---
title: "S01 E14 - Craft vs. Automation: The Creative Agency's Battle for Human Value"
shortTitle: "Craft vs. Automation: The Creative Agency's Battle for Human Value"
season: 1
episode: 14
slug: "craft-vs-automation-the-creative-agencys-battle-for-human-value"
publishedAt: "2026-08-07T13:00:00.000Z"
duration: "00:56:48"
canonicalUrl: "https://bloodsweatandtokens.xyz/episodes/craft-vs-automation-the-creative-agencys-battle-for-human-value/"
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# Craft vs. Automation: The Creative Agency's Battle for Human Value

## Summary

In this special episode, Taylor sits down with Kevin Comer, Executive Creative Director and founding partner at Ample, for a deep dive into how AI is reshaping the creative services industry.

## Show Notes

In this special episode, Taylor sits down with Kevin Comer, Executive Creative Director and founding partner at Ample, for a deep dive into how AI is reshaping the creative services industry. With Sean out of office, Kevin brings the non-technical perspective on strategy, copywriting, and brand development. The conversation explores the fundamental tension between AI's efficiency and the irreplaceable human elements of creativity, judgment, and client relationships that form the backbone of successful marketing campaigns.

**Key Discussion Points:**

• **The Craft Under Pressure** - How junior creatives develop taste and expertise when AI can generate first drafts instantly, and why starting with human creativity before AI assistance is crucial
• **Beyond Output to Judgment** - What Ample actually sells in the age of free content generation: opinion, accountability, and the confidence to stand behind strategic decisions
• **The Brevity Problem** - AI's tendency toward verbose, generic content versus the journalism-trained skill of distillation and impactful messaging that drives results
• **DIY Client Dynamics** - Why democratized AI tools represent opportunity rather than threat, similar to how ubiquitous cameras didn't kill wedding photography
• **Human-Only Territory** - The critical importance of relationship management and authentic human-to-human connection that AI cannot replicate
• **Agency Evolution** - How creative services are shifting from content creation to strategic orchestration and quality control in an AI-augmented workflow

**Chapter Markers:**

**00:00 - Introduction & Guest Setup**
Kevin Comer joins as substitute host, bringing creative and business strategy perspective

**01:57 - Kevin's Origin Story**
Ohio University journalism background, agency career progression, and the founding of Ample during the 2008 crisis

**07:10 - The First Draft Problem**
Why starting creative work with AI generates inferior outcomes and reduces human creative capacity

**15:06 - What Agencies Actually Sell**
Moving from output production to strategic judgment, opinion, and accountability in client relationships

**22:22 - Learning and Growth in AI Era**
How junior creatives can develop expertise when AI handles traditional entry-level tasks

**27:06 - The Wedding Photographer Analogy**
Why democratized tools create opportunity rather than eliminate professional services

**32:23 - The Album vs. Single Problem**
Taking a holistic, strategic approach to brand messaging versus AI's instantaneous, fragmented solutions

**42:00 - Optimism About AI Future**
Star Wars droids versus Terminator: choosing to see AI as collaborative tools rather than replacement threats

**49:07 - Human-Only Territory**
The final defense: relationship management and authentic human connection as irreplaceable business value

**Featured Topics & Concepts:**
- Creative agency business model evolution in the AI era
- Journalism skills applied to marketing strategy and brand messaging
- The "uncanny valley" effect of AI-generated content
- Relationship capital and human connection in business development
- Strategic oversight versus tactical execution in creative services
- The role of accountability and professional judgment in client work

This episode offers valuable insights for creative professionals, business owners, and anyone interested in how AI is reshaping service-based industries while highlighting the enduring importance of human creativity, strategic thinking, and authentic relationships in professional success.

## Transcript

Taylor MacDonald: All right, we are back. welcome back to Blood Sweat and Tokens. This is episode 14, believe it or not. It's unbelievable. We've been doing this for

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: 14 weeks already. Time flies. This week is going to be a little bit different than what we've done in previous weeks because Sean Davis, my co-host, is out of the office this week. He is traveling, taking some well-deserved rest and relaxation. So I have a special guest joining us today. my business partner, the executive creative director and founding partner of AMPL, Kevin Comer is with me today. Kevin, how you doing?

Kevin: Hey, I'm I'm doing good. Excited to be here. and be the non technical view of all things.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, I think that's an important distinction. so Kevin obviously plays more in the design, the copywriting, the strategy, the business aspects of the work that we do at Ample. And while he is technical, quite technical in and of his own right, I think some of the jargon and stuff that we go through in some of these episodes might be a little a little uncomfortable for him. So I think we're gonna keep this conversation focused fairly high level. We'll talk a little bit about both Ample, How it got started, like where we came from, and some of the work that we're doing today, particularly in this day and age of agentic tooling, AI product development, and stuff like that. So most of this podcast for the last 13 episodes or so has been focused on actual product development. What Kevin brings to the table in these product development conversations has a lot more to do with the strategy, the use cases. you know, the ROI for the businesses and connecting those dots between the story that you tell to the actual outcome or the the you know strategic outcomes, hopefully, at the end of the project. So Kevin, why don't you tell us a little bit about like where you came from, your background, where you went to college, that kind of stuff, and how you got started in marketing in general.

Kevin: Got it. Yeah. I I mean I went to Ohio University, the greatest college on the planet.

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: but I went there for a journalism major. They have the script school of journalism there. And it's it's kind of a big deal to get accepted. One of the best journalism schools in the nation back then, but that was back when journalism was a big thing, like a big part of society and not what it is today. could actually say that what we're doing now is the new journalism, this podcast right here, which is pretty cool.

Taylor MacDonald: Mm. That's it.

Kevin: But yeah, I went there just basically thinking I was gonna like write magazine articles for National Geographic. I'd like a I knew I couldn't do math and I could write the shit out of stuff. So that's what I was doing. So but at the end of college I kinda found advertising and was like, my god, I can get an A in this class without trying. Like this is kind of amazing. Like I think I'm

Taylor MacDonald: Ha

Kevin: just good at this. and that's kinda where it all started for me. I I popped out, got a job at a in-house marketing firm and then then an an actual agency agency where I met a lot of my future business partners at a place called Barefoot and we all worked together there, felt really good, quickly moved up the ranks. I always said I felt like a seventh round draft pick where I got brought in low and then all of a sudden I was working on like the top accounts, you know, but getting the same low low

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah,

Kevin: rates.

