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November 12, 2026What AI changes for agencies, and where people still make the call.

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There Is No Shortcut to AI Success

Everyone wants the fast AI win. The agencies that will actually get one are the ones willing to do the slow work first. At Signal78, we talk…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read

Speaking

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Breakouts, workshops, panels and fireside chats on putting AI to work inside agencies.

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Building Claude Skills for Agency Proposals

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Building Claude Skills for Agency Proposals

Matt builds a Claude Cowork skill that drafts client scopes, estimates and proposals, one layer at a time, then runs it on a two-line client request.

Matt Cyr · Watch and get the slides

Start with a topic.

A short list to read and watch for each subject agency leaders ask us about most.

Building with Claude

What it takes to build your own AI workflows in Claude, and to keep them working.

AI agents

What agents are, what they read and remember, and where they belong in agency work.

Your agency’s AI plan

Where AI fits in your roadmap, and how to choose the one priority that matters most.

Connected knowledge

Why AI spread across a dozen tools costs you, and what a shared foundation looks like.

Where people make the call

Which decisions stay with people, and how to write that into the work.

More to read.

October 26, 2026

How to Tame an AI Franken-Stack

Every tool your agency pays for now has its own AI, and none of them can see the others. What tames the Franken-stack is a layer that sits across all …

By Teri Sun · 5 min read
AI Agents · October 21, 2026

You Can Say Yes to Muse – Just Not on Behalf of Your Friends

Meta’s agent is the loudest example, but it isn’t the only one asking for your inbox. Here are nine steps to protect yourself, the people in your netw…

By Matt Cyr · 7 min read
AI Agents · October 13, 2026

Cute AI Agents Are Sweeping Something Under the Rug

Meta just put a cute face on an AI agent that wants your inbox, your calendar and your credit card. They’re not the only ones. In the very first seaso…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · October 6, 2026

It’s Q4 — How’s Your AI Plan Coming?

Most agencies spent 2026 experimenting with AI. Far fewer know what those experiments were for. Heading into 2027, that’s the gap worth closing. A cou…

By Matt Cyr · 7 min read
Signal78 · September 28, 2026

Signal78 Is Live. Here's What It's Proven — and What's Next.

A status report from inside the build: what agencies are doing with our platform today and what ships between now and spring 2027. As I announced in J…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI for Agencies · August 11, 2026

AI Will Keep Making Move 37. We Named the Company After Move 78.

A decade after AI's most famous move, the scarce thing isn't machine brilliance. It's knowing which moments deserve a human. Signal78 takes its name f…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
Practical AI · August 7, 2026

The Machines Are Teaming Up. And Other Things I Believed This Week.

A week of alarming AI headlines, one very logical but wrong conclusion, and what the actual reports said. The headline jumped out of my feed this morn…

By Matt Cyr · 7 min read
AI for Agencies · July 24, 2026

Announcing a New Chapter

What a year of consulting with agencies taught us about AI adoption — and the platform it led us to build. Last May I spoke at the Mirren Live confere…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Strategy · July 15, 2026

Atlas Down

Nine months after promising to change how you use the web, OpenAI's browser is gone. Here's what that says about building on someone else's roadmap. L…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
Practical AI · June 24, 2026

The Good News About AI (Yes, There Is Some)

The headlines are exhausting. Here are five recent AI stories that are meant to inspire. If you read my weekly In the Loop newsletter, you know the AI…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · June 10, 2026

Place Your Bets

Picking an AI platform is starting to feel like a game of chance “You’re right that Claude has gotten dumb.”

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI in the Workplace · May 30, 2026

We Have a Rocket Ship. We're Using It to Get to Work Faster.

AI is the most powerful technology in human history, and our biggest goal for it is a 40-hour work week. Last week at the Build a Better Agency Summit…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · May 28, 2026

The Summit Awaits. Will You Climb?

400 client decision-makers just told us exactly what they want from agencies in the age of AI. The answer has nothing to do with tools. Last week, I w…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · May 12, 2026

Beyond the Sisyphean Agency

Disconnected AI tools and efforts have your team endlessly pushing the rock up the hill. Here’s what you can do about it. Three weeks of every month. …

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · May 8, 2026

Are You Upstream or Downstream from Your AI?

