AI, Agency BS & the Myth of Creative Obsolescence

Let’s just say it: most ad agencies are treating AI the same way toddlers treat glitter—smearing it all over everything, hoping it looks fancy, but never once asking if it belongs.

Welcome to Season Four of The ADOTAT Show, where we don't just ask the hard questions—we put people in the hot seat and let the industry feel the heat. And no one better to help us light the match than Jay Friedman, CEO of Goodway Group, the man who scaled a fully remote agency into a media machine while most CMOs were still figuring out how to unjam the office fax.

This season kicks off with something the industry desperately needs: a sharp slap of reality about artificial intelligence.

Jay doesn’t mince words. He told me that yes, AI is going to be used for cost-cutting—and honestly, that’s boring. That’s expected. That’s the table stakes. But what matters, he said, is what happens after the automation. That’s where imagination comes in. The real winners? They're not the ones using AI to make banner ads faster or clean up Excel tabs. They're the ones turning AI into their thinking partner, their creative accomplice, their co-pilot in innovation.

Jay's exact words? “AI should be an imagination partner.” Not a cost-cutting mechanism. Not a glorified proofing assistant. Not another department with a fancy acronym and a license for Midjourney.

He’s walking the talk, too. Jay’s already built seven custom GPTs for himself. One of them is an executive coach, trained on business thinkers, leadership models, and a whole lot of tough love. After a meeting he wasn’t thrilled about, he fed it the transcript and asked what he could’ve done better. The AI replied—straight up—that he should own his mistake, tell his team what he’d do differently, and show up better next time. It even laid out the short-term fix, the behavioral shift, and a long-term habit change to drive growth.

Let me repeat: Jay Friedman has built a robot that holds him accountable in ways most corporate boards can’t.

And while everyone else is debating prompt templates for “increase engagement,” Jay is talking about building auditable, adaptive AI systems that don’t just report metrics—but shape leadership behavior.

But this wasn’t just an AI therapy session. We dug into the industry's pathological need to confuse cheaper with smarter. Jay laid it bare: the obsession with cost-cutting is understandable, but dangerous. "Marketers keep looking at the numerator," he said, referring to cost, "but the real work is growing the denominator.” That’s not just good math—it’s gospel.

He dropped this gem like it was obvious: “Everything in marketing is cost per outcome. Cost per whatever. We need to shrink the numerator and grow the outcome.” But instead, the industry’s been treating AI like a pair of scissors to trim the fat, rather than a scalpel to shape the future.

And if you think this is some abstract executive rambling, Jay’s already applying it. Take Dollar General—yes, the retailer everyone underestimates. Goodway Group supports their retail media network, and unlike the thousands of other RMNs popping up like adtech mushrooms after a rainstorm, this one is built on shared value. Jay told me that they’ve structured the relationship so that Goodway only wins when Dollar General wins. “That kind of value alignment,” he said, “forces both sides to focus on outcomes, not outputs.”

And that retail media narrative? It’s not a tax, it's a takeover. Jay made it clear: “Retail media is the most underrepresented conversation in our industry.” While the rest of the ecosystem is scrambling to duct-tape together identity post-cookiepocalypse, retailers already know their customers. They’ve got the first-party data. They’ve got the checkout receipts. They’ve got what matters.

But still, many brands treat retail media as if it’s some mafia-style shakedown. According to Jay, that’s because too many CPGs are stuck in a mindset that media is either bought by their agency or demanded by their retail partner—and both sides are holding their budgets like Cold War secrets. The truth? Most agencies are afraid of losing control, and retail media threatens their seat at the budget table.

And if you want a Jay Friedman truth bomb? Here you go: he told me that if transparency were mandatory in this industry—if every agency had to actually show where the money went—Goodway would grow five times over. Why? Because he’s convinced a third of agencies wouldn’t survive that level of sunlight. Not because they’re evil. Just because they’ve built entire business models around opacity, inefficiency, and plausible deniability.

The man's not just speculating—he’s betting his growth on it.

We talked about a lot: how AI should be integrated into client-facing pitches—not hidden behind the curtain. How most “strategic planning” today is just recycled performance dashboards. And how if agencies want to stay relevant, they’d better stop feeding AI scraps and start letting it rewrite how they think.

Jay’s doing it. He’s already building AI-driven tools that let clients interact with data in real time—ask questions, explore strategy, challenge assumptions. Not just some demo reel with a hype track. Actual, operational intelligence, not some agency trying to make the same media plan look sexy with a new slide transition.

And then there was the story of the VR bomb.

During a virtual team-building escape room, Jay grabbed a virtual bomb and chucked it into a virtual wormhole while his team yelled “What are you doing?” His answer was perfect. “It was a bomb. I didn’t have time to explain.” That’s leadership in a nutshell—and also maybe the best metaphor for adtech in 2025. We’re all holding bombs. The question is: who’s bold enough to throw it?

So yeah. This isn’t your usual podcast episode. This was a manifesto wrapped in dry humor, served with a side of peanut butter (yes, he’d bring that to a desert island), and topped with a healthy dose of "get your act together."

Because if Jay Friedman’s building GPTs that give better feedback than most CMOs, and your team is still trying to figure out how to prompt “Write ad for shampoo,” it might be time to rethink everything.

Welcome to Season Four.
No fluff. No scripts. Just truth, talent, and tech that doesn’t make excuses.

Jay Friedman’s not here for the theater. He’s here to build.
And if you’re not thinking that big? You’re already obsolete.

🧠🔥 Next up in this issue: Why retail media might actually be sexy (if you rebrand it), why some agencies are afraid of Dollar General, and how throwing bombs in VR might be the best leadership seminar no one’s offering.

Stay bold. Stay curious. And for G-d’s sake, stop asking ChatGPT to write your case studies. You’re embarrassing all of us.