There was an interesting story in The Atlantic recently that suggested the possibility of an AI bubble and explored what it might mean.
Like lots of things, the reality of AI is different for individual businesses, so the real question is whether you’re facing a potential AI bubble in your own firm.
I’ll explore that idea a bit later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s see what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Weekly Roundup
Below are some articles, blog posts, podcasts, and videos that we came across during the past week or so that provide useful perspective and information for PR and marketing agency owners. While we don’t necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in these links, we think they are worth your time.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Latest from SAGA
- Supporting team members with mental and physical health challenges (Agency Leadership Podcast)
Articles & Blog Posts
- How to Keep Clients Confident Through Times of Change (The Bureau)
- When An Earnout Goes Bad (Punctuation)
- The Chief Conscience Officer: Communications in a Polarized World (Spin Sucks)
- Be efficient with things, but effective with people. (Anchor Advisors)
Podcast Episodes
- Leading Your Agency through Transition, with Elise Mitchell (The Innovative Agency)
- Going Big by Going Small: Hidden Gold for PR Pros (Solo PR Pro)
- How to Build a More Profitable Retainer Model for Your Agency, with Carson Pierce (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- How to Get $500M to Build a Website (2Bobs)
- How Eric Baum Turned Plumbing Ads Into a Multi 7-Figure Agency (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast)
- Kelly Schuknecht, Two Mile High Marketing – The Agency Owner’s Visibility Plan: Podcasts, Stages, LinkedIn (Agency Bytes)
Video
- Just Ask Jody: “When do we add an ‘opportunity’ to our sales pipeline?” (The Sutter Company)
AI in focus
- Meet Your New Buyer Persona: ChatGPT (And Its Friends) (Spin Sucks)
- Reflections on AI, Ethics, and the Role of Communicators (For Immediate Release)
Avoiding your own AI bubble
As Gini and I have discussed a number of times on the Agency Leadership Podcast, it’s easy to get too caught up in the hype or fear (or both) of AI.
We’re constantly bombarded by stories of the great things that AI can do for us personally and professionally. At the same time, we hear dire warnings about the damage it could cause.
The truth is that AI is here to stay, and we all need to figure out how to best leverage it in our own lives and organizations.
I am increasingly convinced, however, that many of us are becoming overly confident (or at least optimistic) about how AI can help us be more efficient and effective.
The article I referenced from The Atlantic referenced a study that showed that software developers who used AI coding tools actually saw their productivity decrease. Needless to say, that came as a surprise to researchers who went in expecting to measure the magnitude of improvement.
From my own experience, when AI works well it can be a giant time-saver and brings real benefits.
But we can’t only look at the successes. We need to understand how much time we are losing in trying to get the tools to do what we want.
For example, I recently tested out a service that generates PowerPoint decks from a simple outline. At first, I was enamored. It almost instantly spit out a pretty good first draft of a deck.
Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. I found myself “arguing” with the AI to try to get it to make the edits that I was requesting. In the process of trying to improve it, the result had turned into something that I couldn’t even massage manually to turn into a useable output.
Some of this is the normal R&D that comes with being an innovative agency leader. We all spend time exploring new ideas, platforms, and tools to see what might work.
But we need to consider the success rate of the AI tools we’re using. If it is materially less than 100%, then we must factor in all of the “misses” to be able to look at the net time saved rather than zeroing in on the amazing results we see the rest of the time.
Even with human efforts, we won’t see a 100% success rate, so we shouldn’t panic when AI comes up short. But we also can’t ignore the failures because the wins are so impressive.
Much of this feels similar to the Internet bubble a quarter century ago. Some of the AI use cases may be on the right track, just not quite ready for widespread implementation.
Some of the web businesses that failed in the early 2000s saw almost identical models come along 10-15 years later to great success.
That’s normal in the evolution of technology.
And for those of you who want to be at the cutting edge, that’s fine but you need to recognize that’s where you are and understand the risks.
For the rest of you, it’s important not to get so wrapped up in the hype around these new tools that you end up with an AI bubble in your own business that has unwanted consequences.
