Why traditional agencies are dying — and how AI saved my 19-year career

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In 2006 I founded a design agency in Chicago. For roughly ten years we held the #1 spot on Google for "Chicago web design" and ranked Top 3 globally for "web design." We worked with Subway, Unilever, Northwestern University, and the City of Chicago. By every measure of the era, the model worked.

That model is now dead. And I'm convinced that's a good thing.

What the old model actually sold

Agencies of that era sold three things bundled together: labor, judgment, and access to skills clients couldn't hire. AI didn't kill all three. It killed exactly one — and made the other two more valuable than they've ever been.

Tools generate content. Judgment decides what's worth generating — and owns whether it works.

What AI replaced

The production layer. The hours of execution that used to justify retainers. Here's what that means in practice:

• First drafts, variations, and resizing — gone from billable to instant
• Research and competitive teardown — compressed from days to hours
• Publishing and distribution — automated end to end

What AI made more valuable

Taste, strategy, and accountability. When everyone can produce infinite content, knowing what's worth producing becomes the entire business. This is the thesis behind everything I build today.

The new agency is a system

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