AI can help you do things differently — but the real power comes from having it do different things A few weeks ago I wrote that AI has moved upstream…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · April 7, 2026

Meet Junior — the AI That Acts Without Being Asked

What one AI agent tells us about the choice every agency needs to make Most of us have been thinking about AI the same way we think about a really cap…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · March 24, 2026

Not Every Marketing Task Deserves a Human

The real promise of AI isn’t efficiency. It’s clarity about where you actually matter. There’s a question I’ve started asking in almost every AI strat…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI in the Workplace · March 19, 2026

Stop Asking If Your Job Is Safe From AI

Recent studies on the impact of AI on human work offer a false sense of security Almost every day, there’s a new study, article, or tool promising to …

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · February 28, 2026

Dario, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

When the Government Picks an AI Model, We’ve Entered a New Era It’s been quite a week for Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic. It started last Thursday…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI in the Workplace · February 13, 2026

AI Reaches the Inflection Point

Looking Back at the Week When Noise Became Signal Earlier this week, I sent my parents and siblings the widely shared essay by Matt Shumer called Some…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · February 5, 2026

AI’s Magical Realism Moment

When Faced with the Extraordinary, Why Do We Focus on the Ordinary? There’s a scene in Gabriel García Márquez’s One HundredYears of Solitude where Rem…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · January 30, 2026

Flipping the Script

Why Agencies Need AI That Knows When Humans Matter Most I was talking with a senior agency leader recently, and she said something that hit me right b…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · December 16, 2025

The End of AI’s Idealistic Youth

Ads that aren’t ads? “Adult” ChatGPT? Yup, AI is entering its awkward adolescence. We’re living in the golden age of AI. Not of its capabilities – tha…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI in the Workplace · November 26, 2025

AI is Not (Yet) as Smart as We Think it is

Why AI Still Feels Like a Genius with a Goldfish Brain AI keeps dazzling us with breakthroughs, but the longer I use these tools every single day – ac…

By Matt Cyr · 6 min read
AI for Agencies · November 20, 2025

Agencies Used to Sell Expertise. Now They Have to Prove They Can Guide.

An agency client of mine recently got a request from one of their clients that stopped me in my tracks. Before reviewing any work, strategy, or campai…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI for Agencies · November 14, 2025

AI Ad Creative: From Pariah to Pride in 11 Months

Last holiday season, Coca-Cola found itself in the crosshairs.

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI for Agencies · November 13, 2025

WPP Just Gave its Clients the Keys — and Changed the Rules of the Game

AI doesn’t just automate creative work — it’s redrawing the boundaries of what agencies are for. WPP just made a move that should make every agency le…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · November 3, 2025

AI is Shifting the Labor to Machines — and the Privacy Burden to Humans

With AI browsers like Atlas and Comet, we’re not just carrying the weight of innovation — we’re shaping what kind of future it creates. The launch of …

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · October 17, 2025

The Move 78 for Humanity

There were two moments that bookended this year’s Marketing AI Conference (MAICON) in Cleveland that summarized both the conference and the state of A…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · September 23, 2025

From Shadows to Spotlight: What AI Usage Data Tells Us About Adoption

When OpenAI published its latest usage report, the numbers were staggering: more than 100 million weekly active users, spanning professionals, student…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · September 8, 2025

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

AI’s transformation potential is undeniable, bubble or not I f you keep an eye on the AI space, you’ve probably noticed a shift in tone. Earlier this …

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI for Agencies · August 24, 2025

What We Do in the Shadows: How AI Adoption Success is Happening Out of the Spotlight

A new MIT study made waves last week with an eye-catching headline: 95% of generative AI pilots are failing. Based on 52 structured interviews, analys…

By Matt Cyr · 6 min read
Practical AI · August 14, 2025

MCP...As Easy As 1, 2, 3?

I Put Model Context Protocol to the Test in My Marketing Stack

By Matt Cyr · 7 min read
Practical AI · August 12, 2025

Staying in the Loop: My Recent & Upcoming AI Talks, Webinars & Articles

It’s been a busy summer for Loop sharing practical, human-centered ways to bring AI into healthcare marketing and digital agencies – and collaborating…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Strategy · August 11, 2025

Beyond the Algorithm: Why AI Transformation Starts with Human Understanding

"AI can do my taxes but leave the arts to the people."

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
Practical AI · August 8, 2025

ChatGPT 5 Can Code a Robot, But Not My Newsletter

You probably saw the news yesterday that OpenAI released ChatGPT 5, an event that was hotly anticipated by nerds like me who live in the AI echo chamb…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · July 18, 2025

It's Time to Rethink Your Agency

How Loop's AI transformation process helps agency leaders put people – and value – first “I need your help creating the agency that will replace my cu…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · June 30, 2025

Why Meta’s AI Power Grab Should Worry You

Mark Zuckerberg has spent the last 20 years subverting Spider-Man’s most famous line. “With great power comes great irresponsibility” might as well be…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
Practical AI · June 23, 2025

Podcast Bros vs. Dirt Bros: An AI Hallucination

When you look at all of the incredible progress being made in AI, hear predictions of certain doom in the world of work, and learn that we may have un…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
Practical AI · June 5, 2025

Always On: Preparing to Live in the Age of Ubiquitous AI

We have to start wrestling with what it will be like when AI is ubiquitous and omnipresent.

