{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Can AI Help Your Agency Win Fortune 10 Clients Instead of Replacing Your Team? With Gilad Bechar | Ep #884","description":"Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https:\/\/www.agencymastery360.com\/training \u201cHow many people can this replace?\u201d is the wrong question to ask about AI. The better question is, \u201cWhat could my team do if all the busywork disappeared?\u201d Today\u2019s featured guest unpacks how he\u2019s embedded AI across a 12-year-old agency, why it\u2019s increased hiring instead of reducing it, and what it actually takes to make AI stick culturally, not just technically. Gilad Bechar is the founder and CEO of Moburst, a global digital transformation agency that started as a mobile marketing shop and evolved into a full-service growth partner for some of the biggest brands in the world, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Samsung, and more. Over the past 12 years, Moburst has completed five acquisitions and continues to acquire two to three companies per year, intentionally expanding capabilities to become a true one-stop growth shop. In our previous conversation, we talked about acquisitions and scale. This time, we focused on what Gilad calls the next major accelerator: AI. In this episode, we\u2019ll discuss: AI is NOT a side project. AI adoption could result in more hiring, not less How your agency team could see AI as a career transformation Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you\u2019re leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That\u2019s why successful agencies use Wix Studio \u2014 built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com\/studio to get started. Treating AI as a Strategic Priority, Not a Side Project One of the biggest mistakes agencies make with AI is delegating it too low in the organization. Gilad knew early on that AI wasn\u2019t a trend; it was an operational shift. Instead of hiring a junior \u201cAI manager\u201d or tasking a developer with experiments, he hired a VP of AI and gave that role real authority. The mandate was simple but uncomfortable: if you\u2019re doing things in 2026 the same way you did them in 2024, you\u2019re already behind. That level of change creates friction, especially in senior teams with decades of experience. Gilad was clear that AI adoption couldn\u2019t be optional or political. A manager shouldn\u2019t have to \u201cfight\u201d a director or VP to change how work gets done. By putting AI leadership at the VP level, Moburst removed that bottleneck entirely. AI wasn\u2019t framed as \u201cyour work is wrong.\u201d It was framed as \u201cyour work could be 10x more effective if we rethink the process.\u201d They backed this up structurally. Every team has an AI Champion, someone who spends 20\u201330% of their time driving AI adoption within their department while still doing real client work. On top of that, there\u2019s a central AI team building protocols, agents, workflows, and even new products. The result: AI becomes part of how the agency operates, not something people dabble in when they have extra time (which no one ever has). Why AI Led to More Hiring, Not Less There\u2019s a persistent fear among agency teams that AI equals layoffs. Gilad\u2019s experience has been the opposite. The original internal goal was to increase billable capacity per employee by 50%. On paper, that could mean doing the same revenue with fewer people. In reality, what happened was far more interesting: revenue per employee increased and demand exploded. When Moburst started showing clients what was possible, new automations, new AI-powered offerings, faster insights, smarter execution, it unlocked more budget. Clients didn\u2019t just buy services; they bought innovation. They talked about it internally. They shared it with peers. And that momentum brought in larger, more sophisticated opportunities. Gilad shared an example where Moburst won two Fortune 10 companies in Q4, one of which came in looking for a media agency. Media alone would\u2019ve won the pitch. But what sealed the deal was showing how the brand could improve visibility and positioning across AI-driven discovery platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude. This is the key shift: AI freed up time and raised the ceiling on value. Instead of spending hours exporting spreadsheets, building decks, or manually stitching reports together, teams could focus on thinking, collaborating, and creating new growth levers for clients. That\u2019s not a cost-cutting story. That\u2019s a growth story. Using AI to Upgrade People, Not Replace Them Another overlooked benefit of AI is internal career transformation. Gilad talked openly about roles that are likely to disappear as platforms automate more of the execution. Media buying is a great example. When Google and Meta are telling the market that campaigns will soon require little more than a credit card and a website, the writing is on the wall. Instead of pretending that isn\u2019t happening, he decided to lean into it. Media managers, content managers, and BI specialists were given the opportunity to reskill, moving into AI-focused roles where their domain knowledge still mattered, but their output multiplied. A content manager could become an AI workflow designer. A media buyer could evolve into someone who builds and manages intelligent systems instead of manually tweaking campaigns. This reframes AI from a threat into leverage. Employees aren\u2019t stuck defending outdated tasks; they\u2019re learning future-proof skills. That mindset shift alone changes morale, retention, and performance. Building a Culture of AI Sharing and Experimentation At his agency, Gilad made sharing AI knowledge non-optional. Every week, AI Champions review what\u2019s new in the AI world and translate it into what this means for our teams right now. Monthly hackathons focus the entire team on eliminating one manual process at a time. And then there\u2019s AI Week\u2014a multi-day internal event where every team presents what they built, what worked, and what failed. The presentations aren\u2019t dry. Teams tell stories. They demo workflows. They show where things broke and how they pivoted. Some even use AI-generated video to walk through the narrative. That transparency matters. Failure isn\u2019t hidden, it\u2019s shared. And that creates trust, speed, and cross-team learning. One team\u2019s solution becomes another team\u2019s shortcut. Ideas jump departments. People start asking, \u201cHow could this apply to my work?\u201d That\u2019s when AI stops being a tool and starts becoming a multiplier. The Bigger Takeaway for Agency Owners You don\u2019t need a VP of AI tomorrow. You don\u2019t need hackathons or AI week or 16 champions. But you do need to take the first step. AI adoption doesn\u2019t start with tools. It starts with ownership. Someone has to be accountable for asking, \u201cIf we rebuilt this process today, would we still do it this way?\u201d Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success. ","author_name":"Smart Agency Podcast: The #1 Digital Marketing Agency Podcast for Social Media, SEO, PPC & Creative Agencies","author_url":"https:\/\/agencymastery360.com","html":"