Taylor MacDonald: yeah. Well, don't they say this?

Kevin: so

Taylor MacDonald: The the later round draft picks usually have the long like the longevity. They may not get the the the wealth,

Kevin: Sometimes.

Taylor MacDonald: but they have the the pace to stick it out.

Kevin: Yeah, yeah. So I think that and that's not atypical of agency world back in the day. It's like, you know, work hard, long hours, work the weekends, just keep grinding until you work your way up and eventually get there. we were a little bit impatient, me and a couple of other people, and so we started working working at nights. particularly we'd go meet at my my house on Tuesday nights and make food together and work on side work and clients and and build up build up some client base and and felt like man we actually we know what we're doing. Like this is actually easy compared to and and fast compared to like just traditional big agency. Like we can get work done really efficiently. and so that's that's what we did. We just started doing it, started building a business, got up to a point where we felt like we could start to make some moves. Had a guy peel off to do just work for us while we all stayed at the agency and then kind of got a a life or death hey, you guys either have to sign a piece of paper that says you are not gonna be able to do a business. This is when Barefoot got bought. So like you have to sign this non compete, non disclosure agreement, or you can Or you can leave. That's kinda what we got. And we're like, all right, well, the jig's up, just so you know, we've started this agency. So if you want us to leave, we'll we'll leave. But we actually re did a relationship with an owner owner of Barefoot was like, Heck no, dude, I'm gonna keep you guys around, like, don't leave. Like I I'll you can stay here as long as you want. and that was a that was a Friday and we got fired on a Monday. So so it was

Taylor MacDonald: And didn't you what was the nature of your personal life at the moment? Like weren't you going through some pretty big life changes when that situation went down?

Kevin: We were we were coming. I mean, Sarah was pregnant with our first, so we were when we left in that November, Sarah's gonna have Annabelle in February. So it was like what a great time to start a business.

Taylor MacDonald: That's so stressful. That's a leap of faith. Yeah.

Kevin: and wait, it's two thousand eight too? Well, sweet, a housing crisis? Let's let's

Taylor MacDonald: Ha ha ha.

Kevin: all start let's have a baby and start a business. This is the right year to do it.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sounds like our generation. okay, so the way you describe that, you've you touched on a couple of things that were salient to me. You kept saying like you kept like alluding to expertise. The fact that you've been doing it for a while, it came natural, you know, through your education at OU, the journalism stuff, telling the story, crafting the narrative, so much of that is part and parcel of what we do today. So if you're marketing any product or service, the most important aspect I I think is to tell the story. Who are you? Like why do I connect with you? How does your brand connect to my life and some of the challenges that I might be having? So much about that that value comes from craft. And craft comes from a steady exercise of tedious effort. You know, year after year you're honing the the craft, you're you're you know Putting an edge on the sword, you're figuring out what works, what didn't work, and you're building all that into

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: these recommendations. So bringing this back to AI in general, what what happens now? Now that you know, AI could close the gap so much and it has reduced the amount of effort for those entry-level jobs, where does that craft come? Like, how do we, how can we cultivate that taste, that sophistication for the work that you do, the strategic insights, where does that live now that you can get the first draft for free?

Kevin: Hmm. You know, I I thought a little bit about this because we we also ask ourselves a lot like how much Where is AI saving you time and where is it actually costing you time? And I think one of the the dangers is actually doing draft one with AI. Like that's the worst possible thing you can do. Whether it's like an article you're writing or or trying to ideate for a client that has has a need. If you start by just plugging that brief into AI and generating the ideas, one, your brain has fired zero. Like you're you're you're just evaluating someone else's and it's not even a person's thoughts about what it could be, which is just Just a collection of things based on the words you plugged in versus actually exercising your human brain to make choices and make decisions and get creative and think through stuff. So in one way it's a big danger because you're literally you're letting your brain die a little bit every time you do it. Like instead of growing, it is it is literally getting dumber. And then On the other part, there is like there's a real exercise i in that. You and I have talked about like the value of talk to text. So a lot of times I'll find myself just starting there, you know, like, hey, I I just got a this this great idea and and got this kickoff from the client. I'm just gonna riff and just go and hit record and start talking. And then use the AI to clean up my thoughts into salient points and idea ideas and and that kind of thing. But To me, if I was a new person starting out and what I would tell anybody starting out is is to start with your own brain first. don't worry about a prompt. Don't don't craft the perfect prompt. Like actually be a a talented creative.

Taylor MacDonald: I think that's that's yeah, that's really important. AI isn't creative, is it? It's it's

Kevin: Mm mm.

Taylor MacDonald: it's really good at repeating creative thoughts. It's basically like cribbing all your ideas from the last 20 years, you know, collectively across

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: all the corpus of data that it knows. And I find I I often get tripped up by that personally. I'm like, hey, I want to do something really creative. I got this idea, but I find myself almost fighting the technology in order to get the creativity. Like that that that really unique outcome. how do you balance those two? Like in your mind like so AI is a tool for generating ideas and like getting the creative process rolling, but it can

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: overwhelm sometimes. I mean, we've had conversations about just the sheer volume of content that comes back can basically shut down any sort of creative pr process 'cause you become Completely overwhelmed. so I'm curious in your mind, like is there a balance and what is do you use AI today to like get through the creative blocks or derive inspiration? And is there a discipline required to pull yourself back from leaning too far into that opportunity?