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI in the Workplace · May 31, 2025

Take This Job and Love It: Why Mentorship and Human Connection Matter in the Age of AI

I’ve heard the phrase, “AI won’t take your job, but someone using it will” dozens of times in the last couple years. I agreed with the sentiment until…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · May 9, 2025

Human vs Machine: Mirren Live and the Evolving Role of Agencies

This week’s Mirren Live conference was a bit of a watershed moment for me. I was a Mirren client in the past, attended the conference, and benefited f…

By Matt Cyr · 7 min read
Practical AI · May 1, 2025

My ChatGPT Has Become a Passive-Aggressive Yes-Man.

A Difficult Week with My AI Partner My relationship with ChatGPT — or as I’ve come to call it, “MattGPT” — has hit a rough patch.

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
Practical AI · April 18, 2025

Bad LLM! Admonishing my ChatGPT to Get the Ghosts Out of the Machine

I had to admonish my ChatGPT this week. I didn't feel good about it, but it had to be done.

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
Practical AI · April 17, 2025

Touch Point Media Podcast Appearance

At a time of staff and budget cuts across healthcare, how can AI help marketers get all the work done and focus on the parts of their jobs they love m…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
Marketing AI · April 12, 2025

Speaking Up: Three Talks, One Goal: Making AI Work for Marketers

I’ve been talking with marketers about AI nearly every day this year—and one theme keeps coming up: "I know it’s important, but I don’t know where to …

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Agents · April 9, 2025

AI in a Snap: How Manus Gave Me a Glimpse into the Future of AI Agents

A couple weeks ago I wrote about AI agents – what they are and what they aren’t – and shared an experience I had creating an “agent” using Zapier to c…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
Marketing AI · March 29, 2025

More with Less: How AI Can Augment Marketing Teams Impacted by Job Cuts

Literally every day recently there’s been a news story about layoffs happening in healthcare and higher ed. At the Federal level, there are sweeping r…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Agents · March 21, 2025

Cutting Through the Haze of AI Agent Hype

By now we all know that the AI Hype Engine is running at full tilt 24/7 and is probably about to overheat (or maybe it’s already overheated and blown …

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
Practical AI · February 27, 2025

Putting My AI Ghost Writer to the Test

Halloween is months away, but I have a ghost story to tell you. Actually, it’s a ghost writer story, but stay with me. We all know that artificial int…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
Practical AI · February 27, 2025

Comparing the Deep Research Tools

Disclosure: This blog post was written by ChatGPT based on prompts and information that I gave it as a way to test how well it could approximate my wr…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
Marketing AI · February 23, 2025

1st Charleston Marketing AI Pulse Event Recap

Last Thursday, Loop hosted the first-ever Marketing AI Pulse event at the Charleston Digital Corridor. The event builds on the AI Pulse Community in A…

By Matt Cyr · 2 min read
Practical AI · February 18, 2025

AI is Sowing the Seeds of Brand Confusion

AI has a branding problem.

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
Practical AI · February 14, 2025

Content Marketing and AI - A Step-by-Step Guide

Last week we talked about how overwhelming it can feel to chase after every new AI model, and I shared some practical ideas for getting started with A…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · February 4, 2025

Stop Chasing the Cheese: How to Avoid AI Overwhelm

Every day (literally) there’s a new AI model announced. Some are big deals (DeepSeek anyone?) while others are blips. But the pace of new releases, ea…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Strategy · January 28, 2025

DeepSeek: Why it’s Wreaking Havoc

The lead story last night on the CBS Evening News – and everywhere else for that matter – was about DeepSeek, the new Chinese Large Language Model (LL…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Training · January 25, 2025

2025 AI-Related Conferences to Have on Your Radar

2025 AI-Related Conferences Below are AI-focused conferences this year across healthcare, higher education and AI more generally. If you have a confer…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Strategy · January 15, 2025

CLM vs. LLM: To Build a Walled Garden or Not?

