The Age of the AI Creative Studio
For decades, the Agency of Record (AOR) was the only game in town. It was a model built for a different era, an era of long lead times, massive media buys, and predictable channels.
Today, that model is a relic.
For modern CMOs and marketing leaders, the traditional agency structure has become a bottleneck, not a benefit. It’s defined by:
Bloated Costs: You’re paying for massive overhead, layers of management, and billable hours that reward inefficiency, not outcomes.
Glacial Speed: Ideas get watered down through endless approval chains. By the time a campaign launches, the cultural moment has passed.
Siloed Expertise: Your "team" is a disconnected group of specialists who often work on competing priorities, not a unified creative force.
The data backs this up. According to a widely cited CMO Club study, while 46% of CMOs were still using the traditional agency of record model, only 14% reported being "very satisfied." This dissatisfaction isn't just talk. Brands are voting with their feet, with giants like P&G and Unilever reportedly slashing their agency rosters by half—cutting thousands of firms—in a decisive shift toward more agile partners.
This isn't just about cutting costs. It's a fundamental search for a better way to create.
Enter the AI-First Studio
This is not your old agency with a new AI plug-in. An AI-First Studio is an entirely new operating system for creative production, built from the ground up with technology at its core.
It’s a model where a lean, multidisciplinary team of human creatives is amplified by AI. They work as conductors, orchestrating technology to crush the friction in the creative process.
What does this look like in practice?
From months to days: We can generate photorealistic worlds, iterate on complex VFX, and go from brief to cinematic campaign in a fraction of the time.
From massive crews to focused talent: We replace expensive, sprawling productions with agile teams focused purely on the story and performance.
From fixed retainers to flexible value: The focus shifts from selling time to delivering high-impact creative, efficiently and transparently.
At Anima Studios (animastudios.ai), we are living this future. We believe that when AI handles the heavy lifting—the rendering, the repetitive tasks, the logistical nightmares—it frees human talent to do what it does best: strategize, dream, and create emotional connections.
This is the new equation for creative. It’s how challenger brands can out-create market leaders and how established brands can innovate at the speed of culture.
The age of the bloated, slow-moving agency is over. The future of creative production is agile, amplified, and intelligent.
About the series & the author
This article is part of an ongoing series exploring the monumental shift of generative AI across the creative industries—from business and philosophy to technology and storytelling. We’re challenging myths, unpacking value, and redefining what creativity means in this new era.
I’m Riccardo Fredro, founder of Anima Studios—where we fuse cutting‑edge AI with over a decade of storytelling, filmmaking, marketing, and sound design to craft visually stunning, emotionally resonant content . Through this series, I’ll share insights and actionable perspectives on how generative AI is transforming leadership, culture, and the creative economy.
Stay tuned for more — and let’s reimagine creativity together.