Kevin: Yeah, I think I mean we I use it every day and and so does the whole team. I I think the balance comes in. So you say AI is not creative. I would also say that AI is not brief. it is very verbose. and just one of the best skill so going back to my journalism days, I had this class in newswriting that I use I use this skill every day today, since that class. It was this woman named Sondra Haggerty who used to run the newsroom for for the LA LA newspaper out there. She came back, she was teaching classes, so it was it was awesome. But so her class would be she would basically stand up in front of the class, give a press conference in the morning. And then you would have to you would have your fifteen minutes to to listen to that, craft the perfect headline, craft the perfect byline, and then write in what was called the inverted pyramid style of writing, where it's like, this is the what's most important. And I'm assuming you're gonna read the top and then y I'll lose readers as they go down. But at any point, whether you read the headline, the byline, the first couple sentences, you got the point of what happened at this news conference. That's kind of like the exercise. And so she would do that and then she would get done and she would look at your work. And if you made a mistake you failed for the day. Like if you made a typo or did something. But if you did it well, then she would look and she'd be like, Okay, this is the best one and here's why and just read the headline and the byline and and what it all was. I had a gift for this, the ability to just cut through whatever was being said and be like, this is what's most important. This is what everybody's gonna care about. And this is why this is the way to hook them into that idea so they care about this story. that's that's a skill that I think is what we bring to the table for our clients. Every one of our clients the most you're it's so hard to get our business and our business is so complex. And then a lot of times you and I kinda kinda get to this point we're like, So you just do this. You know, like

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. And people care about it because it gives them this. Like a like that kind of like simplicity. AI is awful at this. Like just awful. Like they AI's gift is to turning a one sentence, one bullet email into four paragraphs of text that no one's gonna read.

Taylor MacDonald: So true. That's so funny. At the exact same time that society has developed all these like short-form communication tools, whether text or 140-character

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: tweets and stuff like that, like we have systematically dumbed down the verbosity in our life because the noise the signal to noise ratio is just out of out of control. But I do think that's interesting that like right on the cusp of us all reducing ourselves down to three letter acronyms to communicate our thoughts and feelings via text. We now have walls of text everywhere. And it's like, hold up. Like you need a tr a Twitter

Kevin: Yeah. We too.

Taylor MacDonald: account or something.

Kevin: I know. It's so it's so fascinating that this is where it came to, you know? And I'm it's gonna change and it'll get better, I'm sure.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: And like just saying these like w i w as the market tells the AI what it wants, I think it'll start to change in and of itself and and give us more of what we want. But I don't think it can be I'd be surprised if it can be like human level creative versus like a an an ideation generation tool based on what you give it, you know? Like I don't think I don't think it'll ever get to a point where like it's generating new creative ideas and just building them. W of value. I guess I should say that of of of great value.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. the brevity thing is an interesting angle 'cause we do spend a lot of time in in the way you kind of described your experience in college, it was like an exercise in distillation. It was like you've got all these all these competing signals, right? And what you're trying to do is just distill that down into the most important thing. It kind of reminds me of that quote that Becky, our CEO at Ample, was fond of saying. She's

Kevin: Yeah, yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: like, I I I would I was gonna make it shorter, but I didn't have enough time.

Kevin: Yeah. I think that

Taylor MacDonald: Which I think is so funny.

Kevin: quote gets attributed to like twelve different writers all the time. You

Taylor MacDonald: Does it?

Kevin: know? It'll be like Mark Twain, like or whoever else, you know, like I

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: think Mark Twain's supposed to be like the most incorrectly attributed writer of like all time or something like that. Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: Really? That's interesting. I wonder why. Just it maybe because he was just so colorful. It was like a weird time

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: that he was a lot. Anyway. okay, well, let me ask you this. So in this day and age where you get the first draft for free, we have all this information at our disposal, we can generate four paragraphs of text that nobody's gonna read. What is AmpleSell? Like as a creative services agency that originally started as the people who were crafting the message. We are now the

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: people who are like like herding the messages, so to speak. Like we're just trying to make sense. We're doing that dis I mean, are we selling communication distillation? Like what what is the product or service that we sell?

Kevin: Yeah. I in some ways we sell opinion as well as skill. Like it it's it's we listen to our clients, we form an opinion about what they're telling us and come up with a strategy and then you use AI to help craft that strategy into something that's usable, versatile, expansive. but at at the end of the day, the AI is gonna give you whatever you ask it. Whatever you want, it'll give it to you and it'll tell you what's a great idea. i and that's i it's often not the case that it is a good idea. So I think a lot of times our our clients are paying us f for an opinion in an actual like the the the guts, I guess, to have a stake and be like, We you should do this. This is what you should do. Like the AI is gonna keep giving you more options. This is the option to pick and this is why. And and

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: we should go go try it out.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, what I wrote down in preparation for this particular question was like, well, the output, it's it's free now. Like like that stuff, like you can get the output a million times over, your clients can get the output. What we're selling is the judgment. You know,

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: we're we're and and frankly, the experience and willingness, confidence to stand behind that judgment too. I think that's important.

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: So let me ask you this like how do you Okay, if the first draft is free, if everybody has d

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: we have democratized access to these tools, how do you build a junior copywriter or a junior, you know, brand strategist that now that you've got AI that is largely facilitating a big portion of this?

Kevin: That's a good question. and I don't know that we g fully know how to navigate it yet. 'Cause in part, I think you and I are just in a uniquely good position for AI to come into our life where where we we have discernment already and we have skill and we've built these skills over decades to know like that's good, that's bad. That's good UX strategy, this is poor UX strategy, or this is the right way. for a junior coming up, how will they know which what's slop and what's quality? so I I think that's that's where I go to. The first thing I would say is you is you gotta start with yourself. Like I I got no better advice from the first agency w I was at than to give as many options as possible. So like if I'm here's your task. And and back in the day it was like some super easy P and G type work to do. You know, like, how are you gonna sell this tide in this mailer? You know? Like I a and so the challenge then was can I write twenty headlines that might speak to somebody as their page and through this thing and and pick up this mailer thing? So in instead of like doing one prompt, dropping it in and then getting twenty responses from AI and then picking which of those you think might be right, even though they're probably seventeen versions of the same message plus three outliers. You know, like actually

Taylor MacDonald: Maybe.

Kevin: do the work, you know, like d just be creative, like have fun, like try to make something good. And then maybe use that to get judged by AI. Ask the AI to judge that work and see if that does anything if you don't have that. But I th I think that's where it starts is like use AI to make your life faster. not to actually do it. Like you gotta do it. I s I think that's still gonna be a a part of it. The same with designers, I think for the design side, it's we've all seen what what these apps that get generated by AI look like. You know, they're the same like taupe color with the same UX process that just go it's just bland as bland what did you call it? Milktoast? You call it milk toast. Well I don't

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, milk toast. Mm-hmm.

