I’ve been in this game long enough to have some OG internet credentials, starting from the “go-go ‘90s”: big early website projects for big names, punctuated by online media plays, graduating to national news projects requiring massive scale, and ultimately cofounding Culture Foundry where every delivery demands total accountability.
Along the way, I’ve seen many waves of change sweep through tech: mobile, content management systems, APIs, social media, Web 2.0 and 3.0, and now AI. All this while on the business side, a spate of financial bankruptcies buffeted the industry in the 2000s followed by, in more recent years, a spate of moral ones.
The intersection of those two endpoints: AI + an industry flip from utopian ambitions to dystopian ones (our response to which is the very crux of our mission statement) makes for a crossroads in tech with more dynamism and higher stakes than any time in the Internet’s history.
A Cultural and Technological Collision Point
I wrote in 2024 that the vibes in tech had turned bad and since then they’ve only gotten worse. The gleeful venality of the zeitgeist from the industry’s current overlords continues to escalate.
Then, AI entered the chat, which at first glance seemed likely to only accelerate this trend. Tech industry leaders, well past feeling any obligation to feign optimism or inclusivity on any topic, bluntly shared that AI was here to obliterate job markets, communities, and the environment, all for the ultimate net benefit of like 3 people. This position was, understandably, roundly booed by the other 7,999,999,997 humans on the planet.
However, it turns out there’s a twist, and to discover it, start using some of these AI tools yourself, at which point you’ll discover that the magic word in that sentence is “you.” AI, it turns out, is both the threat and the opportunity.
AI Is Both the Threat and the Opportunity
Reconciling this inherent contradiction is a journey, one that we traveled at Culture Foundry as we contemplated the core viability of the agency model in the age of AI. 2026 dawned with a realization that something big needed to change in how we sold, delivered and communicated value to our clients – and that it needed to change now.
With the completion of our first-ever Evolution Week (a week dedicated to investing in “secure the future” initiatives at Culture Foundry rather than next-five-minutes meetings and deadlines) we were able to bring a lot of that progress to a head. It turns out small agencies of expert practitioners (hey that’s us!) are actually in position to take best advantage of AI, and if you saw the fruits of our Evolution Week demo day, I think you’d agree. Our clients will start to see the fruits of that work soon.
Navigating the AI Crossroads
To navigate the crossroads at the intersection between the moral “why” and the AI “how” in tech, we didn’t look to Web 2.0, Web 3.0 or AIO, but back to Web 1.0. That is, we made a deliberate decision to double down on the bedrock principles that guided the original optimism and potential around the early days of the internet, principles that have guided Culture Foundry since day 1.
Be Deliberate about the Destination
With AI representing the ability to jump to light speed, the importance of accurate navigation has never been greater. Miscalculate the trajectory of a flight to the moon by one degree, and you’ll miss the mark by a few thousand miles. Miscalculate before a faraway jump at light speed and you’ll end up in the entirely wrong galaxy.
This applies to the “how” – problem definition, solution definition, and detailed specs – and the “why,” including thinking around corners to consider downstream effects. “Move fast and break things” is all fun and games, after all, until you break democracy.
Taking the time to get this navigation right is not a thunderbolt from above, but it’s the kind of diligent, detailed work that now matters more than ever before with AI-powered delivery putting more power behind every decision.
Focus on Value over Effort
Digital agencies have long run on a “time for money” hourly rate basis by default, which is the worst approach to quantifying value, except for all the other approaches. The industry debate around this was long, cautious, and, once AI crashed the party, suddenly over. The bridge behind us is out, and there’s no going back now.
The road ahead may prove bumpy, however, as how value will be quantified isn’t yet entirely clear. With AI under the command of an expert practitioner, delivery can take less time than ever before. That is, unless the practitioner is not an expert after all (often revealed post-delivery), the AI coding model changes midstream (they frequently leapfrog each other), or requirements are unclear between the client, product leader, project manager, designer and developer (see previous point).
What is clear is that accountability for value delivered will no longer be hedgeable by the number of raw hours spent on the solution. This is welcome news to many in the industry who’ve been burned by that calculus in the past. Make no mistake: This transfers risk to the agency, and managing this well will be the difference between navigating the AI crossroads successfully or getting smashed up badly when expectations and reality collide.
Commit to Quality
One side effect of tech’s moral rot, the increasing prevalence of enshittification, was seemingly worsened by the advent of AI vibe-coding, AI content slop, and the ensuing brand-damaging wipeouts when the results were committed to production.
That’s akin to firing up a power tool and just turning it loose unsupervised while you kick off for an early happy hour. With the right supervision in the right hands, however, that power tool turns out to be very powerful indeed. The key: no early happy hour. The finishing work is more essential than ever before, partly to catch the occasional hallucination that AI throws out there just for sport. No AI can substitute for a team of “humans in the loop” – at all junctures of delivery – who care deeply whether the experience delivers to a high quality standard, and don’t leave the job site until it does.
Deliver Steadfast, Human Support
While considering how best to navigate this AI crossroads, I turned to two books that had nothing to do with tech, but also everything to do with tech: “It’s Not About the Coffee” by Howard Behar and “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara. Good AI practice is to ensure there are always “humans in the loop.” We plan to take it a step further and put humans at the center.
As our Marketing Lead Nancy Simeone put it during a recent planning session, “it’s scary out there.” The waves of change in tech are accelerating, and its leaders have bluntly conveyed that they don’t have your best interests at heart. You need someone in your court who has your back, who can help you navigate the AI crossroads in a way that feels human because it is human. For our clients, that’s always been the energy at the core of Culture Foundry, and in the AI era we’re not just sticking to that approach – we’re doubling down on it.
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