I started making AI visuals in 2023, when most business owners weren't thinking about it at all. Now they call me. Big ones. Small ones. Every conversation comes down to the same thing: spend less, get more.

Digiday just reported that marketers are backing away from AI because of the backlash. Dove and Aerie swore it off. He Gets Us shot its Super Bowl spot on film. Good for them. They have Super Bowl money. A solopreneur doesn't. A startup doesn't. A business in rapid growth, counting every dollar, doesn't. If AI saves them time and money, what's wrong with that? It's the American way.

The audience isn't running either.

Per Digiday, AI ads pulled a .76% click-through rate against .65% for human-made ones. People clicked.

On Instagram, filmmakers using AI get booed and heckled. Zack London built Gossip Goblin into a following of millions, and his first feature opens in theaters October 30. Blake Ridder's thriller Spill just hit Apple TV, Amazon and YouTube. If the work is good enough for a screen, what does the booing say?

Nobody marched for the fifty-year-old.

Yes, jobs will be lost. I get it. But where was this outrage for everyone who lost a job because of age? Paid too much. Too much experience. They'll leave in a few years. The bottom line was always the same: can I hire someone cheaper, keep them longer, and train them? Nobody marched for the fifty-year-old. AI is the younger, cheaper hire. Now that the math has a new name, everybody's paying attention.

I believe in disclosure, and it cuts both ways.

Say it's AI and some people scream foul. Don't, and some say they couldn't tell. Either way, the work has to hold up.

I'm going to hire unknown actors, lay my AI characters over their performances, and credit them by name. They get visibility they'd never get any other way.

Nobody who changed a category played it safe.

There will always be people screaming foul. I'm not building for them. I'm building for the owner who can't look big any other way. And yes, I'm going to make money doing it.

So who are you protecting? The business owner who can't afford a film crew, or the version of the industry that priced them out?