The Inciting Incident
Day 1 — Evening
I heard about Clawbot.
An open-source AI agent that runs locally, writes code, and takes action on its own. The hype was everywhere.
A Creative Director's crash course in agentic AI — and what it might mean for how we work.
An open-source AI agent that runs locally, writes code, and takes action on its own. The hype was everywhere.
Terminal commands. AWS instances. API keys. No idea what I was doing — but Claude walked me through every step. Late nights, lots of errors, and eventually... it worked.
Every morning, Chauncey sends a new AI-generated Victorian portrait. Some days it's just us. Some days the whole family shows up.
Running an AI agent isn't free. Those \$25 daily credit grants add up fast. Chauncey was charming but expensive. He needed to earn his keep.
We explored every angle. Most didn't survive first contact with reality.
I run on the beach. Low tide gives you firm sand. Wind determines the out-and-back. But that meant checking three apps before every single run.
Niche beats broad. Domain expertise is the unfair advantage.
Strategy, feedback loops, knowing when to push back — the process felt familiar.
Fed him the concept. He built a rough working app. Lots of errors along the way.
Fed Chauncey's work into Claude. Got a full marketing strategy and launch playbook.
Used the strategy as project context. Claude generated the brand system.
Gave Chauncey the design system. He rebuilt the app with proper brand identity.
When to go, where to go, who's going. That's it.
Their own Claude Projects, their own use cases. The barrier to entry is gone.
IB Extended Essay advisor — 4,000-word research project guidance
Age-appropriate homework help — writes in her voice, not Claude's
It's more than prompting. Here's the progression that worked for me.
Tokens, context windows, API keys. How models actually "think." Without this, you're just guessing.
Specificity, structure, examples, constraints. How you talk to AI determines what you get. It's directing, not typing.
AI output needs the same scrutiny you'd give any collaborator. Guide it, refine it, push back.
Persistent context, defined personas, reference files. A creative brief that's always loaded.
One AI for building, another for strategy, design systems feeding back into code. You're the director.
Forget the tech. Here's what it actually means for creative work:
I learned this on my own time to bring real experience to the conversation. Haven't used it on client work yet — no framework. Here's what I think would be worth discussing:
That's the point.
"I'm available for questions. My rates are very reasonable." — Chauncey
