Paul Krauss · AI Partner · TeamOne Developers
Paul Krauss works at the intersection of AI and creative strategy. His position is direct: most agencies are misusing AI — not because they lack access to the tools, but because they are applying those tools to the wrong problems. Using AI to produce more of the same output faster is not transformation. It is acceleration toward the same dead end. This playbook captures his argument for what agencies — and any creative organisation — need to change to stay relevant when execution is increasingly commoditised.
Agencies are using AI to do the same things faster. The agencies that survive will use it to do fundamentally different things.
The headline principles from the episode. The full step-by-step framework follows below.
The Playbook
Concept is where scarce human judgement lives. Execution — asset production, derivatives, variations — is what AI does cheaply. Right now, most agencies bundle both into a single fee. As AI makes execution nearly free, that bundle collapses. The agencies that survive will price the idea at its real value and treat production as a volume operation.
Why it's overlooked: Agencies built their identity around execution craft. Telling clients "the idea costs this, the files cost that" feels like vulnerability. It is actually clarity — and it is the only model that survives commoditised production.
The Playbook
The most valuable thing AI enables is rapid concept testing. Five conceptually different approaches can now be produced and tested before committing to full production. Most agencies use AI to accelerate the production phase while leaving the concept phase untouched. That is the wrong inversion.
Why it's overlooked: Production speed is visible and impressive in agency decks. Concept iteration is messier and harder to sell. But the quality of the hypothesis determines the quality of everything downstream.
The Playbook
A brief describes what a client wants produced. A job to be done describes what they are actually trying to achieve. The best briefs align those two things. Most do not. Agencies that start from the job become strategic partners. Agencies that start from the brief become vendors.
Why it's overlooked: Jobs-to-be-done conversations take longer and require the agency to know more. Briefs are faster. The short-term efficiency of just executing the brief is also the reason most agencies cannot prove their strategic value.
The Playbook
Agencies measured on impression volume and file delivery are protected from accountability. They are also prevented from demonstrating real value. Propose outcome-based metrics at the start of every engagement. Three business metrics that your work should be moving. Present evidence at the end of the period. This single practice differentiates you from every other agency the client works with.
Why it's overlooked: Outcome metrics hand some control to the client and expose the agency to being wrong. Output metrics are always "achieved." The risk of outcome measurement feels real. The cost of avoiding it is being treated as a commodity.
The fragmented agency market has a structural problem that AI is making more visible, not less. Most agencies are paid for the wrong thing. Hourly rates and deliverable counts incentivise volume, not quality.
The client who receives 50 mediocre creatives has paid for 50 creatives. They have not paid for the idea that should have come first. When AI enables those 50 creatives to be produced in a fraction of the time, the economic model collapses. But the underlying problem was always the same.
Agencies that reach for AI to restore margin without questioning the model are building on the same broken foundation.
"Using AI to do more of the same in less time — you're cementing your current status and putting it on steroids. It doesn't change the fundamental problem." — Paul Krauss
Map your agency's revenue by activity type. What percentage comes from concept creation, what percentage from execution, and what percentage from strategic consultation? If execution commands more than 60% of revenue, you have the structural problem Paul is describing.
Concepts — ideas, strategies, creative directions — are where scarce human judgement lives. Execution — asset production, derivatives, variations — is where AI delivers the most leverage.
When both are priced as a bundled service, the rising productivity of execution pulls the price of everything down. When separated, concept commands its true value. Execution becomes a volume operation priced accordingly.
This is structurally disruptive. It requires cultural change before it requires a pricing conversation. But it is the only model that survives a world where execution becomes free.
Paul's barber metaphor: a client does not care how many times the barber uses the scissors. They care about the haircut. The scissors are execution. The haircut is the outcome. The number of scissors movements is irrelevant to the value of the result. Agencies that invoice by scissors count are describing their process to people who only care about the outcome.
In your next proposal, separate concept fees from execution fees explicitly. Price the concept at what your strategic and creative input is actually worth, independent of production time. Track how clients respond.
Most agency engagements start with a brief. The brief describes what the client wants produced. The better starting point is the job the client is trying to get done.
What business outcome are they trying to achieve? What problem are they experiencing that marketing could address? What do their customers need that the brand is not currently delivering?
Agencies that operate from jobs-to-be-done become strategic partners. Agencies that operate from briefs become vendors. The distinction is entirely about what question you ask first.
"I would start with jobs to be done because you could still have 10 agencies and still have major problems. Find the bigger problem, then come in through the back door as the lead." — Paul Krauss
In your next client onboarding conversation, spend 30 minutes asking about business outcomes before discussing deliverables. Document three jobs the client is trying to get done. Then assess whether the brief they prepared actually addresses those jobs.
The most valuable thing AI enables in the creative process is rapid concept testing. Instead of producing one polished campaign and hoping it works, you can now produce five conceptually different approaches, test each against real audience response, and scale the winner.
This requires a fundamental shift in how creative quality is defined. Not the polish of the final output. The accuracy of the hypothesis.
The earlier you test an idea against reality, the less expensive it is to be wrong. Most agencies currently use AI to accelerate the production phase while leaving the concept phase untouched. Inverting that priority is where the real value lies.
"You could test way more campaigns, way more approaches, understand what works, and then focus on the winning result. The task is to use your expertise to decide what to test in the first place — and then accept that the market decides which one wins." — Paul Krauss
For your next campaign, produce three conceptually distinct approaches rather than one polished approach. Test each against a small audience sample before committing to production. Track how this changes your hit rate over time.
Strategists have largely stopped doing the thing that makes strategy valuable: talking to actual customers of the clients they serve. The instinct is to rely on existing data, trend reports, or internal team brainstorms.
But the quality of strategic insight is limited by the quality of the information going in. One hour talking to five of a client's real customers reveals more than a week of desk research.
And that conversation also surfaces the most important commercial signal: what problems are clients experiencing that the current agency engagement is not solving — and what would they genuinely pay more for?
"You can do a focus group in 48 hours easily. You can talk to synthetic users in seconds. You can digest social media forums to understand what people actually want. Ironically, most people are not doing it." — Paul Krauss
Interview five of your most important clients this quarter. Do not ask about satisfaction with your work. Ask about the biggest unsolved marketing problem they have right now. The answers will tell you what to offer next.
The agency industry's most persistent problem: agencies are measured on deliverable completion and impression volume, not on what actually creates value for clients. Agencies that agree to vanity metrics protect themselves from accountability while preventing themselves from demonstrating real value.
The move is uncomfortable but necessary. Propose outcome-based metrics at the outset of every engagement. Build measurement frameworks that connect your work to things that matter to CFOs, not just marketing dashboards.
"Everybody is trying to manage the same client, but nobody is really watching the client. We are all having proxy metrics that give us the feeling we are watching the client, but we actually aren't — because nobody is talking to the client about what they actually care about." — Paul Krauss
For your current most important client, propose a 90-day outcome review alongside your usual reporting. Choose three business metrics — not marketing metrics — that your work should be affecting. Present the evidence at the end of the period.
The playbook is derived from the conversation. The nuance and the reasoning behind every principle are in the episode itself.
"Most agencies love talking about the scissors. Clients only care about the haircut."
Playbook · Nov 2025