spent years working with B2B marketing technologies, helping them shape their go-to-market (GTM) strategies, and history tends to repeat itself: those who resist change are often irrelevant within 5-10 years.

Let me walk you through three examples.

1990s:
The ‘90s brought us the digital age, with the first advertising opportunities on the web—banners. Some of the original banner creators are OP newsletter subscribers and close friends of mine. At the time, many in traditional agencies dismissed banners. Smaller digital agencies emerged, gaining traction not just with banners, but also co-registration, affiliate marketing, email, and eventually, the fast-growing search engine business. These "small" digital agencies grew into giants, challenging—and in many cases replacing—traditional agencies that couldn’t adapt.

2010s:
The debate between broadcast vs. digital video was fierce in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Digital video platforms—YouTube, Roku, Amazon, TikTok—couldn’t be ignored. These platforms became major players, dominating traditional broadcast channels. Many agencies clung to their broadcast business, failing to innovate in time. They soon found themselves scrambling to catch up—or worse, filing for bankruptcy—after audiences migrated to digital platforms. While hindsight makes this shift seem obvious, it was highly contentious at the time and far from a clear-cut decision.

Today:
To AI or not to AI—that’s the question. Is AI on the right side of history or the wrong side? For me, the answer is clear: it’s on the right side. I believe AI will lead to creative efficiencies and effectiveness we’ve never seen before. But it comes with costs, and we must watch and govern for them. If agencies and brands don’t adopt AI, what’s the ultimate price? I think it will be steep. Agencies must continuously reinvent themselves. A friend of mine, Rishad, once described agencies as the “ultimate cockroaches”—they survive by adapting.

Most humans love stasis. We don’t love change. I do not always like change. But those who embrace change are often the ones who get out of the gate first and stay ahead. If you’re in marketing and resisting AI, I believe you’re positioning yourself on the wrong side of history. And as history has shown us, it tends to repeat itself.

The below links are articles that I read during the past week. I am sharing them because I think they are interesting. I may not agree with everything in every article. If you come across an article that you might think I or the OP community would like, I encourage you to reach out and share it. I reserve the right to select whether or not it gets shared in the OP.

Asking the Wrong Questions (Benedict Evans)

Thank you for reading today’s OP. If you made it this far, please let me know how you liked OP #267. I truly appreciate it.

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