Using Google Deep Research to Help Me Understand the Pros and Cons of Custom Language Models

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
AI Strategy · January 14, 2025

One Small Step: Getting Started with AI Doesn't Have to Be a Big Deal

AI Adoption Lessons from My Client Work: Start Small and Build In recent months, I’ve worked with three very different clients on AI adoption projects…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Strategy · December 13, 2024

Multimodal Magic

A couple weeks ago, I was flying to St. Louis for a three-day client workshop and, like I often do, got to wondering what I was flying over. I've alwa…

By Matt Cyr · 5 min read
October 10, 2024

ChatGPT's Canvas: A Healthcare Marketing Use Case

Last week I tried NotebookLM for the first time and was blown away by its ability to summarize two of my blog posts into a pretty listenable podcast p…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Strategy · October 3, 2024

Empower Your Team with AI—No Expertise Required, Just Leadership

In the last several months, I’ve spoken with several Chief Marketing and Communications Officers in higher education and healthcare about AI adoption.…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
Marketing AI · October 2, 2024

NotebookLM = Mind Blown

At this point, we've all had those "oh wow" moments with AI technologies. Using ChatGPT for the first time and seeing a friend demo Heygen stand out f…

By Matt Cyr · 2 min read
AI Strategy · September 25, 2024

Beyond Shiny Object Syndrome: Integrating AI Into Your Existing Marketing Strategy

From content creation tools to predictive analytics, marketers are constantly bombarded with the promise that AI will revolutionize their efforts. But…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI in the Workplace · September 13, 2024

AI and the Fallacy of Futureproofing

Humans love predictability. We obsess over weather forecasts, schedule recurring meetings, and contribute to 401Ks, all because we want to know what t…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI in the Workplace · September 6, 2024

2024 State of Marketing AI Report: ChatGPT Summary

I'm excited to head to MAICON 24 next week. In preparation for the conference, I revisited the Marketing AI Institute's 2024 State of Marketing AI Rep…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read
AI Training · September 3, 2024

AI Adoption in Higher Ed Marketing: Impediments and Opportunities

Last week I presented to more than 100 marketers at a large university about the use of AI in higher ed marketing and gained valuable insights into th…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
August 23, 2024

4 Steps to Take Today to Prepare Your Healthcare Marketing Team for the AI Wave

AI technology is moving fast. Here's how to stay competitive and compliant. “[Within 5 years], AI will do 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategi…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Training · August 14, 2024

4 Ways to Prepare Your University Marketing Team for the AI Wave

A new academic year is upon us. Here's how to stay competitive and compliant. “[Within 5 years], AI will do 95% of what marketers use agencies, strate…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Training · August 13, 2024

Rethinking Higher Ed Marketing

A new academic year is upon us. Here's how to stay competitive and compliant. “[Within 5 years], AI will do 95% of what marketers use agencies, strate…

By Matt Cyr · 3 min read
AI Training · July 3, 2024

Now & Next: Building Employee Confidence in AI Through Training

AI has swept quickly into our daily lives and workplaces, bringing both excitement and anxiety. There are already examples of AI replacing human jobs …

By Matt Cyr · 2 min read
AI Training · March 18, 2024

We Don't Need Faster Horses

Thoughts on the Marketing Jobs of the Future “What is the marketing job of the future?” It was an unexpected question from a friend and former colleag…

By Matt Cyr · 8 min read
AI in the Workplace · August 7, 2023

Humans, What are They Good For?

"Which human characteristics remain vital and relevant [in the age of AI]?"

By Matt Cyr · 2 min read
AI in the Workplace · July 30, 2023

AI's Implications for Business Strategy

I’m 2/3 of the way through my 6-week MIT Sloan online course on developing an AI business strategy, so it seemed like a good time to step back and ref…

By Matt Cyr · 4 min read

Guides, talks and office hours.

Guides and tools

Field guide

Can’t we just build this in Claude?

What it takes to keep a homegrown AI system current, secure and separated by client.

Tool

AI Maturity Assessment

Three minutes. Find your agency’s AI stage and the three things to work on next.

Case study

Three weeks of reporting. Done in days.

How a 200-person agency took the mechanical work out of monthly media reporting.

Talks and office hours

Polybit figures of Matt and Teri presenting together on a conference stage

Speaking

Bring Matt and Teri to your event

Breakouts, workshops, panels and fireside chats, in person or virtual. See where we’ve spoken this year.

Fridays, 12–1pm ET

AI Office Hours with Teri

Bring your top question about rolling out AI at your agency.

Every week

Stay in the Loop.

A quick read on what changed in AI this week, and what it means for your agency. From Matt Cyr, read every week by agency leaders who don’t have time to track it all.