In this episode, I sit down with Ivan Vislavskiy, co-founder and CEO of Comrade. Ivan built his agency from the freelance web projects he started at 19 into a national digital firm with nearly 100 team members across four major cities. What stood out in this conversation is how grounded his view of AI is. AI will not replace real marketing. It makes basic output cheap, which means the work that stands out takes more judgment, more strategy, and more creative thinking than the average person expects.

We get into how his R&D and Innovation team uses AI to automate thousands of hours, how he thinks about measuring real impact, and why he still trusts human intuition over anything a model produces. Ivan breaks down the difference between speed and leverage, how agencies should define a niche, and why thinking like a founder is becoming the skill that separates high performers from everyone else. We also talk about parenting, critical thinking, and a fun moment where Ivan explains how he uses AI to create custom coloring pages for his kids.

If you want a grounded, practical view of where AI is taking marketing and creative work, this episode delivers it in a way that actually makes sense.

About Ivan Vislavskiy

Ivan Vislavskiy is the co-founder and CEO of Comrade Agency, a full-service digital firm with offices in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Austin. With a background as a developer and designer, Ivan brings a rare mix of creative intuition and technical depth. He leads an internal R and D and Innovation group focused on using AI to automate repetitive work and unlock higher level creative output for both clients and his team.

Key Topics

• Why AI raises the bar for great marketing
• The difference between speed and leverage in creative work
• How Comrade measures AI’s true impact
• Why creativity and intuition still matter
• Building and committing to a clear niche
• How to teach teams to use AI without outsourcing their thinking
• Parenting and staying curious in the age of AI
• What agencies get wrong about AI
• The next five years of AI in digital marketing and creative work

Top Takeaways

• AI makes basic marketing fast and cheap, which means real creativity becomes more valuable.
• Strategy and judgment are the new competitive advantage.
• Teams that treat AI as a thinking partner outperform teams that use it for shortcuts.
• Agencies that define a niche grow faster and build stronger client relationships.
• Human intuition is still the final filter for all high quality creative decisions.

Memorable Quotes

• “AI doesn’t lower the bar for great work. It raises it.”
• “Speed is useful, but speed without judgment creates noise.”
• “You can not outsource intuition to a model.”
• “Niche down or stay invisible.”
• “Creativity is the thing that survives every wave of technology.”

Resources Mentioned

• Comrade Agency
• Examples of their internal R&D automations
• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Hardcover- by Colin Bryar, Bill Carr 

Where to Find Ivan:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ivan-vislavskiy

Comrade Agency: comradeweb.com

About Dear Tech Podcast

Dear Tech Podcast is hosted by Shubho Ghosh and dives deep into the human stories, strategy, and real world insights behind the-people building the future of work, technology, and AI.