Kevin: know what milk toast is but that's what it is.

Taylor MacDonald: I don't either. We should look that up. Hold on, I'm gonna write that down. What is milk? Or the etymology

Kevin: What is milk toast?

Taylor MacDonald: of milk toast. Because it's spelled M-I-L-Q-U-E. For some reason I know that. Not milk.

Kevin: But I think AI could be great. Like once you do the design though and you ask it like, Okay, what's the right how would I get to the contact page from here? What's what does this version look like? What's a version two of this that would be in dark mode? You know, like I think that kind of stuff it's it's great at that. And even if it's not right, it at least iterates to a point to give you a quick jumping ops point.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, I completely agree. I here's an interesting revelation as you talk about that. Like junior engineers have it this has always been a conundrum, right? Like if you are coaching a junior like I'm using engineers because right, this is my definite knowledge, but I think it's same, similar in other verticals within our industry. But the the junior engineer that wants to learn how to program, you sit down and you take a hello world class or you're like intro to programming, it's gonna give you a lot of Of what we call primitives. These are like basic building blocks of how to construct data structures, how to like manipulate them, for example, like add something to the end of an array, pop something off the front of that array. You know, that it's like these really basic things. And what you struggle with is the practical application of this. Like, how do I take this array method and make something with that? Like I remember being completely flummoxed when I first wanted to learn how to program because I couldn't make that mental shift from Here's a bunch of tools to here's the output of those tools. It's not terribly different than in your garage. You know what I mean? Like if you've ever

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: inherited tools from somebody, you're like, I don't even know what this is. And then one day you're like, holy shit, like this is it. Like, yeah.

Kevin: That's the perfect one.

Taylor MacDonald: so anyway, I think the in a way AI is like a great leveler. You know, it it can

Kevin: yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: if you are motivated and maybe it it comports with your methodology of learning, right? Because adult learning specifically has very unique and different mechanisms or strategies for connecting the dots. Like you might learn differently than the way I learn. And in this day and age of AI, maybe AI suits me or comports well with the way that I like to receive information. It might be more of a challenge for somebody else. But I do think that like the coolest part about AI is you could do anything. Anything. Since AI has become a consumer-level thing that I can reach to in a moment's notice, I have been able to. repair anything in my house. I am learning how to blacksmith. I am learning how to do mechanical and electrical engineering. I have a 3D printer that I'm modeling stuff. And I mean this is just the fun stuff, right? And then when you look at it from an occupational context, I'm learning I'm I mean I'm exploring all sorts of aspects of knowledge related to our field, some of the challenges our clients are seeing, that kind stuff. And so in a way

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: I see this as like the most unbelievable gift to somebody who has the energy and interest to learn. And about, I don't know, like a decade ago, I talked to one of our former coworkers and he said something that stuck with me ever since. He said, when you're hiring a developer, you know, you can either bring somebody in that kind of knows what's going on because they picked up the pieces and figured it out. And figuring it out was almost a qualifying factor for this individual on whether or not you were a good candidate for the team. If you knew how to do it, that means that you've got the ingenuity and the interest and the passion and motivation to go figure it out. And that is the skill that most engineers require because every year, every day, there's something new to learn. Take AI. You know, AI

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: has changed everything for all of us. And those of us who are willing to evolve rapidly and learn and lean in are going to be the ones that that can survive that that trend shift. I don't know if you agree with that or not, if that's the same for creative the creative side of the business as it is for the technology side of the business, but there's a lot of despair around like, well, I I don't know how to do this or I can't do this, or now in absence of that entry level job, I will never be able to circumnavigate that. The optimistic take here is that you're it's a matter of personal motivation and you could just lean in and probably figure it out and you'll make mistakes,

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: just like we all do. But what what's your thoughts on that? Is

Kevin: But it's i the tool thing that you said is pretty interesting and the ability to learn. 'cause I think this has existed forever. And in fact, like when YouTube culture started, like all of a sudden that's how I remember feeling, like, my god, I can do anything. Like everybody's telling

Taylor MacDonald: Anything. Yeah.

Kevin: you how to do everything on YouTube. So and to this day I think like like so we we have a we had our dishwasher break not too long ago and I did ask AI, like what to check and if there's anything else that could be r wrong. What what should I fix? But it was way more helpful to watch the guy on YouTube take apart the dishwasher than it was to read the wall of text from from the AI agent. and and it's a similar like I we we have that we have a farm down in Kentucky and the ability to figure out how to clean out the fuel line of an old tractor is made suddenly accessible by the fact that YouTube exists and there's some old timer farmer on there showing you what to do. You know, like, you gotta blow it. There you Now we know you know, like whatever you gotta

Taylor MacDonald: Ha ha ha.

Kevin: do. But but but I think AI it to some degree is the exact same way for the things like it is the instant start. Like I don't know what to do. What should I do? It'll tell you what to do. You know, like w

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kevin: with in in with instant in and gratifying like results. so I'm I'm a hundred percent with you. I I think it's It opens the door to a lot of things and it creates a lot of problems on the back end. So like a lot of times we are working with like full marketing departments in what we do. And they have l a lot of people trying to solve problems for themselves and throw ideas to marketing. So for a long time, marketing would do the work. They would be in control of like the brand message and the priority and what the sales team gets and this one message for everybody so that we're a consistent brand. Well now all these like groups that have been waiting for that are now on their island with their own AI agent and they are just dropping ideas into that and throwing those ideas back at the marketing department. Some of the ideas are probably great. Some of them are completely terrible and should not be considered, let alone done. but AI has kind of given everybody the a a voice at the table and and more than just an email request, but like an idea. and so I th I think in some ways it it creates opportunity for us to like help control the chaos and be like not only can we do more, like, yeah, we could do that actually. We could build that app for them, perhaps, you know? but also to help control that chaos of like, heard, these are all great ideas. Let's distill this into one overarching message that speaks to all six of these new thoughts from these new disparate people. and kind of help build build and craft that story for them and and help the market department like chill

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: everybody out a little bit.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. So one of the kind of metaphors that I'm using to think about this is like so everybody has a camera in their pocket, right? Like twenty years ago, something

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: like that. And yet wedding photographers still are making a killing. Like they're booked many months out, my understanding. And so that tool being in your pocket doesn't necessarily like kill the professional opportunity for somebody who knows how to use the camera. It it it just raises the expectations for those people. So Now that clients can DIY a lot of the stuff that they need with Chat GPT,

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: do you consider the as a business owner, do you consider this a threat to the business or a funnel to opportunity for the business?

