R090 - The Last Stronghold, with Sergio Terry

What do you want us to know about you?

I have lived many lives in a way. As a migrant person, you not only change physical spaces but also adapt to each of those places. I've gone through very different stages: I was very poor as a child, and then I founded a company that started in an internet café in Peru. Over time it became a business that got a bit out of hand, grew to an unexpected level, and adapted to different models. First, we designed web pages, which I learned in that internet café at sixteen, and over time it became a product design studio, although it wasn't even called that back then.

It was called Smart Click, very much of the year 2000 era: literally, it was in the phone book advertising that it made web pages. There was then a position called webmaster, who dominated the companies' websites, and Celso, who was one at the University of the Pacific, gave me an opportunity. The company grew very quickly. I went from living in Ventanilla, on the outskirts of Lima, to living closer to the center with my family, and we emerged from that harsh poverty. We started in my living room, then also in a room, more people arrived, and at one point we were already working on websites for many large companies in Peru.

Over time, Falabella, which was our client, asked us why we didn't make web pages with a narrative. I had always been attracted to the visual part, the platform experience, and product storytelling, so it was a natural step to lead the company towards creativity. I hired an art director and a creative director, changed the model to digital agency, and when we started working with AB InBev, the final transformation into a purely creative agency occurred. We left product design, and the agency even changed its name: it was called Houdini, to better fit the proposal.

With Houdini, we won awards like Cannes or Effie working with the brewery, but the pandemic came, and there was a break. After almost twenty years running the business, I felt I wanted to do something different. I was already spending more time in London than in Lima, and I decided it was time to close that chapter. It was also a vital break: many things complete a cycle, and Houdini had already completed its own, both in my life and in the lives of the people who had passed through there. My personal life and my life as an entrepreneur were very intertwined, so it took me a while to find what I really wanted to do until AI came along. That was the moment that provoked the great change to where I am now.

"Everything that can be packaged is automatable: everything you can repeat by following a recipe. What cannot be packaged is the richest, imagination, creativity, the human ability to feel, think, connect, remember, and excite. That's where the value is."

How are you experiencing the AI moment?

It's curious that you call it escapism because, in a way, it's present throughout my story. I remember when I returned from a trip from Bogotá to Lima, I came with the idea of changing the agency's name, and there were several similarities between Houdini's life and some of my things that caught my attention on that flight, where I was reading a book about him. That was the moment that led me to want to escape from the digital agency box to a creative agency. I believe a lot in synchronization: there are moments and opportunities that appear in life, and you have to have the eye to see them and the courage to jump.

One of those moments was, obviously, sitting in front of a computer and going online for the first time. And I experienced something similar in 2022, in London, at a WeWork, when a guy working next to me said: "have you seen this thing a French guy launched? It's called ChatGPT, you talk to it, and it gives you super sharp answers, like a conversation." I got in, and it was like that scene in Ratatouille where Ego tastes the dish and goes back to the origin: I felt like I was reliving the moment I went online for the first time and reached Disney.com, the first page I ever saw. It was reliving that feeling of being in front of a revolution capable of generating a massive change in my life and the lives of millions of people: an impressive moment of democratization.

Today I live it with excitement. As an independent consultant, I have the time to dose it, dive deep, experiment. Every day there's something new, and that also makes it a bit chaotic. I also live it with caution and some concern about the social impact this revolution can have because I think we are not fully aware of what it means. But I prefer to choose to see it as an opportunity rather than a threat. Working in product, we always thought something could become an app or a website, but we lacked the hands or teams to do it because setting up a product is very costly. Today, in a weekend, you can set up an app yourself with tools like Claude Code, and it works wonderfully.

How did you find your apartment in Madrid with AI's help?

It was a great experience. I was living in Barcelona and had already decided it was time to move, and Madrid was the chosen city. A few days later, Anthropic launched Dispatch, an option within Claude that allows you to schedule tasks until the goal is met, leaving it activities and goals. I opened a chapter, "move to Madrid," gave it access to Idealista, and told it to take care of it because I didn't have time: I was involved in a project for Scotiabank, another personal project, and a topic for Cupra.

The next day, I had an automation that sent me a summary of the apartments viewed, which had been hundreds, with three finalists chosen. I told it which one I liked, and it took care of talking to the landlords: in fact, my landlord found out a couple of days ago that I had been managing the entire contract with artificial intelligence. It also matched the availability with my calendar, bought me the Renfe ticket, I saw the apartment, and it was as if it had been chosen for me; today, it's a magazine-worthy apartment. Since it was empty, it also took care of selling my things on Wallapop, took measurements with the landlord's plans, and bought combinable tables and furniture at Zara Home. There are mechanical tasks, like that type of shopping, that I have automated in my life today because they take up time: I asked which was the best mattress, it told me Emma, and I trusted it. I sleep great.

