We cut a lot of people. Now we hire for instinct.

The job stopped being about proving you did the work

Two things changed at once, and they pull in opposite directions. The first is who does the work. “The gig economy stepped in,” Alleg says, “bringing freelancers to our door and a Gen Z expectation to cater for. You can’t just give a job, you need to give a suitable challenge that someone will be happy to tackle.”

The second is how the work is judged. “Work isn’t about proving you did it. It’s about proving you delivered value.”

What clients want has narrowed to three things: better outcomes, faster delivery, consistent quality. Alleg is blunt about what that demands internally. A firm cannot rely on a good final review to rescue quality, because a final review is only as good as whoever happens to be doing it. “Our processes make sure when you hit us, the same level of answer comes back.”

And what they want less of is meetings. “There is a good-enough feel that we don’t need to meet as often, but deliverables are still highly scrutinised.” Then a line that turns out to run through the whole interview: “The people aspect is a bit more falling.”

Clients stopped asking whether a human made it

The rule inside Kainjoo is simple. “Anything that is now repeatable is given to AI. See it as an assistant to tasks that are easy to copy-paste.” The less obvious win is consistency: “getting a frame from AI tools to make sure people work the same way is a game changer.” That is the same answer as the one about quality, arrived at from the other direction.

On whether clients care how the work was made, he is unequivocal. “As long as we deliver the value, they don’t ask if we did it with AI, or with AI with a human in the loop.”

What they do instead is check. “They use AI to check our work.” The consequence is an expectation shift he describes without much enthusiasm: more for less, particularly on the mechanical end — advertising banners cut to many dimensions, developer work.

Not everything landed. “AI videos. Surprisingly not getting to where we thought they would. It’s too gimmicky. Perhaps not good enough, or too fake for people to stay long on them.”

“We’ve cut a lot due to AI replacing workload”

That is the whole answer, and it is worth sitting with, because very few firms will say it on the record. Kainjoo still hires juniors, “but not as much as years ago.”

What changed is what he hires for. Not tooling, not speed: “more culture fit and instinct-based decisions.” Asked what a person starting out should learn now that barely mattered two years ago, his answer is not a technology at all. “Read more books on how to conduct a meeting.”

And asked what humans will still be doing in this industry in five years, he gives one word. “Brainstorming.”

Less software, except for the part that is metered

“Less SaaS for sure.” The bill has moved rather than shrunk: leave out the AI APIs and it is cheaper than two years ago; count the OpenRouter usage and it is higher than it has ever been. Subscriptions went down, metered spend went up.

The biggest single change was replacing Mavenlink, now Kantata, with Notion and Everhour together.

One thing he will not automate, and it is the same theme again: the first client touchpoint. “You can’t replace a first impression.”

Six short ones

One industry cliché you don’t believe any more?

“Digital agencies.”

Which piece of common advice in your industry is wrong?

“Fake it till you make it.”

One thing every company in your industry should stop doing?

Believing AI will replace everything.

One thing you wish you had started earlier?

Using AI for common tasks.

One tool you couldn’t run the business without?

People instincts.

A prediction two years out you’d bet money on?

A2A — AI to AI — is real, and we’re not ready for it.