AI is everywhere.
Substance isn't.
88% of studios are using AI. 6% are getting meaningful value from it.
Here's where we stand, and why it matters.
Most studios are moving faster at the same work, generating more output with less thinking, and calling it progress. We're not interested in that version. We've been in enough boardrooms and enough creative reviews to know the difference between a tool and a strategy. AI is a tool. A powerful one. What you do with it depends entirely on the quality of the thinking behind it. Here's how we actually think about it.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Our A.I. guiding principles
At CRZY, we believe the most valuable thing we bring to any project is judgment. Not output. Not speed. The ability to decide what to make, why it matters, and what to cut before it wastes everyone's time and money.
We believe honesty is a working method, not a value statement. That means telling clients when the strategy is wrong before we start designing, killing work that isn't strong enough before they have to, and being transparent about how we work — including where and how AI shows up in our process.
We believe creative quality is non-negotiable regardless of how the work gets made. The tool doesn't set the standard. We do.
This means, as we use AI, we will:
Use it to protect time, not replace thinking. AI handles research, iteration, and production efficiency so our focus stays on the strategic and creative decisions that require human judgment.
Hold the work to one standard. AI-assisted or not, the question is always the same: is it strong enough? If the answer is no, it doesn't move forward.
Tell clients where AI is in their project. If AI touched the work in a meaningful way, we say so. Transparency isn't optional here.
Bring the point of view AI cannot replicate. The brief. The creative direction. The willingness to say the idea isn't working. That stays with us.
Atlanta AI Week opening keynote
Teaching at SCAD Pro
TRANSPARENCY
Most studios are using AI. Almost none of them will tell you.
More than half of creative professionals are using AI in client work without disclosing it. That's not a workflow decision. That's a trust problem accumulating on every project.
We use AI. We'll tell you where and why. And we hold the work to the same standard regardless of how it got made. If the output isn't strong enough, it doesn't matter how it was produced. It doesn't ship.
Transparency isn't a policy here. It's how we protect the work.
VALUE
Speed is now table stakes. Judgment is the product.
More than half of creative professionals are using AI in client work without disclosing it. That's not a workflow decision. That's a trust problem accumulating on every project.
We use AI. We'll tell you where and why. And we hold the work to the same standard regardless of how it got made. If the output isn't strong enough, it doesn't matter how it was produced. It doesn't ship.
Transparency isn't a policy here. It's how we protect the work.
COMMUNITY
What we learn, we share.
The creative industry has a gatekeeping problem. Knowledge moves through closed networks, expensive conferences, and organizations that benefit from keeping the gap between insiders and everyone else as wide as possible.
We've never been interested in that model.
Everything we learn about AI — how it performs in real client work, where it fails, what the ethical tradeoffs look like in practice, what we got wrong and had to rethink — we share openly. Through the podcast. Through keynotes. Through teaching. Because a rising tide is only a cliché if you're not actually doing it.
The Crazy One podcast has reached listeners in over 160 countries. That audience didn't build itself on polished takes and safe opinions. It built on honest ones. We apply the same standard to how we talk about AI. No hype. No fear. No performing expertise we don't have. Just an honest accounting of what we're seeing, what we're trying, and what we think it means for the people doing creative work at every level.
We share because we've benefited from people who shared with us. And because the creative community gets stronger when the best thinking isn't locked behind a paywall or a title.
If something we've learned could help you — take it.
Adobe Tech Summit
Design Thinkers Vancouver
RISK
The risk isn't adopting AI.
It's doing it without a conscience.
The studios that will get left behind aren't the ones ignoring AI. They're the ones using it without a clear position on what it's for — and what it costs.
AI without strategy produces more. It does not produce better. Weak brief in, weak output out. That's the operational risk. But there's a harder conversation sitting underneath it, and most studios are avoiding it entirely.
Our job is to bring the thinking AI cannot replicate — the strategic clarity, the creative direction, the ethical judgment about when and how it should be in the room at all. That hasn't changed. AI just makes it more visible when it's missing.
Here's how we actually think about it.
On the people it affects
AI is reshaping what creative work looks like and who gets paid to do it. We're not naive about that. The designers, writers, and illustrators whose work trained these models didn't consent to it. The junior creatives who historically learned by doing the work AI now handles are finding fewer entry points. We don't have clean answers to either of those things. But we think pretending they aren't happening is worse than sitting with the discomfort of not having it fully figured out.
On ownership and IP
When AI generates work, the question of who owns it — and what it was built from — is genuinely unsettled. Legally and ethically. We track this closely because it has direct implications for our clients. Where exposure is highest, we say so. We don't use AI in ways that create IP risk we haven't disclosed.
On when we choose not to use it
Not every project benefits from AI involvement. Some work requires a fully human process — because the client's brand demands it, because the creative territory is too sensitive, or because the judgment calls are too nuanced for AI to be a useful input at any stage. We make that call deliberately. AI is not a default. It's a choice we make, or don't make, based on what the work actually needs.
What we're already doing:
Disclosing AI use in client work — because clients deserve to know what they're paying for and how it was made.
Running every AI output through senior creative and strategic review before it goes anywhere. AI does not have final cut authority. We do.
Applying the same rejection standard to AI-assisted work that we apply to everything else. Speed does not lower the bar.
What we're still building:
Clearer client-facing guidance on IP and training data exposure, especially where legal risk is highest.
A written governance framework we can hand a client or collaborator without a conversation first. This page is that starting.
Better tools for setting expectations at the start of engagements — honest framing that helps clients decide where AI adds value and where it doesn't.
A regular practice of reviewing what's changed in the AI landscape and updating our principles to reflect it. The tools are moving faster than any framework can. We're building the discipline to keep up.
We wrote this because our clients deserve to know where we stand. Not because we were asked to. Not to check a box. Because the studios that don't articulate this now will have it defined for them later by a client complaint, a bad outcome, or a regulation they weren't ready for.
And because if our position is that judgment matters more than output, that what you remove and refuse matters as much as what you make, then how we think about AI is a direct expression of that. It shouldn't be a footnote.
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