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Don’t Compete With AI. Build What It Can’t.
Dominic de Bourg
April 26, 2025
Reading time: 4 minutes
I’m talking to a very specific kind of person.
You work in the creative industry.
And every day, you see headlines about AI.
You want to be excited. On the surface, you are. You read the think pieces. You listen to the podcasts. They all tell you the same thing: adapt or get left behind. Only the mediocre will be replaced.
They say AI is just a tool—a force multiplier. It’ll make you better. Faster. Sharper.
But if you’re being honest, there’s a knot in your stomach.
Because under all the optimism, there’s fear.
Here’s the truth:
AI is just an accelerant.
What you’re seeing isn’t new.
It’s the death of the creative industry; sped up.
What used to take a team, six figures, and three months now takes a teenager with an iPhone and a weekend.
Big budget campaigns became disposable content. Creativity became a commodity.
Why? Because the numbers said so.
Brands realized they didn’t need to spend $700k on a glossy TV spot when they could pay a creator $1,500 to post a video that actually performs.
The creative industry isn’t dying — it’s evolving without you.
When profit runs the game, the numbers win every time.
In 2024, Alphabet made $264.59 billion in ad revenue.
That’s 76.3% of their entire income.
Let’s make it real:
That’s $727.1 million per day.
The Burj Khalifa cost $1.5 billion to build.
Google can fund 176 Burj Khalifas in a year—just from ads.
This is the kind of money fueling AI.
And yet, options for creatives feel like they’re shrinking. Why?
Because we’re stuck between two models:
Model One: The Agency
Where most of us came up.
Designers. Writers. Strategists. Producers.
You trade time for money. A client comes with a problem. You scope it, price it, deliver it.
It’s a service business. A good one. But hard to scale.
Clients always want the holy trinity: speed, quality, cost.
Before AI, you could give them two.
Now they expect all three.
Agency work starts off simple, then gets more complex. You chase bigger deals. Bigger retainers. It’s feast or famine.
But the upside?
You can make money tomorrow with a pitch and a proposal.
Model Two: The Media Brand
This is where the new game is being played.
A solo creator puts out content. Builds a niche audience. The audience says what they want. The creator builds it. Sells it. Repeats.
It’s slower to start. But over time, it scales without killing you.
Agencies start easy, then get hard.
Media brands start hard, then get easy.
If you want to go deeper on this, read Content Inc.
This is the pivot: learn to create at scale.
You can’t outpace AI.
But you can choose a different game.
The path forward isn’t built yet. You build it as you walk it.
Here’s how I’m doing it—and how you can too.
I’m not great on camera. But I can write. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?
Social is noisy. You need something that builds real trust. Long-form, focused, actionable content. That’s a newsletter.
Newsletters are Trojan horses for business.
They’re simple to start (not easy—but simple).
And the numbers don’t lie:
Google Search CTR: 6.42%
Display Ads CTR: 0.57%
Facebook Ads CTR: 0.90%
Email open rate: 35.63%
If you’re bootstrapping, email is your moat.
My tools:
Publishing cadence: 1 email a week. This is the first.
Step 2: Build a Commission Network
You’re already using great tools. Promote them.
BeeHiiv and Notion have affiliate programs. If you use my links and sign up, I get a small commission. No shame. That’s part of the model.
Sign up for PartnerStack and explore affiliate programs for tools you already use.
Golden rule: Only promote stuff you genuinely believe in. Don’t be a clown.
Step 3: Repurpose Like a Pro
Take the weekly email and slice it into pieces:
YouTube: Read it to camera (I said I'm not great on camera, but I'm damn sure going to try)
Instagram: Snippets as carousels
Reels: Use OpusClip to chop the YouTube vid
LinkedIn: Post snappy, bullet point versions
One piece of content. Four platforms. No burnout.
Step 4: Listen
This part’s not sexy, but it’s the most important.
I have no idea what you’d pay me for right now.
But I’m betting the execution will reveal it.
Audience first. Offers second.
You’re still reading this because something’s resonating.
You’re a creative with a brain full of ideas and notebooks full of plans. You’re just trying to figure out how to survive this shift without burning out or selling out.
You’ve got responsibilities. Family. Bills. Limited time. Limited energy.
But if you’ve made it this far, I’m betting you’ve got enough to make a move.
We’re doing this together. 1% at a time.
We’re building something that doesn’t rely on gatekeepers.
We’re learning to share, ship, and communicate before the moment passes us by.
Not for perfection.
Just for momentum.
Let’s move.
---
“It all feels like a dead end, you know?”
Maggie twirled the glass of bourbon slowly, pushing her words through it, hoping they would expand like light through a prism. Beside her, Amanda did the same.
The bar was tired. The music was a murmur, muffled just like the lights and the spirit of the place. The orange city glow spat on the floor in patches through the dirty window panes.
“Just years of skill and ambition all stuck behind this faucet that closes tighter by what feels like the hour at this point. The little drip we were holding on to went from once a minute to once a week.”
“Everything’s a commodity now, thanks to A.I.,” said Amanda. “The stubborn thing for me is that despite it all, despite all the signs saying to quit; switch and go do something else, I still want to do creative work.”
“It feels like a martyrdom, honestly,” said Maggie. “Graphic design is all I really know how to do. I’m thirty-eight and I feel like my options are to dance on the internet or go to jail where I’ll have a roof over my head and consistent meals.”