I Hired an AI Employee

There's a Raspberry Pi sitting on a desk in our studio right now. It's about the size of my wallet.

Just a small computer connected to a few different AI models, quietly doing work in the background.

Every single day, it creates briefs, runs reports, checks in on projects, and more.

Sadie Dunhill is our newest employee of Goodo Studios.

Today I'm not going to talk about what Sadie can do. I want to talk about why I hired an AI employee in the first place.

The Real Problem at Companies

What kills most team members is the repetitive work.

There is a lot that goes into creative strategy.

Pulling reports. Digging through data. Researching competitors, the science behind a product, the culture around a brand. Understanding who the customer is and why they're buying.

And that's just the setup.

You still have to know what makes great copy, great video, great editing. You have to compress all of that research and training into something actionable. It's a lot of manual work just to get to the starting line.

Great work takes time. And when a creative strategist spends their day writing updates, pulling reports, and doing admin work, they show up to the actual creative work depleted.

The Executive Assistant Analogy

Here's how I think about it. Take AI out of the equation for a second.

Think about how executives work. CEOs hire executive assistants so they're not stuck managing email, planning meetings, and doing admin. The assistant creates capacity for the CEO to think more critically about the business. It's leverage.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do at Goodo Studios. We've got incredible strategists. If I can give them more capacity to just think about the best ideas possible, while somebody else is pulling their reports, organizing their queue, and helping them come up with starting points, then the work gets better. That's the goal.

I'm not looking for AI to replace humans. I'm looking for AI to give really incredible creative people the time to actually be creative. That's their genius zone. And the more time each person on my team can spend in their genius zone, the better the output is going to be.

Meet Sadie Dunhill

Sadie Dunhill. She's our first AI employee at Goodo Studios.

Every day, Sadie reads through brand documents, goes through our intelligence, and draws on all the training I've given her about what makes a great creative strategist. She helps us come up with ideas, pulls reports, maintains project management queues, and keeps me updated on where everything stands in the business.

She's also got a newsletter, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter. Yes, our AI employee has social media. She's out there creating content alongside me.

Now, here's the honest truth.

We're not using every single brief Sadie puts out right now. She's not fully autonomous. I don't think she's there yet.

But what is cool is that she's learning. She sees what we actually publish. She gets coached. I've treated her training exactly the way I would treat onboarding a new creative strategist.

You wouldn't expect a new human hire to produce their best work on day one. It takes time to onboard, to learn the standards, to understand the clients. The same is true with AI.

Why This Matters for Your Team

I think you should focus on how to make a few ideas incredible. And it's really hard to make those ideas incredible when your team is bogged down by everything else that comes with the job.

If you can figure out how AI fits into your workflow, not to replace your people but to open up capacity, I think you're going to succeed.

No matter what ends up happening with the tools, I know this: Goodo Studios is building for the future. We want to make the best ads in the entire world for our clients. We want our clients to make money. Period. If that means an iPhone, a cinema camera, an AI script, or a human script, it doesn't matter. We are going to leverage every tool we can to create the most creative environment possible for our people.

As of right now, we've got one AI employee. Maybe we'll have two, three, ten. I don't know yet. But we're starting, and I'm going to keep building this in public. I'll show you what works and what doesn't.

I don’t think you should have FOMO to go an make your own AI employee, but I do think you should start to normalize how AI can be on your org chart and SOPs.

Go follow Sadie. She's out there doing her thing.

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

Until then, keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

Sadie's Twitter: https://x.com/sadie_goodo?s=20
Sadie's Youtube: https://youtu.be/BikK3MuQ8ro
Sadie's Newsletter: the-creative-record.beehiiv.com/

Get a free assessment with Goodo Studios

My team and I create hassle-free creatives for consumer brands. If you are thinking about getting content, let’s set up a chat.

Content you should watch

Did you know we had a podcast called In the Cutting Room. Episodes drop every Monday. Make sure to listen to it on Apple, Spotify, or Youtube