A longtime mentor and friend once told me: listen, learn it, master it, blow it up — and then tell me how you’ll put it back together. That advice has stuck with me throughout my career. Not just as advice for creativity, but as a way to build trust, earn a seat at the table, and do big things with the power of partnership.

That mindset matters even more now that AI is part of how we work.

In the age of AI, you can make anyone sound like an in-the-know subject matter expert on nearly anything. The brands, movements, and cultural phenomenons – the ones that really shift behaviors, preferences, and beliefs – are sparked by everything in between the lines. And that’s where humans still reign supreme. You can’t change or improve something without truly understanding it. 

AI can help us move faster, but for agencies and brands that retain them, it can’t replace the human mind’s grasp on people and business. That’s still on us.

Listen and Learn It

To break a system, you have to know it inside and out.

In the account management discipline, that starts with immersion: Being curious about a client’s business, industry, and pressures, because why not? Ask questions. Listen closely. Pay attention to how decisions are made and what success actually looks like beyond the KPIs on a slide deck. Do we have an opportunity to make our client look like a star or set their dream in motion?  Can we push the boundaries on something just because it’s good business? Ask an AI and a human those questions, and you’ll get vastly different answers.

I tell my team to always treat it like you own it. Owners have a point of view. Clients hire agencies because we’re not in their four walls every day – internal teams can do incredible things, but outsides eyes bring a fresh perspective.

A good brief points to a problem. A great brief has an opinion that guides the work. An often uncomfortable, all-too-real opinion. Reading between the lines, noticing nuance, and understanding unspoken needs is where human intuition matters most.

AI accelerates this phase by processing large volumes of information, summarizing trends, and organizing messy data. But speed without context doesn’t yield depth. AI surfaces patterns, but it’s not great at telling you why they exist or what could happen next. We still have to do that ourselves.

“Curiosity isn’t just about gathering information — it’s about noticing nuance and understanding what isn’t being said.”

Master It

Mastery shows up when the work becomes intuitive, and you feel ready to take bold risks that pay off.

When you’ve dug into a business, you start to anticipate issues before they surface. You know which data matters and can explain what’s happening in ways people understand.

Treating client work as your own builds trust. AI supports mastery by handling manual work, like summarizing trends and pressure-testing initial ideas, but it doesn’t replace human judgment.

AI works best when enhancing work we’ve already shaped. Drafting from scratch often produces generic output, but feeding AI your frame, rough thoughts, and context can dramatically improve the result.

“AI amplifies human judgment —but it doesn’t replace it.”

Blow It Up

Once you know the system, you earn the right to question it.

This is where account service moves beyond project management. It’s being willing to say, “I don’t know if this is quite right,” or “what if we’re solving the wrong problem?” That requires a point of view shaped by data, intuition, and empathy.

AI can pressure-test ideas or model scenarios, but it doesn’t decide what’s worth challenging. Yep, you guessed it – that still comes from us.

Do you find yourself asking AI for guidance in decisions you didn’t need help with before? If so, I believe you’re on a fast track to losing your edge. When sharing AI-generated insights with clients, check the work — just like we’d verify a junior teammate’s output. AI hallucinates, occasionally cites untrustworthy sources, or invents evidence. Instead, treat AI as a collaborator: feed it rough ideas, provide context, and refine the output. AI sharpens your point of view and will help you blow up the system, but you have to drive it rather than asking it to drive you.

Put It Back Together

AI hasn’t changed why clients hire agencies, but it is changing how we work with them.

At the core of every strong client relationship is trust: the confidence that someone understands your business, sees the nuance behind the numbers, and is willing to challenge you when it matters. AI can speed up and deepen learning, surface insights, and sharpen ideas, but it can’t replace the human responsibility to listen deeply and make informed decisions with care.

The future of high-trust partnerships won’t belong to teams who use AI the most — it will belong to those who use it well. That means treating AI as a collaborator, not a crutch.

Trust is still built the same way it always has: through thoughtful work, honest conversations, and humans who care.

Learn more about Stoltz’ views on AI.