Should AI upend your agency business model today?

In this episode, Chip and Gini react to a blog post from their friend Christopher S. Penn who writes and speaks frequently and intelligently on new trends in communications and technology. In his piece, Chris argued that agencies should review their business model and pricing structure in response to AI developments in 2023.

While the co-hosts see artificial intelligence as a force that will (and already is) impacting agencies, they’re not on board with a wholesale change to agency models as a result. They argue that the value pricing approach advocated by Chris is far more difficult to implement in practice and doesn’t necessarily address the fundamental changes that AI may cause.

Instead, Chip and Gini argue that agencies should be looking to better integrate AI into their own processes and understanding how it is transforming how their clients approach the challenges that agencies address. The path they recommend results in agencies evolving their solutions and delivery mechanisms rather than abruptly shifting course dramatically.

Key takeaways

* Chip Griffin: “I think that it is certainly premature at best for an agency to say, I’m going to rethink my whole business model because of what AI is doing.”

* Gini Dietrich: “AI hasn’t created the death of the hourly business – the death of the hourly business has been here for a while.”

* Chip Griffin: “There are so many innovations that have made work more efficient and faster, and we’ve all figured out how to adapt to them, and it’s not simply by trying to figure out how do I protect my margins against a threat.”

* Gini Dietrich: “We have an expertise and we have experience. And those two things, along with the trust and the authority that we’ve built, are the reasons somebody is hiring us.”

Resources

* Almost Timely News, September 17, 2023: AI And The Death of the Hourly Business

Related

* Value pricing isn’t the answer for every agency

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin

Gini Dietrich: and I’m Gini Dietrich

Chip Griffin: and Gini I think with all this AI thing, we need to change how we’re doing this whole podcast. Just throw it out and start over.

Gini Dietrich: Great. Let’s do it.

Chip Griffin: Right after this.

Now that I think about it, maybe that’s a little bit of an overreaction to AI. Maybe. Maybe I should take it in and figure out how to, how to use AI as opposed to just discarding our entire podcast and starting over.

Gini Dietrich: Or maybe we just let AI do it and we take the credit.

Chip Griffin: Well, that’s a good idea. I would love to see how AI would like…

Gini Dietrich: I actually, we actually should do an episode on that just to see. Put in props.

Chip Griffin: See if we can get Chat GPT to mimic an episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.