We are not going to pretend we have it all figured out.
Like most agencies, we are in the middle of it. Integrating AI into a creative workflow is not a one-time decision. It is an ongoing process of figuring out where it helps, where it gets in the way, and where the work still needs a human in the room.
Here is what we have learned so far.
Where AI has changed how we work
The biggest shift has not been in what we produce. It has been in how fast we get to the right starting point.
In strategy, AI has become a research accelerator. Audience insights, cultural trends, competitive landscapes — what used to take days of manual research now takes hours. That does not mean we trust the output blindly. It means we spend less time gathering information and more time interrogating it, pushing back on it, and building something original from it.
In copy, AI has changed the drafting phase. We use it to generate first drafts, explore different tones, and pressure-test messaging directions. But the output is always a starting point, never a finish line. The difference between a first draft and a final draft is where the real creative work happens, and that has not changed.
In design, AI-powered tools have shortened production timelines on certain deliverables. Mockups, iterations, visual exploration — things that used to require full production cycles can now be tested and refined much faster. That speed creates more room for creative experimentation, not less.
Where the human touch is still everything
There is a version of this conversation where AI eventually replaces the creative team. We do not believe that version, and not just because we work in an industry where relationships matter.
The work we do at Vaquero is grounded in cultural intelligence. Understanding what a brand means to a Latino family in San Antonio is not something you can prompt your way into. It comes from lived experience, from genuine community relationships, from years of being inside the culture rather than analyzing it from the outside.
AI can tell you what the data says. It cannot tell you what it feels like to open the fridge on the morning of a big game and see your country’s colors on a bottle. It cannot write the line that makes someone feel seen rather than targeted. It cannot make the judgment call about when a campaign is culturally right and when it is culturally tone-deaf.
That judgment is human. It will stay human.
The balance we are trying to get right
We think about AI the same way we think about any production tool: it is only as good as the strategy behind it and the creative judgment applied to its output.
The risk is not that AI makes agencies worse. The risk is that agencies use AI to produce more output without asking whether the output is better. Speed without direction is just more noise. And in a market as culturally specific as the Hispanic market, noise does not just underperform. It can actively damage brand trust.
What we are building is a process where AI handles the tasks that benefit from speed and scale, and humans handle the tasks that require judgment, cultural fluency, and genuine creative insight. The line between those two categories is something we renegotiate constantly, because the tools keep changing.
What does not change is what we are trying to do with them: help brands build real relationships with real communities. That goal does not get automated.