Yesterday I cut 11 designers And I kept the ones Who could actually use AI That
By Steven Pope · March 1, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Yesterday I cut 11 designers
And I kept the ones
Who could actually use AI
That is where we are now as operators
Not “AI someday”
Not “AI on the roadmap”
AI in the job description
Here is the org change we pushed through
We killed the comfort of
“One pod one dedicated designer”
Designers now live in a husk model
Not locked to a single pod
PMs route work based on priority and capacity
Designers support clients across the whole husk
Not just “their” favorites
Why
Because client demand is chaos
Some pods drowning in work
Others half idle
Same payroll
Worse outcomes
That is bad leadership
So we changed it
Two drivers behind the move
1 Resource balance
Work goes where the fire is
Not where the turf lines are
The husk lets us load balance in real time
Faster turnaround
Less idle talent
2 Technology and AI
As tools evolve
Our structure has to evolve with them
AI lets great designers scale
Iterate faster
Test more
Deliver better outcomes with the same headcount
But here is the part people miss
AI still needs strong operators behind it
The people who stayed proved they are operators
They adopt new tools without drama
They can move between pods and verticals
They treat prompts like power tools
Not like a threat to their identity
The org message to the team was simple
Your seat is secure
But the way we work is not
We will staff each husk to cover
Every client need
Upsell
And value add
With clear ownership and accountability
If you are leading a creative team right now
Ask yourself
Are you organizing for comfort
Or for client outcomes in an AI world
Because I will keep choosing
Smaller
Faster
AI fluent teams
Over bloated
Territorial
Manual‑only ones
Every time