Via Erica Kelly:

Here’s the bet I’m making: small houses that value individualism, deep and different thinking, and original thought will win.

That doesn’t mean necessarily scrappy or under-resourced. I’m talking about intentionally small teams made up of sharp, specific people—each bringing their own lens, not just executing someone else’s vision.

AI is rearranging the entire agency ecosystem. Teams are getting leaner, briefs are getting murkier, and clients want everything faster, cheaper, and more original than ever.

But what they really want—what they don’t always know how to ask for—is creative judgment. Taste. People who know when to follow the process and when to throw the process out the window and try something gutsier. AI can get you options. It can give you output. But it can’t give you the leap. The “wait, what if we did it this way instead?” moment. That still comes from human instinct.

The only way I can make sense of that is to get smaller, not bigger. More specialized, not generalized. Fewer decks, more ideas.

Teams that move fast because they trust each other. Not because they’re rushing, but because they don’t have twelve layers of internal approval slowing the work down. Teams that understand the brand and the broader culture it has to swim in. That’s what small shops can do that big ones struggle with.

Think less “trusted production partner,” more “weird little council of thinkers with taste.”

AI will probably take over 98% of production in the next 5 years anyway. And when that happens, what’s going to matter is not how fast you can execute. It’s how well you can decide what’s worth executing in the first place.

(Source: The old brand temple is collapsing.)