Everyone is blaming AI for the death of ‘craft.’ Take a good look in the mirror

Everyone is blaming AI for the death of craft. The music is generic. The clothes fall apart. The furniture is disposable. And somewhere in Silicon Valley, the algorithms did it. Except they didn’t — not alone, anyway. Take a good look in the mirror. We chose speed over quality. We rewarded the cheapest option. We clicked past the handmade listing to buy the one that arrived tomorrow. We optimized everything, including the soul out of our brands. AI didn’t kill craft. We let it die — and then handed AI the shovel. As someone who is about to replace my “high-end” dishwasher for the third time in ten years, this issue has never felt more personal. But as an agency leader, I also see it in modern brand-building — a quiet death of what used to be my industry’s fundamental devotion to craft. And it’s not just about materiality, lighting, camerawork, writing, design, and other creative elements. What’s dying — or maybe never nurtured by too many companies — is the crafted wrapper that brings the story behind a brand or product to life: the meaning it creates in a customer’s life. That’s as vital to brands as artistry is to the craft of handmade goods. What’s missing is the human element — the part that gives brands, products, services, and even marketing a heart and soul. We can intuitively tell when things are created by people who care and, increasingly, when they’re not. And while the lack of craft across sectors and industries is tragic, it’s also an important opportunity for those brands willing to be held to a higher standard to bring better value to customers — offering them a real competitive advantage. The Craft Killer When it comes to this crisis of craft, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Most of it is us. We’re both told and shown from a very young age that success is only measurable by tangible standards, like money earned or things accumulated. Before long, we default to s