Kevin: I think w and whatever technology comes in, I think it threatens aspects of your business and creates opportunity for others. So, you know, back in when I first got into an agency, it was someone's job to literally route work. Like their job was when we

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: did the work and we went and printed it all out and put it on boards and got it all ready and then it went to one person and their job was to take that stuff and review it. And like, this is a typo, this is inconsistent, and then bring it to somebody else to review it, and then bring it to the next person to review it, and bring it back to you to do the changes. That was their job. That's all they did. You know, for like

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: all day long. All everybody's creative work got just routed through them so that when it went to client, it was it was what it needed to be. you know like just with the advent of like Google Docs and shared PDFs and the ability to just like and and just general version control and as as even spell check got better. You know, like all of those things kinda made that job irrelevant. But it didn't kill the end the industry still existed. Like the the need for the marketing still existed and and the ability to to get that message out. But that aspect of the job changed. and I I go back to the idea, like I mean I majored in magazine journalism And yeah, there's not a lot of magazines still kicking, you know.

Taylor MacDonald: No.

Kevin: Like there's some. But it used to be stacks, you know, like everybody had stacks. And

Taylor MacDonald: No. I was just thinking about Wired magazine the other day, like the physical, because it had all these cool things in the margin. It reminds me of Mad Magazine back in the day. Similar.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: It had I mean, I think Mad Magazine is one of the ones that's still kicking, at least in print form.

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: But yeah, man, I I think about that all the time. Like that industry is

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: the periodicals just up in smoke overnight. It's crazy. I think so.

Kevin: Yep. And it's a bit of a loss, really. I mean it's a lost art. And they're there it you know, it's kind of like when people lament the loss of albums for music. Like,

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I don't want to play records. You know, I

Taylor MacDonald: So

Kevin: don't want to do it. But the artwork alone just made the you could see the value and the care and the words and like it just felt feels more important.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, yeah. So Atticus has been going through his vinyl phase, like in so we got a maturn table

Kevin: Okay.

Taylor MacDonald: for Christmas, and he inherited all my old punk rock LPs and stuff. And

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: he didn't realize that albums, like it's so weird. These kids, they don't, you know, everything's on demand. They listen to a singular song from an artist and they're

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: missing this more cohesive creative arc that is baked into the front to back of an album. And I used

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: to I remember that so vividly. like buying a new LP and going in my room and putting it on the record player and then like laying on my bed and just like going through the artwork and the insert and reading the lyrics and doing it two or three times and then you understand what the whole thing is about. It is a missed nostalg I mean it's a nostalgic view. But I'll tell you this, like similar with with books, do you have a bookshelf full of books in your house? I see you've got some right behind you. You do. Okay. How many are how

Kevin: There's some right there. There's some over here. Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: Okay, all right. I know you're big literary guy, and I have always

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: loved books like more nonfiction y. I like to hold them, I like to look at them. I still enjoy reading a book in physical form. But the amount of weight and expense and space considerations and requirements, same with my C D collection. Well, obviously I don't even have a C D player anymore. And I still have two boxes of C Ds in the attic, you know, that are just collecting dust because I don't know

Kevin: Yeah, yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: what else to do with them, and I can't get rid of them due to the nostalgia.

Kevin: I don't know. I mean the the value of I still prefer a physical book. I either listen to an audiobook or I read a physical book. I do not

Taylor MacDonald: Right. Right.

Kevin: read on my my phone. I think I look at my screen enough, like I don't need it. And it doesn't

Taylor MacDonald: My only problem was

Kevin: feel as tangible or real. Like I wanna turn the page. I want the pages to get like kinda dog eared and this one's

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah.

Kevin: wet. You know, this one got splattered with whatever, you know.

Taylor MacDonald: My thing with a physical book is it kind of forces me to be present. But when I do like a audio book, like let's say I'm walking the dog and I do an audiobook, I just can't stay focused on all the little details. And I constantly like unless I am

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: laying in bed at night, no stimulus, and I'm able to focus on the the storyline, you know, before I fall asleep

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: or something, I cannot keep track of the I now it's weird.

Kevin: Interesting. I listen to audiobook all the time. Audio audiobook or podcast is in my ears if I'm cutting the grass, if I'm doing

Taylor MacDonald: So

Kevin: the laundry, if I'm walking the dog.

Taylor MacDonald: it just dawned on me that the weird thing is with podcasts, I don't have a problem with this. If it's topical

Kevin: Hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: or maybe it's maybe it's a nonfiction thing. Like I can like news, I can listen to the news as I'm walking the dog and I can generally follow and keep track. I think the problem. Dude, for real. It's very depressing.

Kevin: Yeah, but why do that? Why make yourself sad?

Taylor MacDonald: Anyway. all right. Well, let me ask you this. Following up on that,

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: if clients can DIY, why would they hire us? if they can just buy a clawed subscription. I think you've answered this, but I just wanna put you on the spot. Like what is the positioning statement for a Creative Services agency in twenty twenty six

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: as these tools gain rapid adoption and are maturing before our very eyes?

Kevin: I'm gonna use a metaphor that you kinda set up for me, and that is, you know, like this this generation wants like a single song and they're gonna listen to it and then go to another single song. and there's some albums. I'll bring up Sergio Simpson since I love it. And there's the ballad of Dude and Juanita. It is literally a story from song one to the end,

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: and it tells the story all the way through. You can listen to each one of those songs and they're good, but

Taylor MacDonald: They stand on their own, yeah.

Kevin: They do, but if you listen from start to finish, you get a better experience. And it's nice and you're kind of taken on a journey and a path.

Taylor MacDonald: I agree. Yeah.

