We’re living in unprecedented times on the internet.
We’re being sold a future of infinite self-optimizing content, one-shot brand campaigns, and fully automated taste. A new class of founders are leaning into this vision, claiming you can prompt your way into building a world class brand.
Weber Wong’s Flora guarantees the future of creative work is node based. But wait! You just need to become some sort of “Forward Deployed Creative” to be a part of it? Alas, if only everyone knew Flora’s power, their revenue would be in the billions…
Weber Wong’s Flora guarantees the future of creative work is node based. But wait! You just need to become some sort of “Forward Deployed Creative” to be a part of it? Alas, if only everyone knew Flora’s power, their revenue would be in the billions…
Kennan Davison’s Icon promised a future of infinite self-optimizing ads at the click of a button. Only to double back months later and launch a paid marketing agency to create ads?  |  |
My favorite though is Alex Mashrabov who deserves credit for pulling off one of the greatest venture-backed acceleration stories I’ve ever seen. He’s convinced the world that whatever casino game a Higgsfield is, you need to play it or you’ll be replaced. “Goodbye Hollywood! The future of entertainment is now AI-generated meme coins on the dead internet.”
In Other Words, Everyone Is Lying to You.
I believe the truth is far more interesting: The craft of creativity will never be replaced by a templatized prompt. Or by an agent. Or by a Kennan, a Weber, an Alex… or a Shane.
I’m not saying ignore us.
The products work, the models are powerful, and creative work is profoundly changing. But never forget that creative work is an art form. In this place, there is no right answer. The friction has been, is, and always will be the point.
AI should allow you to live in that friction.
That’s where I’m most interested. And where I believe you’ll find the actual story.
Because when the barrier to creating content disappears, the problem becomes everything that happens around it.
The thousands of assets that need organizing. The endless versions, formats, languages, and channels. The hours spent searching for the right footage, resizing images, and making sure the right people have access to the right things.
None of that is creativity. But all of it gets in the way of being creative.
This is where I think AI has its most interesting opportunity. Not replacing the people who make things, but building the systems that make their work possible at scale.
It's what we're working toward at Air, and what I believe an entire generation of creative tools should be focused on: giving creative teams the infrastructure to spend less time managing their work and more time making it.
And we're still figuring it out. The technology isn't finished, and it may never be.
But the direction matters. As AI makes content easier to generate, the ability to organize, contextualize, and actually use that content becomes more important, not less.
I don’t care how many #HiggsfieldPartners dominate your feed, the work creative teams are actually doing is not a one-shot prompt of a moustachioed French dandy lurking in the uncanny valley.
The real work is being executed by brilliant teams making thousands of decisions, refining ideas, collaborating, and turning creative ambition into something that actually ships.
AI should make all of that easier. It shouldn't pretend to replace it.
And that sounds pretty human to me.
