When I was a 23-year-old typesetter, my boss put an Apple Macintosh Plus on my desk and told me that if I didn’t learn it inside and out, I’d be replaced by someone who had. I listened. He was right. Throughout my career, everything changed and nothing changed.

This week, our 23-year-old designer and I vibe-coded a client’s Search Clarity Strategy. Flipping my old boss’s maxim over to the plentitude side, I reframed “Learn this, or you’ll be out of a job” as “Learn this, and you’ll always have work.”

Resistance is fathomable (but ultimately futile)

The Mac wasn’t better than the old typesetting equipment. Not even close. I didn’t fault my colleagues who said, “I’ll stick with what I know, thanks.” But over time, the new tools got sharper, faster, easier, and more affordable. Apple’s stock rose as Compugraphic stock tanked.

As someone who knew the traditional ways and the shiny new tech, I always found work.

Over the last few years, Artificial Intelligence has entered the branding and marketing chat in innocuous and obnoxious, fascinating and frightening ways. I don’t fault colleagues or clients who want nothing to do with it. But in an industry driven by technology, full-on AI abstinence will look increasingly performative and prove ultimately futile.

A brave new world

As AI forces appeared on the horizon, steadily marching in our direction, everyone at Toolbox took a collective deep breath. Will the robots replace us? Put us to work? Allow us to spend more time in the garden? When viewed as a whole, AI is just too much. It can easily trigger a freeze response. Stay still, hold your breath, and hope it doesn’t notice you.

Taken in smaller doses, it’s much less frightening. And guess what? If you scan a drawing and auto-trace it in Adobe Illustrator or let Grammarly suggest you stop writing in passive voice, you’re using AI.

So I jumped off the cliff, and the rest of the team followed.

The 4 Ds

A few long, strange trips down the AI rabbit hole, and it became clear we needed some guardrails around how we use it. While our AI policy is still fluid and flexible, we’re using Anthropic’s four core competencies of AI fluency as our North Star.

1. Delegation.
2. Description.
3. Discernment.
4. Diligence.

1. Delegation: Stay in your lanes

AI can do everything, and it can do a lot of those things well. Sorting out what to keep on our plates and what to delegate is the challenge. Our industry has always been at the intersection of ideas and execution. When employed smartly, AI lets creatives and strategists spend more time ideating and less time executing. That’s a win-win for clients and agencies.

The market is currently flooded with AI slop — an increasingly recognizable artifact of humans relying too much on our robot coworkers. Audiences will only get more sensitive and resistant to obvious AI output. It’s on us to keep the humanity of our work at the forefront while integrating AI more seamlessly throughout the process.

2. Description: It’s all about the prompts, the prompts, the prompts

The most powerful and least-utilized aspect of Large Learning Models is the Learning. Historically, we’ve accepted the tools of our trade as a fixed hardware or software version. We can’t actively improve them. Our tools don’t learn. Maybe if we leave a note in a crash report, a software engineer might read it and consider working it into the next update 18 months from now.

Tools like ChatGPT and Claude get smarter and stronger the more you feed them. And they’re insanely quick learners. Clearly describe what you’d like done and how you’d like it done. Test, refine, repeat. Feed it tons of content to learn your voice and perspective. Correct what’s wrong, confirm what’s right. Keep the conversation going.  

Try this: Upload a ton of related content (meeting transcripts, whitepapers, articles, etc.) and ask AI to look for surprising insights and correlations.  

3. Discernment: The confidence trap

My husband and partner, Tom, is from Philadelphia. For the most part, he’s lost his accent, unless someone cuts him off in traffic. Early in our relationship, we were at a mall in Philly, and the accent was on full, glorious display.

He told me not to point and stare, so I quietly observed, like Jane Goodall. Then it struck me, beyond pronunciation, the accent is a way of believing.  Everyone I listened to, no matter who they were talking to or what they were talking about, spoke like they were the world’s foremost expert on the matter. The confidence was off the charts.

AI writes like Philadelphians talk. As I was researching this article, Claude admitted as much: “I’m a confident-sounding system that can have real gaps, and the confidence doesn’t always correlate with accuracy.” Well said, robot friend. Be wary of the confidence trap. AI writes and draws and codes and calculates with the same level of self-assurance.

Try this: Ask AI to write about a subject on which you are an expert. How’d it do? How confident is it? How can you improve the output?  

4. Diligence: Make good choices

With great power comes great responsibility. In these early days of the wild-west world of AI, creatives are often the last line of defense against inaccurate and irresponsible AI-assisted content.

Look past the polish and review the content at least as critically as you would human-generated work. It’s on us to take ownership of and ensure the veracity of all AI-assisted work.

Be honest, clear, and transparent.

New is the new new

Our industry is at a precipice. The tools of the trade are getting sharper, faster. At times like these, it’s good to read the word on the street, and nobody’s better at taking the creative industry’s temperature than Emily and Hunter at Casa Davka. In a recent conversation, Emily answered the question many of us are asking:

“No, the sky isn’t falling.”

Phew. That’s a relief.

Emily laid out how she sees creatives navigating the AI future: “We really shouldn’t be freaking out about AI. It’s going to do all the executional work, and what’s needed are human ideas — new ideas. Because AI just takes what’s existing and brings it to you. We create new ideas.”

The evolutionary challenge at hand for designers and strategists is to continue to take ourselves out of the executional work and use that energy ideating — finding new ways to make meaningful human connections. If we can learn that inside and out, we’ll always have work.

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{{OrangeQuote | ABOUT DAWN PUTNEY | Dawn is Toolbox’s founding president and lead strategist. Dedicated to building a future where women can more easily climb to the top of the business ladder, Dawn knows the future looks brighter and kinder when built by women. Dawn served as a founding board member of She's In Power, and is a Women in 3D Printing booster and the founder and fairy godmother of Art Lab Fort Collins.}}

{{OrangeQuote | ABOUT TOOLBOX CREATIVE | Toolbox Creative is a B2B Brand Engineering firm helping cool people in Additive Manufacturing, CleanTech and Emerging Technologies change the world. We distill complex technologies into powerful identity systems, websites and marketing tactics that create lasting impact and build brand love.}}

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*How AI helped us: We used Claude (We call her Claudia) for initial research, Fathom for notetaking, and Grammarly to sound a little less passive.