"Creativity atrophies because it's a muscle that needs to be trained. We are designed to save energy, so if our mind finds a shortcut to save the effort of thinking, creating, and imagining, that's where the danger lies."

Are you packaging your own knowledge with AI?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing with many things. You get used to selling hours as a consultant, but that has a limit: you have twenty-four hours, subtract what you sleep and enjoy, and you're left with four, five, or six hours of productivity, which are not enough. Everything I can do "asleep" I'm productizing. Over the years, you gain expertise, and I'm good at doing benchmarking analysis or consumer interviews, among other things; I'm not only good, but there's a recipe. I used to be the cook who didn't keep the recipe, and sometimes I had to start from scratch on each project. There are tasks that are artisanal and always feel new, but others are automatable, and those are the ones I'm setting up as products with Claude Code.

I have two concrete products that have automated parts of my work that used to take me a lot of time and ended up being wasted time because my value is much more in what I can do awake: concentration, analysis, and above all, creativity, imagination, which is where I love to be. For example, we got a project with a bank to do a creative benchmarking and find white spaces where a brand could position itself. Without a recipe, that would have taken me two weeks getting into searching for content, feeds, and videos, a complex and time-demanding scouting, with a junior verifying everything. I learned to use the terminal, installed Claude Code, and on a Saturday, I got to work; by Monday, I already had a product set up with agents that do the scouting, return, verify the information, and find patterns, something in which AI is spectacular. But then comes the work I really enjoy: sitting down to look at what I've chosen, finding the points and connections, understanding what a brand really wants to communicate. That layer is not in AI. That product is called Groundwork and today is part of my portfolio, along with brand strategy consultancies.

What part of that knowledge can be packaged and what part remains outside?

Everything that can be packaged is automatable: everything you can repeat by following a recipe, even what you could do asleep. What cannot be packaged is the richest: imagination, creativity, all the space where decisions have to be made and where the level of analysis is only given by expertise and the human ability to feel, think, connect, remember, and excite. That's where the value is.

"You can't be creative in an oppressive space. The oxygen of creativity is freedom."

What is that creativity for you that a machine cannot reach?

I like to see it as a three-story house. On the first floor is the most basic: a horn, a horse, and from there comes a unicorn. AI is very good at understanding those patterns and combining concepts; the data processing it can have is impressive, and that is also basic creativity. On the main floor, there is already a house with context: AI is good at seeing that house from different perspectives, understanding its dynamics, and creating stories or different viewpoints, and that is also creative input. But there is a third level, the attic, and AI doesn't reach there. The attic is that place where, as humans, we feel cold or heat, we are capable of looking out onto the balcony and seeing two people talking, where there are smells and a context that adds an emotional layer that AI doesn't have today. That's where our stronghold lives, the space where we humans shine and that we shouldn't fear AI will occupy, because it doesn't manage to have that level of emotional and sensory context.

Aren't we at risk of atrophying?

Of course. There are studies that show that from the nineties until today we are smarter, but less creative: there are very intelligent people, but creativity atrophies because it's a muscle that needs to be trained. I'm especially concerned about the younger generations: we have lived in an analog world where we have had to train that muscle constantly until a few years ago, but the new generations now have a tool that can leave them without that need. We are designed to save energy, so if our mind finds a shortcut to save the effort of thinking, creating, and imagining, there's the danger of atrophying that creative path.

"There is an attic that AI doesn't reach: the place where we feel cold or heat, where there are smells and a context that adds an emotional layer. That's where our stronghold lives, the space where we humans shine."

What makes an idea truly connect with people?

Conveying a human experience: that you can feel, through an experience, something that connects with you because you have also felt it. That insight, that invisible red thread that unites us, is capable of moving you because it has emotionality. Telling stories is the most basic and ancient human tool we have, our ability to build over and over on them; the original story is usually much more ordinary than it ends up being afterward, and there lies the wonder of our ability to imagine beyond what we have lived. The best creative campaigns I've done were born from a personal story, from turning even a sad experience into something fun, to make others smile because it has happened to them too. It goes that way, through emotionality, just like in comedy, where it also starts from personal experiences and knowing how to read the culture to find connection points, even those you haven't lived yourself.

How is creativity trained?

By going out into the street, living. The only way to do it is to make the most of the time we have, nourish ourselves with conversations, stories, the experiences of others, what something makes you feel. That is the best way to keep the mind open and curious, and that curiosity is what makes you ask questions. It's a muscle that needs to be trained, and I also believe that creativity has a methodology and a process, although it's not the same in all minds. For me, it works to go out, nourish myself, and forget: the brain is so intelligent that it ends up connecting, and at the least expected moment, you have a story or an idea created in your head. It's about being in contact with life.