Kevin: I think what we bring to our clients is the the album view of their business. Like we we're gonna start here and we're gonna take you here. And everything, every piece that we deliver, whether it's an app or a landing page or a marketing campaign stands alone and does well, but it's all leading up to whatever we as a group have all decided is the most valuable, the most important, what you want your consumer to do, what you want your user to be focused on and experience. I think we can deliver that. Whereas all of this AI stuff is amazing and I think it's only going to get better. But it's very instantaneous. What how do I solve this singular problem? How do I How do I make this thing happen? You know, and and right now I think you need that little bit more human, high level visual touch of like what what's best for the brand at large this year, next year, the year following.

Taylor MacDonald: Do you think there's an opportunity to take all this information, all this kind of artifacts that we're developing through the use of AI to build more consistent voice for a brand through maybe changes in the CMO, for example? We see this a lot, right? Like we'll build a relationship

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: with the marketing person at a company. A couple years in, they bounce for another job, and then that presents a actually quite a unique challenge for for our business, right? In building the relationship

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: with the next person. We often find ourselves having to reestablish value. Like here's here's why you know you're working with us. You go, hi, it's nice to meet you. My name's Taylor and this is a a valuable relationship

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: for both parties. do you

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: w how can AI change or augment that either the relationship building, the reinforcement of those values or Just kind of a general knowledge base, a harness around the concept of this business's identity or the brand identity, how it talks, how it behaves, how it interacts with its consumers and products.

Kevin: Yeah. I think there's two two versions of this answer. The f the first one is when someone new comes on, AI has made it way easier to customize something impressive to that person. So like if if they're like, I really like you to meet so and so, the new CMO, they're i excited to meet you, they really care about this, this and this. You can like stand up some ideas, craft a deck, make something that feels very high touch, that shows you care for them, to bring them in, be like, hey, this is what we do. This is why we think would be great. I think that kind of stuff, it it's just raised the bar for that. Like the fact that you would ever share things that don't look polished and nice is is crazy at this point. That's one thing that AI's done for us. I don't know. I kind of

Taylor MacDonald: I d l is there an expectation of a increased velocity with the same level of quality now that these tools exist, do you think?

Kevin: Increased velocity, yes. but the the velocity still hits it is it's still gonna hit a roadblock somewhere. So like let's say you want to get a video done and it's like, hey, I can generate video scripts in like seconds and it can have it can tell you what the scene should be for that video. at the end of the day, unless you're using clips with with a VO, someone's gotta actually shoot it. Someone's gotta go and and buy the lights to make it look right, you know, and and get it done. I I I think it's similar like if you're doing a marking campaign like You can do a lot of ads and a lot of exploration what that be what that could look like and what that message should be. But at the end of the day, someone's gonna have to do the buy and figure out the media the media spin and the user flow and how it's gonna get and someone's gonna have to build the actual page to get there. So, velocity, yes. I think the the velocity to ideation and to decision is faster. But at the end of the day there still needs to be s someone's gotta do the work, you know. Someone's gotta actually grow the food that they're gonna serve. And

Taylor MacDonald: That's true.

Kevin: so I I think that that's like the natural stopping point in it. I I I would love I would love for this just to mean that everybody in the world gets to work a little bit less. You know? Everything looks nicer, but you get to do a

Taylor MacDonald: I don't think so.

Kevin: little bit less. But I don't think that's the case. I think you are doing more, faster, higher quality with the exact same level of expectation. You know, like it's got it like I want it. Like, give it to me. You know, it's gotta be g

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: like, let's go. it's it's I don't think you're ever gonna get to a point like, well, I know that This used to take you eight hours. So I'm gonna give you eight hours even though now it's gonna take you four, you know.

Taylor MacDonald: Right. Have you had any conversations with the clients specifically from your end of the business? We'll say copywriting. Have you had any conversations with clients about the nature of content generated by AI? Its impact

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: on SEO, for example, its impact on the value they they are seeking to receive from a creative services company like ours? And and and if you have had

Kevin: Yeah, yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: those conversations, I'm curious, like kind of what's the general consensus? I mean, are clients like, yeah, let's yellow this, let's let's slop it up. Or or is it like, no, no, no,

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: I still recognize the value in a human being writing those words?

Kevin: I think using it's a cheat code for for a lot of clients, especially those that either have really boring product offering or those that just have very small staff. Very small staff, very small budget. They they can now use AI to generate like websites worth of copy for themselves. I think e despite that, they recognize and we have talked about AI generated content can be a bit of fool fool's gold. Like it'll get the job done, but like it is not it's not great. Like your human brain, you can read it and know it was not a person that wrote that. Like y there's there's tells. There's tells to everything. That's I think it's kind of amazing I think it actually shows how cool the human brain is that you can read you know you know that uncanny val valley thing? Like if someone's face looks almost human but not close enough to human, it's actually more disconcerting and you would rather just see a cartoon. Like like

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm.

Kevin: that's like you either need it to not be a person or

Taylor MacDonald: Right.

Kevin: a person. It can't almost be a person. I think that's kinda what this the way that you see this AI generated content on a website. Like you start to read it your mind starts to glaze as soon as you see that AI sameness of like how it structures things. And like for me, like I do not need to read one more thing that starts with, our product's not this, it's this. You know? That's every AI generated like idea, you know? and it it drives me nuts.

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah, that's true. Is the is the dash forever tarnished? I mean, are we kicking the dash out of dramatical punctuation it of good grace?

Kevin: I think you at this point in society you have to because it's too much of a tell. Which is unfortunate the dash is incredibly useful to a marketer.

Taylor MacDonald: Dude, it's so funny. Having talked to a couple of folks that do a lot of writing, they're so pissed about the Sim Dash situation.

Kevin: It's the worst I mean, especially when you're trying to like craft like really like punchy short burst headlines. That dash is like a nice little like

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: visual and verbal break that kinda gives you that chance. But

Taylor MacDonald: Agree.

Kevin: you gotta yeah, I think if you wanna

Taylor MacDonald: How do you feel about the how do you feel about the semicolon? Not as used, you hate the semicolon. Well, that's a strong opinion.

Kevin: I hate a semicolon. Yeah, my wife who also was a journalism major too loves it. But to me, if you if you want to use a semicolon, make it two sentences, you know?

