For Dev agencies, AI disruption is also an opportunity
While AI disrupts tech agencies, it also creates opportunities: adoption requires support, data and deeper relationships. As the Growcreate annual summit kicks off, we take stock.
It is hard to maintain a distinct company culture when everyone is working remotely. Growcreate, the digital solutions agency I co-founded 14 years ago, makes it look easy. Informal yet professional, technical yet customer-focused, we remain true to ourselves and to our clients.
As we gather in Prague this week for our annual summit, we are taking stock of a fast-moving landscape. Code and marketing are the areas most immediately impacted by AI. Clients expect us to use AI to expedite development, which puts pressure on billable hours. Learning a new tech stack will take time. In an overhyped, noisy marketplace, establishing credibility is hard.
Challenges are real for established companies, but so are opportunities.
1. Increased demand for support
No technology survives without being maintainable. Businesses evolve, and technology must be able to track their growth. To move from pilots to production, companies need access to mature and responsive support operations.
AI will automate some tasks, but at its core, technical support is intensely human-centric. Investigating edge cases, communication and negotiation are areas where humans will continue to excel. This plays to the strengths of companies like Growcreate, which prioritise support and iterative enhancements over one-off projects.
2. AI trains run on data rails
AI only delivers value when trained on large volumes of high-quality, interconnected datasets. Improving workflows with AI agents will only be possible if they can connect to multiple systems across departments and environments. This is challenging, both technically and organisationally.
In this environment, agencies with a broad technical orientation are well positioned to perform. Companies should look for partners who can integrate data, Cloud, and DevOps to ensure their AI solutions run on well-maintained data pipelines.
3. Exploration to exploitation
AI is finally boring; the flow of LLM releases is a mere backdrop to the real story: adoption. As focus shifts from exploration to exploitation, companies will need independent advisers and integrators they can trust. To design workflows that bridge departments, trust will need to be strong and durable.
To drive adoption, businesses will engage partners willing to build deeper and stronger relationships. Agencies that listen to customer needs and can work across departments will prosper.
We will continue to support, to enhance, to evolve
Growcreate was founded as digital transformation was reaching maturity. We disrupted web designers who did not see that our craft was moving from projects to ongoing support. That design was a subset of customer experience, and Cloud was not fancy hosting but agility.
Along the way, we built capability and the kind of staying power that most agencies only dream of. Our average client stays with us for 5 years, and 5 of them have been with us for over a decade. Our revenue is growing, recurring and diversified.
Businesses facing disruption need two things: the flexibility to adapt to the new world and the strength to navigate the transition. Few companies look forward to disruption — unless they are ready for it.