"All technology ends up driving, and creativity always ends up positioning itself on top, because it's the most natural thing we have."

Can there be creativity without empathy?

It depends on the creative expression. There is also absolutely personal creativity, which is my interpretation of things: I see the world this way, whether it connects with you or not. Many artists work from there, and that is their creative expression. Mine is usually writing, the idea, the story, and from there I nourish myself with other stories to create more; in an expression like abstract art, for example, creativity is the interpretation itself, and that doesn't stop being creative. You can be creative without being empathetic.

How can an organization be creative?

There is a huge challenge there: helping the organization to stop looking only at the dashboard. Information, KPIs, and objectives are a very important layer because, in the end, this is a business, but we must not lose sight that an organization is made up of people, and we must create a space where that creative culture has oxygen. And the oxygen of creativity is freedom: you can't be creative in an oppressive space. Any organizational level needs autonomy and freedom to make mistakes, repeat, get up, and try.

But that layer is not enough: you have to bring in people with diverse profiles, with different backgrounds, because that divergence of thought is what brings new things to the table. My first hire as a programmer in my agency in Peru was a biologist who came from a world totally opposite to technology at that time; then came a guy who did theater and also programmed. And besides a climate of freedom and diversity, it's necessary to define a clear creative north: it's not enough with a vision of "we're going to be the best company making light bulbs," but understanding what story those light bulbs want to contribute to people's lives.

The case of Airbnb is a good example: the organization didn't just rent out empty rooms, but built a product around the idea of living and feeling part of the city you go to. There are studies that show that the main value someone finds when traveling is not just traveling, but getting involved, not following the tour, but getting into the family. That insight became the mantra "belong anywhere" and didn't just stay in the communication message, but shaped the design of the product itself. To summarize: a climate that nurtures the freedom to express, people with diverse thoughts, and a clear idea of who we are and what story we are solving for the end user. That is, for me, installing a creative culture within an organization.

How does creativity coexist with the social impact of technology?

It's a very interesting point because sometimes, due to my passion for ideas and connection with the story, I don't see that perspective. It's true that many of these products haven't considered the impact they could have beyond solving, for example, a tourist's problem. I recently heard an interview with the team that created Facebook's "likes," and one of those people is one of those who most regrets in life having created that, almost apologizing. They said that when they were proposed the challenge in a hackathon, the idea was to monetize the interest or curiosity for a photograph and quantify it, without imagining they were creating a social bomb in which no sociologist or psychologist was involved, nor was it evaluated what impact it could have on youth.

Many of these products have been created solving business problems, like making the algorithm smarter to charge more, and that ends up being very sad. I separate the technology from the platforms that have been built on it: technology itself has allowed us to progress and advance, and it continues to do so today with AI. What hasn't been considered in many cases is that layer of impact it was ultimately going to have. I'm optimistic and believe that this social impact layer is increasingly being considered, in addition to the creative layer.

How do you create impact?

Today we live so immersed in the daily rhythm that sometimes you don't stop to think about what you've achieved. Talking to a friend about this, she told me that the impact we are generating, for example, by helping a bank to better understand people, to connect more deeply, and to convey a story that awakens something in them, has a value that goes beyond business: in a world where everything happens very quickly and no one stops to look, achieving that also has an impact on the life of the person receiving that message, and on my own, because I feel renewed and happy reinventing myself. That impact translates into more desire to create, and I've also felt it on a personal level: a friend told me that working together had also had an impact on her life, just like on mine, because I needed to find someone to work with and feel close to.

I believe there are many areas where you can generate impact without realizing it in day-to-day life, and for me, it involves conveying a story and also hope: that there is a world beyond AI. The more AI models come out, the more own models creativity will also launch. It has happened to us before: when photography appeared, painters thought their work was over, and all it did was elevate painting because a new creative model emerged, impressionism. All technology ends up driving, and creativity always ends up positioning itself on top, because it's the most natural thing we have. If I can do something to keep this going, that's my impact.

Conclusion

I take away an idea from the conversation with Sergio: the more capacity artificial intelligence has, the clearer it becomes what only human intelligence can provide. Not the ability to produce, which is already resolved, but to read the world and decide what deserves to be said. That's what needs to be cared for, and it doesn't take care of itself.

It requires attention on a personal level, in the way of looking and telling, so that it doesn't become interchangeable. And it requires attention collectively, treating it as a capability that an organization cultivates internally, part of the business muscle.

Talking about a stronghold sounds like holding on to the little we have left, but I prefer to see it the other way around: it's the ground from which we continue to advance. As long as we have something of our own to say and someone to say it to, the craft remains alive.