AI-Ready CMO
One agency CEO says 85% of client briefs are now written with AI
Her verdict: "It's a little bit ridiculous."
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Almost Friday, folks.
Open the last brief your team sent an agency. Now count the frameworks.
Nadja Bellan-White, North American CEO of M&C Saatchi, estimates that 85% of the briefs her agency gets from clients are written using AI tools. She said so at Digiday's Media Buying Summit, and said it's approaching "a tipping point," Digiday reports.
The result, by Digiday's account, is documents that run into the hundreds of pages. "How many times can you tell me I need this to 'tie back to commercial objectives'?" she asked.
This is one of the most common jobs we've handed to AI. More than half of marketers and agencies (56.4%) now use it to build strategy, media or creative briefs, according to a Basis Technologies survey from July and August. And the cost lands somewhere. Bloated documents steal time from whoever has to read them.
"They have exported all of their thinking to AI," said Tony Russo, VP of innovation and strategy at agency Mile Marker. "It's a judgment problem."
Some honesty first. 85% is one CEO's estimate, from the agency side of the table. Digiday itself says bad briefs aren't new. AI just made it cheaper to write a long one.
Here's why I think it matters more than a grumble. The brief is where a marketing team decides what it's actually trying to do. Hand that to a tool and you've skipped the decision and kept the paperwork. The agency then prices, plans and staffs against a document no person really wrote.
Bellan-White's fix is almost rude in its simplicity: "Turn off your laptop." Then look the other person in the eye and talk about it, because "if you actually have to have a conversation, that means you actually have to know what you're talking about."
So try this on your next brief. One page. Written first by the person who owns the goal, with AI as what she called a sparring partner after that. If it won't fit on a page, you don't know what you want yet.
Could the person who signed your last brief explain it without opening it?
ALSO TODAY
Cloudflare's CEO told investors that helping customers attract AI agents is "sort of the new version of SEO," and that OpenAI pays for crawl hints, SEJ reports.
Pinterest's AI rules join its terms of service today, so abusing its AI tools can cost users their accounts, PPC Land reports.
Google's help page now says Performance Max may filter out brand and navigational searches, leaving them to Search campaigns, PPC Land reports.
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TALK ON THE MARKET
Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, on what he dislikes more than slop:
He could be describing that brief. It stings because the person who sent it can do better, and you both know it.
NUMBERS MATTER
10% to 30%. How much of Google search budgets one agency exec, Power Digital's Bryce Hamlin, says is being reallocated, Digiday reports. Two others told Digiday 10% to 20% and about 10%, of budgets being questioned.
These are buyers describing their own clients, which is a long way from a survey, and none of it says the money has left for good. One of them named ChatGPT as a place those dollars are looking. After Monday's numbers, I'd ask to see the receipts first.
TRY THIS TODAY
Cut your next content brief down to what a writer actually needs.
Here is our brief: rewrite it as one page with the target audience, the intent behind the request, the goal and a short outline, and flag every line that doesn't change a decision.
Then list the three questions a writer or agency would still need answered before starting.Paste in: your current brief, the audience and the goal. You get back: a one-page brief, a list of the lines you can lose and the questions still open. The full SEO Content Brief Generator adds live SERP research, title options and a full outline.
CMO CORNER
Every process you delegate without design becomes a future fire.
The briefs weren't handed to AI in any meeting. Someone was short of time, the tool was open, and the draft looked finished. A few months later it's how briefs get made, and you didn't choose that.
Delegating to AI is still delegating. If there's no definition of what good looks like, you get volume, and your agency's next invoice pays for reading it.
So design it. Agree on a brief format with your team this week: one page, one named owner, one sentence on the goal. AI can pressure-test it after a human has written the first version.
Then read two briefs together every month, out loud if you can stand it. Ask the author what they'd cut. The fire you're preventing is the campaign that shipped because nobody noticed there was no idea in it.
TOOL UPGRADE
Three tools for getting your own thinking on the page first:
Hynote — best for professionals who want meeting notes and action items captured and synced across devices. Try Hynote here →
Wispr Flow — best for leaders who'd rather dictate a first draft than type one, with an AI notetaker alongside. Try Wispr Flow here →
Quillbot — best for tightening tone on copy you've already written, useful for tactical refinement and not for the strategic thinking. Try Quillbot here →
→ We have 300+ curated, filtered, and categorized AI tools in our directory. Browse to find the best ones that help your marketing team.
LEARN THIS
The Prompt Playbook for Modern Marketers is our 25-page guide to briefing AI like a strategist. It's built on the P.A.C.T. Framework: Persona, Ask, Context, Template. Use it when your team's AI drafts run long and say little, because the problem usually starts with what the tool was asked.
First step this week: take one prompt your team reuses and rewrite it with P.A.C.T. Then test it across two tools and save the better version in a shared prompt library.
→ We publish workshops, courses, guides, manuals, and more on AI marketing for free. Browse our learning resources for free.
BRAND SLOP
BuzzFeed's stock fell to $0.57 after its third-quarter results, a 38% drop in a single morning and a long way from a high of $2.09 earlier this year, Futurism reports.
In March the company conceded "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue. In May a company tied to Byron Allen's family bought a majority stake, and Allen announced that "with the power of AI, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube." About two months after he took over, it laid off 33% of its remaining staff.
I doubt AI alone sank it. But it's been selling AI as the plan since 2023. What's the AI story in your strategy that only works if nobody checks the numbers?
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