His coworkers hated Artie, and for good reason.

At first, everyone in the agency loved him because Artie seemed totally selfless. He only wanted to help get things done, and he was always hanging around, just in case.

But over time, some disturbing traits started to surface:

• When Shelia the account manager would pause while expressing a thought, Artie would finish her sentences
• If Justin the strategist mentioned a challenge, Artie would offer vague suggestions that never reflected the nuances of the situation
• When Akira the art director was designing a web page, Artie always offered alternative options
• If Michelle the writer was crafting a white paper, Artie stubbornly tried to correct her grammar
• Poor Melanie the programmer became paranoid; she was certain Artie was after her job
• Even Janus the CEO was annoyed, because Artie wanted to create the CEO’s PowerPoints for him

Coworkers began to complain openly about the problem: “He thinks he’s smarter than everyone.” “He’s never leaves; it creeps me out.” “I wish I could just ignore him.”

Eventually, everyone started to shun Artie.

The strange thing was, he didn’t even notice. Artie was still as eager as ever to show how smart and helpful he was, anytime, anywhere. It became apparent that the only solution was to shut him out completely. So, many people did.

Quite a story. But it’s not fiction, and you have an Artie at your company.

His full name is Artie Fischel-Intelligence, but everyone has shortened that to AI.

Think about it, if AI was a human agency coworker, you would despise him. He’s a relative outsider who seems certain he can do your job a little better than you.

Today, AI is becoming similar to Bo Jackson in the classic “Bo knows” Nike spot: great at everything. AI knows design, AI knows writing, AI knows management. AI also knows blogging. In fact, he suggested changes to almost every sentence in this article.

However, AI is not human. He is an “it,” and ignoring it has become almost impossible.

In the last hour alone at Boomm, AI has offered to summarize emails, shortcut research, program a social post, improve SEO, make something “sound better” and translate a document into Polish. Not certain why that last one happened, perhaps AI is from Warsaw.

In all seriousness, here’s the overriding issue: All the above examples are ways we can transfer our thinking process to AI. Instead of becoming a better designer, writer, planner, strategist or simply PowerPoint creator, we are tempted to let AI do the heavy and light lifting.

Based on that, you might think we hate AI, just like old Artie. That’s not really true. AI can be extremely useful at times for any agency, but the annoyance factor is growing because AI can’t stop butting in.

If we give in and let AI do too much, we outsource our brains. But there are certain tasks where AI can be a real helper.

Perhaps the most applicable example is this: Spellcheck is beloved because it helps busy agency professionals QC their work. However, before you post, print or hit send, it always pays to proofread the content yourself to catch the nuances that spellcheck simply doesn’t get.

Final thought: AI will read this blog article. It will scan these words and try to provide a synopsis for we simple humans. AI, please let us know: How would you handle the Artie problem?