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. It I never can r I can never quite understand when to use a semicolon versus a period. So I usually

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: like I'll I'll stuff it in just so people think I'm smart.

Kevin: We're marketers though. We're it's supposed to be like punchy short first content. It's not really like

Taylor MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: I'm not I'm not doing long form here.

Taylor MacDonald: Well, let me ask you this. So what are you what are you optimistic about? You know, like we can sit here and talk about the gloom and doom. I think a lot of people and I I mean I've talked to a few people that are listening to this podcast that are expressing anxiety, a lot of hand wringing, both about the future state of humanity, the future state of their career, the job market, you know,

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: all that kind of stuff. But what what in your very straightforward terms, down to earth terms. what what are you optimistic about?

Kevin: couple of things. for one, I think AI is gonna allow us to stop doing things that we don't want to do anyway. Like I think eventually the idea of doing production after doing great creative is kinda gonna go away. So you you can just do the great creative and then AI is gonna generate the the production version of that. I I think some optimistic piece of the puzzle is like the need for what we do is not has not changed. Like we're getting request like people still want it. People still want it. They want it differently. And I think their expectation of what they get has raised. Like they want better stuff. maybe faster too. They want bet better stuff faster. but I don't think it means I haven't seen them like, yep, I guess we don't need this anymore. We're just gonna do it. Like I haven't seen that actually. They they've taken other things in house, I think, a little bit more, whether it's like writing full website copy, for instance, like they might do that. Or write a a couple more of their own blogs. But even then, I think we've seen the client read it and tell you, like, yeah, it's not very good. You know, like, this isn't

Taylor MacDonald: Right, right.

Kevin: very good. This isn't really the the quality that we would want it to be. But we have a deliverable, so we're just gonna do it. I think that's gonna shift and it's gonna be more and more like, hey, we're gonna bring new people coming into this business. Like, hey, we need you to help us craft the perfect podcast, the perfect message. We're gonna use AI to generate these blog posts. We're gonna need you to put whatever this human spin is that you kinda bring to the table. I think all that is is coming and will we'll continue. at the end of the day, optimism I think comes from like what do you think the future of AI is? And I wrote this post for us I think a year ago, which is like do you think AI is the terminator or do you think AI are robots from Star Wars. And I choose to believe that they are robots from Star Wars that are gonna help you. They're gonna be your your buddy and partner that's gonna assist you to like explore the galaxy and like expand the world, not people that just wanna turn you into a human battery and use you to power their overlord system like like the the Matrix or or or Terminator or anything like that. So when you

Taylor MacDonald: That's cool. I just want to hang out with that blue elephant in the bar. That's like playing piano. You know what I'm talking? Well, I mean it was an animatronic. Like I'm just thinking, you know, as far as robots go,

Kevin: Well, that's a that's a creature instead of a robot. I think you need to hang out with more of like yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: I'm I'm looking forward to the day when I can break bread with a robot, so to speak, you know.

Kevin: Do you think it's funny that like in Star Wars like R two D two speaks and like clicks and beeps? Whereas like if you have the ability to like travel space and time and like create all this stuff, like why can't you just let that little robot use l language? You know what I mean?

Taylor MacDonald: I I agree. I I agree. I have thought about they I they have freaking holograms and this thing clicks and beeps. And I also think it's interesting how in Star Wars everybody is like multilingual, you know? Like Han Solo can listen to Chewbacca and totally like have a conversation with that mess, and then he can equally like have a conversation with R2D too. It's like what? What do you Anyway? All right. Well, listen, we're getting close on time here. So Kev, I want I got one last question for you. And I want you to name one task in the creative services sphere that you will defend as human only. Like the hill you're gonna die on. Like it, you know, maybe it's the design, maybe it's the strategy. What is the one thing that, if ceded to AI, would actually hurt the client objectives? you know, and and you know. put a focus on the accountability piece for somebody who who might be using this this technology.

Kevin: Yeah. Do you have an answer to that question? I do. I'm just curious if what what pops into your head?

Taylor MacDonald: I think mine is a bit provocative because I I think that what AI is giving us, and it's hard to see because we're so fearful about the future, we're fearful about the environment, we're fearful about the money, our economy's dependency on this, the closed source versus open source stuff. I think that ultimately AI is going to give us an opportunity to build better relationships between humans. And I think that's a weird Dichotomy. But I think when we can step away from the keyboard and we can have

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: conversations in person. And the argument I'm making is I've got you've seen my AI companion device. It's my favorite product of 2026. But anyway, I can hit a button and I can capture a hundred percent of the conversation that we're having at the coffee shop or at the bus stop or what you know, whatever. And and it gives me this ability to stay focused on you. I think for many years I have struggled with keeping track of the details. I have felt like to be present, I need to have notes to be competent in our conversation, to play back something of value for you after we meet and we talk about your challenge or your product or your service or your employees or whatever. I struggle to recall all the details. Half the time, we'll sit down in a conversation. I cannot r re recollect all the fine detail points of what we talked about a week ago. that's my own personal feeling, but I have found AI to be a great equalizer there. And it gives me the opportunity

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: to look you in the eye and not worry about capturing the notes. I don't need to remember everything that you said. And I think there is a common argument that like taking that tact reduces like my wife has told me that that by seeding the hard work to the machine, the hard work of memory, the hard work of Reflection, the hard work of focus to the machine

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: actually reduces my ability to be effective in my role. But I I I disagree. I think it I think I have been my brain moves like 10 million miles an hour, I feel like, and I have always struggled to just like settle and be present. I'm probably undiagnosed with hyperactivity disorder or something of that nature, but I'm too old

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Taylor MacDonald: to worry about that shit anymore. The point is that. I think AI is going to ultimately bring a reconciliation of what the human experiment is. And that absent some sort of seismic change in our world vis AI, we are drowning in notifications. We are drowning in noise for signal. We are constantly distracted. We are stare at these phones. We are con my wife is having these deep. Text thread conversations across 10 different channels at any given time and it steals her focus from everything. and I understand why. I mean, these are important relationships she's investing in. I just I think that if we could just get rid of all that stuff and we could get back to basics and just be humans. So I guess the answer to the question is the the task would be relationship management, is the one thing that I will defend

Kevin: There you

Taylor MacDonald: as human only. What about you?

