Book a demo
.svg)
Michael Frank ‒ Managing Director at Die Crew AG
Michael Frank is the board member and partner of Crew, an established marketing agency from Stuttgart with 70 employees, which was founded in 1983. Specializing in “Creative Sales Campaigning,” the agency supports its customers in communication along complex sales chains. Founded as a traditional creative agency, the crew is constantly evolving and today specifically integrates AI technologies into their work in order to make their business model fit for the future.
Michael Frank has been keeping up to date with digital trends through regular visits to Silicon Valley since 2015 and brings this knowledge to the agency. Despite this preparation, the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 brought a fundamental change that also presented the crew with new challenges. It quickly became clear that this technological advance did not just mean another digital tool, but also ushered in a fundamental change for the entire industry.
“But the release of ChatGPT was the decisive turning point in the end. We recognized that the fundamentals of our industry are changing and that we all — from management to every single team member — must understand that we are facing a whole new era of creative work.”
The crew quickly realized that they needed more than just superficial AI knowledge to successfully manage this change. The agency's approach covers several levels: First, a basic understanding was created at management level, then initial knowledge was imparted through internal workshops and finally AI multipliers were identified that can advance the topic within the team. However, there was no structured way to transfer theoretical knowledge into practical applications.
This is where the collaboration with the DECAID Academy began. Unlike general AI courses, the Academy offers a curriculum developed specifically for agencies. The training modules address exactly the challenges that arise when integrating AI into creative work processes and provide practical examples that can be used directly in the daily work of the crew.
“The DECAID Academy provides exactly what we need — not abstract concepts, but practical application examples that we can integrate directly into our everyday work. They understand the specific challenges of our industry in a way that general AI training doesn't.”
The integration process is not without challenges and major questions: How is AI changing the way we work? How do algorithmic support and creative work go together? Which tools are the right ones? Why even more tools? The DECAID Academy helps overcome these barriers by showing how AI can take on routine tasks, creating more space for creative work.
In order to structure the learning process, Crew AG establishes fixed learning times and creates space for experimentation. What starts as structured training is increasingly developing into a self-directed discovery process, in which employees independently find new applications for AI in their respective fields.
“We are experiencing a remarkable change in our crew. Initial skepticism is increasingly giving way to curiosity and willingness to experiment. Team members who were initially reluctant are now discovering that AI does not replace their work, but rather enriches and expands their capabilities.”
The crew is already seeing initial positive developments through the use of AI and ongoing cooperation with the DECAID Academy. For text-related tasks, initial drafts today achieve a quality of 80-90%, which significantly shortens revision cycles and significantly reduces the effort required to create content. As a result, content can be produced much faster. Creatives gain time for more demanding and value-adding tasks.
In addition to these initial efficiency gains, the crew is also observing the start of a qualitative change in customer interaction. Team members are increasingly proactively integrating AI applications into strategic discussions, thus positioning the agency not only as a service provider, but as a strategic partner in the digital transformation of their customers.
A cultural change has been initiated internally. What began as a caution about AI is gradually evolving into what Michael Frank calls “AI self-confidence” — a growing willingness to experiment with AI tools and integrate them into daily work. Although this cultural development is harder to measure than time savings, it represents a fundamental change in the agency's approach to creative solutions.
Crew AG is already planning further applications, including complete process redesigns that make optimal use of AI capabilities, as well as new role concepts such as “AI operators.” The vision is clear: AI should serve as a multiplier that enables the existing team to provide services that were previously impossible, whether from a qualitative, professional or time perspective — and at the same time, considerable potential remains untapped.
“The DECAID Academy provides us with significant support in our ongoing transformation into a marketing agency that uses AI strategically. We are already seeing initial increases in efficiency, but the real added value lies in the further development of our range of services and processes in line with the requirements of our customers. We are still at the beginning of this important development and the potential that we can tap into is enormous.”
The DECAID Academy not only helps us understand AI better, but is also changing the way we look at our business model and processes. Initial effects are promising. The decisive factor is that — with the knowledge we have — we can now position ourselves very well as a strategic partner for our customers in the area of AI and the use of AI. We are at the beginning of a journey and are just learning what it means to be a marketing agency in the AI age — and the DECAID Academy is an important companion in this process.
