The Agency AI Solution You’re Waiting For Is Already Outdated.

An increasing number of agency leaders that I speak with, when talking about how AI might be integrated into their workflow, tell me that they are “waiting for the company’s AI solution to be rolled out, maybe next year.”

So they delay the training. Defer the thinking. Postpone the workshop their team needs — because of politics, alignment, or fear of doing it “too early.”

Here’s the problem with that. Any agency AI solution that takes months to develop will arrive outdated, underfeatured, and dead on arrival.

The speed of change doesn’t care about your IT roadmap.

Most agencies are still exploring the edges of AI, running pilots, testing prompts, and discussing “use cases.” They treat it like an add-on. A helper. A new intern who still needs hand-holding.

But what if you flipped that? What if AI wasn’t an assistant to integrate, but the infrastructure to design on top of?

What if your foundation wasn’t static, but fluid, shaped by the assumption that the tools will keep evolving, and the best edge you’ll ever have is how fast you adapt? What if you taught your teams how to think about working in a world where tools are constantly evolving at a pace that renders the user manual obsolete within a week? That’s the real competitive advantage now, not how well you use AI. But how well you absorb change.

That is the reality we work in today.

Living in the Upgrade Loop

Just yesterday, I had a 2-hour 1-1 training session with the CMO of a global company in the built environments space. We had booked a session a couple of weeks ago to explore image engineering. During the period from booking to the actual session, no less than three image platforms introduced new features, tools, or entirely new versions. And the GenAI video space underwent another round of upgrades.

I adjusted my training in real-time to accommodate these changes. We even explored things I had yet to use, together, learning with each other, asking questions, making mistakes, adjusting.

I have built my entire teaching method on the fact that things change quickly. I have also refined my approach to thinking about and utilizing AI in my everyday workflows, allowing for flexibility, anticipating changes, and leveraging product or feature announcements as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in the work I do for my clients.

This is what it means to build with AI: not just using the tools, but thinking in the ecosystem, knowing it will shift, and being ready when it does.

By the time most people gain access to these platforms, with their polished UI, documentation, and integration with Canva, they’re already six months behind. The real edge is upstream.

Last week, I came across an agency in Europe that didn’t just adopt AI. They built their entire model around it. Not because it’s perfect. But because they believe the gap between “good enough” and “great” is closing faster than anyone wants to admit. But waiting for “great” puts them further behind.

They designed their agency model to anticipate change, not react to it. They developed their model to capitalize on every 10% improvement to a product or platform in real-time, translating that into a 10% gain for their clients in real-time.

Enter the Fluid Agency Workflow

Look, we all know that GenAI is changing at increasingly breakneck speeds. While you wait for a “group-wide” platform, consider an open-ended approach.

This is what I tell my clients: plan to change. Plan for change. Nothing is set in stone. Everything is fluid.

The only constant in AI is change. – Heraclitus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

What Building With AI Really Means

The agencies that are thriving aren’t just using AI tools. They’ve changed their assumptions about what AI tools mean for the agency.

When I work with an agency leadership team, one of the things I consider is not just how to integrate AI into their existing workflow, but what we would build today with AI at its core, from the outset.

Its not a remodel, it’s a rebuild.

Think about AI as Infrastructure, not an Assistant. Stop thinking of AI as something you slot in. Think of it like electricity, invisible but essential to every part of the creative supply chain.

Remember that human judgment is the Multiplier. AI can speed up specific processes, but the last mile, the stuff that defines brand, trust, and resonance, still requires eyes, ears, and intuition. That’s not a bug. That’s the magic.

Establish that curiosity is Culture. In the best AI-forward agencies, no one is protecting turf. They’re exploring. Failing fast. Learning faster. Adapting and adopting fast. AI-first means ego-last.

If you’re still waiting for the AI rollout, let me save you some time: it already happened. The only question now is whether your agency is built to adapt or built to wait.

One of those has a future.

Work With Us at RockPaperScissors

At RockPaperScissors, we don’t sell one-size-fits-all AI workshops.

We work with leadership teams to rethink how creativity, strategy, and operations intersect with a rapidly changing toolset and how to turn that volatility into a competitive edge.

Whether it’s a half-day leadership reset, a team-wide upskilling sprint, or an advisory engagement to redesign your agency model with AI at the core, we help you move from theory to traction quickly.

You don’t need another steering committee.

You need a partner who’s already building what’s next.

Let’s talk.

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