From Darkrooms to Digital Agents: A Head of Content’s Reckoning with AI

There’s a moment I keep thinking about lately: I was 6 or 7 years old—asleep in my long t-shirt and tall socks bunched up at the ankles—when I heard the oddest noise. A technological screeching and banging sound coming from our living room. In my big socks and with a leopard-print pillow clutched tight in my arms, I padded out to see what the ruckus was. My dad sat in his computer chair, monitor glow spread warm on his face. He had just connected our home computer to the internet for the very first time, he told me, his eyes sparkling at what he’d accomplished. I nodded along knowing only that the moment was important. Although, I had no idea HOW important it was at the time; that grainy, robotic screech was the first sign of a technological shift that would fundamentally alter the rest of my life.

Where we are right now with AI feels like that again. Only bigger.

I’ve been doing marketing for tech companies of all sizes for over 20 years now, so I’ve had the good fortune of being at the precipice of most change—AI included. I’ve been toying with, testing, prompting, and pushing boundaries with AI tools since before most people were even comfortable saying “ChatGPT.” I’ve integrated it into my personal life. I’ve helped clients implement it in workflows. And yeah, it’s become a tool I turn to almost daily now in my work.

But in recent weeks, the conversation around AI has gone from a rumble to an absolute roil. And after some hard and hopeful conversations with friends, family, and colleagues I love—plus a fortuitous trip to Microsoft Build—even I’ve found myself staggering around a bit of a reckoning. The way we do work is not just evolving. It’s getting rewritten completely. Now.

Creativity, Rewired

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed a room of developers at Build and explained (without any hesitation I could sense) that a single developer can now do the work of 10 using the company’s new suite of AI tools. It wasn’t hyperbole. It was fact. Signed, sealed, delivered. This is happening already in their halls. The energy in that room shifted. My energy shifted too. What he’s talking about is a complete redefinition of what one person, one role, and one team can do. Not someday. Today. And it’s not just happening for engineering. It’s happening for all of us.

Whether you're leading a Series A startup or scaling a mature GTM engine, this matters for you too. AI is changing how we brainstorm, produce content, segment audiences, and optimize campaigns. We’re not experimenting with shiny tools anymore, we’re rethinking how your team does the work—and where your energy, investment, and creativity are best spent.

What Build brought to life for me is that we’re not just talking about tools anymore. We’re talking about AI agents joining the team. These are purpose-built digital workers that combine language models with task execution, business logic, and data access. In the not-so-distant future, we won’t be stitching together five different tools to brainstorm a campaign, write copy, segment an audience, and generate reports. We’ll be working alongside a single agent that can do all of it seamlessly.

Change is scary. But it’s also full of wild, unimaginable possibilities.

The Pervasiveness of It All

The speed of this change is surreal. After my brief stay in my hometown of Seattle, I took a quick trip up to see my mom in Port Angeles, Washington. She’s the quintessential artistic PNW mom: in her late seventies, loves going for walks outside, dotes on her small dog Maggie, and she’s a master fiber artist who’s been part of a knitting group for decades. Her home is the one I go to escape the modern-day influences of my work. And yet—during that stay, as my mom lamented the difficulty in reverse-engineering a knitted pattern for her beloved second-hand fleece vest, I suggested she get some help from ChatGPT.

Not only did it work (like, shockingly well), it kicked off a chain reaction. My mom shared her new pattern with her knitting group, she shared the ChatGPT app with her husband, and now the whole community up there is abuzz with the familiar concoction of possibility, excitement, novelty, and dread.

They’re asking ChatGPT questions they used to Google. They’re watching videos about AI-tools with new interest. And the knitting circle is perfecting their patterns with a tool they might otherwise never have used.

I’ve never seen a technological adoption move so fast or with such ease. It’s a perfect example of the pace at which our everyday lives—and the ways we work—are starting to change.

Dread, Hope, and the Shaky Middle

After inspiring my mom’s awe, I inadvertently moved on to facilitating my dad’s unease. (Listen, it’s not MY fault everyone is asking me about AI.) When I told him about the capabilities I’ve seen in real life—how AI can code, summarize legal documents, analyze trends, create content, and simulate entire marketing campaigns—he got quiet. “What’s going to happen to the economy when we don’t need people to do all the jobs wrapped up in those tasks? What happens to home values in tech-rich cities that’ll be disproportionately impacted by AI-replaced jobs?”

They’re good questions. Ones I don’t have easy answers to.

Because I’m worried too—especially for the younger professionals and others just getting started. We’re already seeing fewer reasons to hire someone who’d be writing first-draft copy. Truth is: Anyone who isn’t bringing a strong POV into the work or directly driving strategy is dangerously close to being automated. And that’s a tough pill to swallow—for all of us.

But here’s the other side of the coin: If we do this right, it could be beautiful.

There’s a very real possibility that, eventually, there will just be… less grind. Not because we’re doing less thinking or contributing less value, but because we’ll finally get to focus on the work that truly requires us. The human work. The kind of work that demands nuance, context, compassion, humor, moral judgment, and creative leaps.

We could shift from optimizing for output to optimizing for impact. From measuring productivity in hours to measuring it in outcomes. And maybe—just maybe—creativity, strategy, and original thought become more valued, not less.

It won’t happen automatically. We’d have to be intentional.

We’d have to change a lot.

But we’ve changed a lot before.

Like from My At-Home Dark Room

I grew up with parents who were artists and, by necessity, photographers. Consider: Before you could Google reference photos for paintings, you had to take the photos yourself. Naturally, we had a darkroom for processing film in our laundry room. Over the years, I developed a real reverence for the art. I loved the photography process like I’ve always loved writing—the outcome and the craft. The slow shaping of something beautiful. The patience. The transformation. The magic in the mechanics.

When digital cameras started becoming mainstream, I resisted. They were too clean. Too instant. Too easy. It felt soulless.

But eventually I got one. And I started taking more pictures. Arguably even better pictures, because when an action is easy, you’ll do it in a volume that can’t help but build skill. I grew to love the digital photography I’d originally resisted. And for decades now, I’ve been the unofficial documentarian of every trip, every party, every friends’ headshot, and every major life milestone. And, while I still play with film from time to time, I never look back in any lacking way.

AI could be like that, too.

This Is the Moment—Let’s Shape It

I’m as shaky as any of us are, as we still work to define what AI means for our future. And of course I’ll be nostalgic about the elements of our work that we’re losing. But I’m grateful to be in the room for what we’re building. I’m not watching history unfold; I’m elbow-deep in creating it. And so is the Wheels Up Collective team. We’re helping our clients navigate the shift in real-time: Identifying the right opportunities, setting ethical guardrails, preserving brand voice, and rethinking how content, strategy, and storytelling get done.

So yeah, I’ve been ahead of the curve. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still reckoning with it. And maybe you are too.

Let’s keep talking.

Let’s stay curious.

Let’s make this change count, together.