For the past several months, artificial intelligence has been giving us quite a ride with some of our clients. We've wanted to laugh, to cry, to pull our hair out, and sometimes even to bang our heads against a wall. It's in a purely therapeutic spirit, then, that we decided to write this article and share some of those moments with you.
We'll say it upfront: this article is written with love, kindness, and empathy. To you, clients who might feel targeted — we love you exactly as you are.
At first, it was funny
It started with emails written by AI. In those early days of the frenzy, we completely understood — it mostly made us laugh. Truth be told, we played that game ourselves for a while. It was fun, new, intriguing, and impressive all at once.
But little by little, dark clouds started rolling in. The sky darkened quickly.
We began to notice there were two kinds of people: those who used AI to work more efficiently, and those who used it to work less.
The first group? Nothing to report. We're part of it ourselves : we looked for ways to optimise certain internal processes.
But the second group…things went completely off the rails in several cases.
Where it started to unravel
We remember it like it was yesterday. We were working with a client active in the luxury sector on their brand identity and brand strategy.
Our team spent weeks immersed in their world, analysing competitors, running workshops to define their positioning and truly understand their DNA.
Once the brand essence was established and validated, we were about to move into the brand identity phase. But at the kickoff session for that phase, our client walked in and told us he knew exactly what he wanted.
Smiling, he pulled a stack of papers from his bag.
On each sheet was…a logo.
We looked at him, surprised, and he said: "Don't worry, I didn't make them myself — I asked ChatGPT to generate some logos!"
We were far from reassured. Quite the opposite — it was with a bead of sweat on our foreheads that we made it through that session.
From that moment on, we knew the storm had arrived.
"AI can do absolutely everything"
For many people, everything that comes out of AI is correct and true. They imagine they have access to an expert who holds 100% of every skill on the planet.
But since AI knows everything and can do everything…why bother doing it yourself?
That's where things started to go sideways. Some clients stopped engaging with our exchanges altogether. Well — they did respond, just not themselves. Their AI tool responded for them.
We began to feel an enormous detachment from projects. We'd write them an email; they'd paste it into their AI tool and send us the reply. We'd send them a document; they'd forward it to their AI tool and pass along the analysis (usually without even taking the time to read it themselves).
After all, since AI can manage the project, why get involved? For about a year now, we've felt from certain clients a disengagement, a lack of investment and…a frightening void.
The real problem? That input is essential to doing good work. It's an integral part of the equation for a successful project.
Everything accelerated very quickly
Recently, the pace shifted into yet another gear. Not second — third.
Over the past several months, here are the different scenarios we've lived through. Grab some popcorn. It's worth it:
- A client who sent all our UX/UI mockups for their new website to an AI and sent us back a Word document saying "here are my feedback, please take them into account"
- A client who told us she didn't like the brand identity we'd created and asked us to use the one she'd generated with ChatGPT, saying "you can think about the colours though"
- A client who was supposed to give us feedback on their brand strategy and, instead of reading it and sharing their observations, sent us a copy-paste of Claude's response in HTML format (completely unusable) with the message "please update the strategy according to my feedback"
- Clients who, in our conversations on our messaging tool, integrated an AI that replies on their behalf (and who, in the process, completely lose the thread of the discussion)
From branding experts to AI educators
Our role is evolving dramatically these days. We find ourselves having to explain to certain clients that AI doesn't know everything, can't do everything, and that they need to trust us.
A few weeks ago, we even held a full-team reflection session to anticipate these kinds of AI-related situations before they happen.
We've even caught ourselves having to justify more than 10 years of brand-building experience against what a machine produced in 30 seconds. It's not a question of ego — it's a question of understanding what our craft actually is.
There are things AI will never be able to do, and we now state them upfront at the start of every project:
- Knowing what's right for X client, in Y market, at this precise moment
- Sensing the human, reading between the lines, feeling a brand's culture, listening to its gut
- Taking responsibility — where we sign projects with our reputation on the line, AI carries none
What AI produces, we call "optimised average" at DARE.
What we're after is the complete opposite: "deliberate exception."
The more powerful the tools become, the rarer and more valuable human judgement gets. The clients who understand that move faster than the rest.
But for those who believe AI can replace everything…we'll keep welcoming them with a smile, with kindness, and with a couple of paracetamol in our back pocket.
To every B2B company out there: we feel you.
To every creative agency: we feel you hardcore.
To every client who feels something click while reading this: a hotline was created just for you at help@madebydare.com
If reading this article makes you feel a gap between what your brand is today and what it should be, it's probably the right time to talk.Each month, we open a few slots for a strategic conversation with leaders who've decided to act. Not a sales pitch — a real conversation. Book a call at www.madebydare.com
