Chapter 2: The robots aren’t coming - they’ve already moved in
From "The Fox Advantage" by Paul Dervan | Part 1: What Just Collapsed
I started watching the YouTube videos mostly out of curiosity. Twenty-somethings orchestrating AI agents to run full campaigns; research, brief, copy, design – all in fifteen minutes.
The work itself was pretty average. But that’s the point. What used to take three teams and weeks of meetings now takes fifteen minutes – and nobody seems impressed?
My career didn’t flash before my eyes. But our structure did.
The diagnosis: Execution has collapsed
This isn’t a trend. It’s not. It’s a genuine structural collapse.
AI didn’t chip away at the edges. It has gone straight for the centre – the execution stack we built marketing around. The workflows, the roles, the layers. Gone.
What used to require twenty people and a timeline now takes three prompts (well a lot more than 3) and a bit of courage. Most of us haven’t faced this yet. We’re still optimising workflows that no longer need to exist. We’re still creating roles that were only needed when work was slow, hard, expensive.
The stance: Shift from production to judgment
The strategic shift isn’t "use AI." Almost every marketer I know is using AI in some way. That’s table stakes.
The shift is to stop pretending execution is your value.
AI is great at options. It’s terrible at judgment. It doesn’t understand timing, tone, trade-offs, context, politics. You do. Your new job isn’t doing the work. It’s knowing what matters.
That means:
Less pride in output volume
More energy spent deciding
Less scrambling to produce
More conviction in direction
The teams that will win won’t be bigger. They’ll be flatter. So smaller pods. Fewer handoffs. Thankfully - I hate handoffs. And more judgment.
What to do next? Collapse what no longer serves
1. Kill the ‘I make stuff’ mindset
If your pitch is "I get things done," you're already replaceable. Start by asking better questions. Learning the fundamentals. Writing sharper briefs. Removing the layers between insight and action.
2. Flatten your team
You don’t need five specialists to ship a campaign anymore. You need two generalists with taste, tools - and permission to make decisions and to ship.
3. Treat AI like an intern with infinite stamina
It can churn out drafts, mock up options, and iterate all day. But it still can’t tell what’s good. That’s your job. Don’t abdicate. Direct.
4. Upgrade from maker to meaning-maker
The market doesn’t need more content. It needs someone who knows what resonates. Who can say, “Not this – this.”
5. Rebuild around strategic leverage
Use AI to compress execution. Reinvest the space you create into judgment: interpretation, timing, ethics, brand.
If you’re still competing on speed or volume, you’ve already lost.
The robots are here. They’ve rearranged the furniture, replaced the kitchen staff, and automated the lighting. But they still need a head chef. Be that. Or get out of the kitchen.
That’s the fox move.
But our robot friends are also deciding what brands gets seen. That’s what Chapter 3 will be about.
P.S. I’ve almost finished building an AI assistant that helps marketers improve their Linkedin posts. I’ll post it here later this week.