AI Is Powerful. Experience Is the Secret Sauce.

Let’s get this out of the way up front:
AI is impressive. Sometimes shockingly impressive.

It can write, design, narrate, animate, analyze, summarize, and spit out ideas faster than any human ever could. It’s no longer a “nice-to-have” tool it’s officially part of the creative and marketing toolbox.

But here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: AI is only as good as the human telling it what to do.

And that’s where experience matters.

I’ve spent close to 30 years in the ad agency world writing, designing, branding, strategizing, launching campaigns, fixing broken ones, and learning (sometimes the hard way) what actually works. So when I use AI today whether it’s ChatGPT, AI video tools, narrators, or creative platforms i’m not asking it to think for me. I’m using it to work with me.

The distinction is everything.

Everyone Has Access to the Tools. Not Everyone Knows How to Use Them.

Here’s the truth: Anyone can open ChatGPT and ask it to write a headline.
Anyone can generate a logo, a script, or a video in minutes.

But knowing what to ask, what to ignore, what to refine, and what will actually resonate with a real audience? That doesn’t come from a prompt. It comes from experience.

AI will happily give you:

• A perfectly written message that says absolutely nothing
• A strategy that sounds smart but won’t move the ending
• Creative that checks all the boxes and still misses the mark

Without the ability to vet, shape, and challenge what AI produces, you’re not gaining an advantage you’re just blending in faster.

AI Doesn’t Replace Judgement. It Requires It.

At Splendor, we don’t just blindly trust AI outputs. We interrogate them.

Is this on-brand?
Does this align with the business goal?
Would this actually work in the real world?
Does this sound human or like it was written by a robot that’s read too many marketing blogs?

AI doesn’t know your client, their industry, their customers, or their internal politics. It doesn’t understand nuance, timing, or context unless you give it those guardrails and even then, it needs supervision.

That’s where decades of creative and strategic judgment come into play. We use AI to accelerate thinking, not replace it. To explore ideas faster, not settle for the first decent one. To get better quality work, not just pumping more work.

AI Is the Tool. Experience Is the Advantage.

We fully embrace AI. We use it everyday. But we don’t confuse access with expertise.

What separates us from the pack isn’t that we use AI. It’s that we know how to push it, shape it, challenge it, and improve it. That only comes from years of doing the work, making mistakes, learning lessons, and understanding what actually delivers results.

AI is powerful. Experience is irreplaceable. One amplifies the other but only one actually knows what it’s doing.