Kevin: I th you circled all the way back to my exact point actually and it's the connection between the human to human connection between client, between user, between employee. Like I think the the second that you decide that it's not worth my time to write a text or craft an email or make a phone call is when you lose. I think that's there there is something the way that you speak to people and the way that you are perceived by them is important. It tells them how valuable they are to you and their businesses to you and and what you need to convey. And so I think it's it's worth the time, I think, to maintain. Like once you turn that over to to the agent, you don't know what you're saying to them. You don't know what they're asking for. And like even if you read it Like if you d you were like, Hey, this is what happened. Please craft an email and I'm going to send it. You don't read that nor comprehend it nor even know where the ideation for that came from. Like it's

Taylor MacDonald: I agree.

Kevin: it's just somebody else's thoughts. So I think the relationship management is is huge. even though it's probably the most tempting thing to give up because it's it's time consuming and it's not easy, but it is it is a hard thing. Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: Mm-hmm. It is. Well, it's hard to. yeah, years ago, I had this very incorrect assumption. So as an engineer, I was like, well, I build all the things. I am valuable. I am probably the most important aspect of what we're doing. We're building websites and I

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: build the websites there for. Yeah, I

Kevin: Pretty important.

Taylor MacDonald: learned pretty quickly once we stepped into the ownership role that it it's the network, it's the people, it's not the website, it's not the design. It is the comprehensive acknowledgement, understanding of the challenges for your brand, the kind of sitting shotgun on all of those challenges, all of those successes, all those opportunities, looking at the competitive landscape and continuing to build into the opportunities that is afforded us through these relationships. And being able to pick up the phone and call your client is so much more valuable than any text or email or you know. sloppy teams c comment or or whatever.

Kevin: It's true. I mean at the end of the day, I think one one more piece that I think should make everybody feel better about this industry and and your job. if you want to see how important what we do is, go to any like new local small business that's opening. Go to a coffee shop that just started or a sandwich shop that just opened or a a hairstylist. Their need for clients and customers and to get their message out and their point of differentiation out is so strong. And they don't know how to do it. And there's all these things that whether it's like Shopify or Wix or ChatGPT, everybody's telling you it's easy. You can just do it now. Like this is so easy. But it is not. And no one knows actually how to do it. At the end of the day, it goes back to the thing. I need somebody to come in here and buy a sandwich from me so that I can give it to them and make money so I can actually pay my taxes and feed my family. That's valuable and high touch and important and it's not easy. And I think what we do, whether we do it with AI or how we do it, is how it all kind of comes together. It's gonna be around for a while.

Taylor MacDonald: I love that you brought up the sandwich shop as the example here. Yeah. So it's so funny. And it ties. Yeah, it is. Well placed, sir. no, what the

Kevin: That was my plug for you. That's marketing, baby.

Taylor MacDonald: so and it plays directly into what we just said, right? So recently I had this epiphany. So me and one of my direct reports at Ample, we do one on ones weekly, right? Just like any business or or biweekly or whatever. And I like sandwiches. I love sandwiches, in fact. And Cincinnati has this kind of under the radar food scene. I mean, there's a lot of really cool, unique mom and pop restaurants around town, and there's some wonderful food culture here. And so I thought it would be fun just for the heck of it. It's like, hey, what if instead of doing one-on-ones via Zoom, every time we do this, we'll just get together, we'll go find a restaurant that has a yummy sandwich, and we'll go get that sandwich and we'll conduct our one-on-ones there. And just for fun. I'm also trying to encourage the team on velocity, like how can we move faster? What's the level of polish and quality we can get and come to expect? And like, what are the things that we could do? You know, one of the cool aspects of working at a creative agency is like there's so many ideas. I have so many cool like pet projects that I want to work

Kevin: Yeah.

Taylor MacDonald: on. I want to roll this micropage. Here's a white paper I'm working on. Like, this is a great idea. Years ago, all those efforts, all of those ideas, they cost money. I mean, they still cost money type. But like at the end of the day, the amount of effort it would take to get from concept to something online was what, three months longer, depending upon you know the stakeholders in the room. And it's not like that anymore. And I have found so much exhilaration and fun and opportunity in being able to just roll things fast. And so anyway, so I got this idea that from here on out, me and Shay, or at least for the next you know, couple of months, we're gonna go eat a sandwich. Every week. Because at Ample Food, I mean, you even mentioned this at the onset of the the episode here, that the company was founded around being together, eating food, like being in the same room, that kind of stuff. And so so that culture is pervasive all the way through, you know, even 18 years later. And so the idea is let's get together. We're gonna break bread. This is the great equalizer. Food is the the opportunity for us to connect in a way that is both vulnerable and honest and nurturing. And it has opened up so much of this you know, relationship capital following this model. So I built a website in 24 hours, and we now have two entries. I've gone to two sandwich restaurants so far in the last couple of weeks, and we've already got it up. The the website is breadandbutter.wtf. It's an ample sponsored thing, and we're putting it together, like still a little cracks here and there, working on a couple bugs, squashing them left and right. But it's a great example of not only the relationship nurturing that can be done through this lens, but also the drastic and super rapid creative outcomes. And and so anyway, check it out and let me know if you have any any input for us on that. Or if you have a s I was gonna say if you have

Kevin: Yeah, suggest some sandwich shops.

Taylor MacDonald: a sandwich recommendation, that's what I'm All right. Well, thanks everybody. This has been really fun, Kev. I I appreciate your time today. I'm sure everybody's gonna get a lot out of all this this back and forth. this is Blood, Sweat and Tokens, the podcast where we're talking about product development in the age of AI, marketing strategy, design, impact of humanity and otherwise. this was episode 14, and again, Kevin Comer, my my business partner at Ample, has been kind enough to join us for the last hour and kind of talk through some of his perspectives on this stuff. So Thanks so much. Next week the schedule will still be a little bit different. We're gonna do kind of a lightning round with Sean once he's back in town. And and then following that we'll be back in our normal routine working on product demos and so forth. So in the meantime, hope everybody does well and I appreciate you listening. Talk to you soon.

Kevin: Thanks, T.