AI Lunch & Learn
10.13.2026
Malley.design
For ideas worth chasing.
Robots for lunch
Let’s talk
about the AI.
about the AI.
Malley Design
10.13.2026
AI Lunch & Learn
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Before we start
Be honest. It’s anonymous.
Scan to vote
or raise a hand
or raise a hand
Scan with your phone’s camera.
No app or login needed. Or raise
a hand and Bryan will count you in.
No app or login needed. Or raise
a hand and Bryan will count you in.
Malley Design
10.13.2026
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00
Where things stand today
01
Show & Tell
02
How we’ll use it
03
Clients are using it too
Spoiler: nobody’s being asked
to design with AI.
to design with AI.
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Where things
stand today.
stand today.
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Share of US adults using it, three years after launch
This happened faster than the PC.
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Personal computer
19.7%
Internet
30.1%
Generative AI
54.6%
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “The State of Generative AI Adoption in 2025,” Nov 2025.
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Where everyone else is
Most people have barely touched it.
~6 billion
have barely touched AI.
About 75% of everyone.
About 75% of everyone.
1–2 billion
use free chatbots now and then,
mostly as better search.
mostly as better search.
~20 million
use the best models for real
work, mostly code and math.
work, mostly code and math.
~5,000
have access to systems the
public hasn’t seen yet.
public hasn’t seen yet.
Andrej Karpathy’s estimate (“napkin math”), X, Oct 11, 2026. Bars not to scale.
In the US
51%
of adults never use an AI chatbot.
24%
use one every day.
6%
have ever tried Claude (ChatGPT: 44%).
Pew Research Center, survey of 5,119 US adults, Feb 2026.
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How long AI can work on its own
From an hour to a day and a half.
How fast it’s growing
Every 4
months
months
the amount of work AI can handle on its own doubles.
If that holds, a job it can do in a day now, it could do in two days by early spring.
Each dot is the longest task, timed for a skilled person, that a model gets right half the time. METR treats anything past 16 hours as a rough estimate (the hollow dot).
Source: METR time-horizon data, Jan–Sep 2026.
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Inside the software we already pay for
It’s already in our tools.
Generally available Oct 6
Figma
agent
agent
Works inside Figma files and follows a team’s design system.
Adobe · public beta Apr 27
Firefly
Assistant
Assistant
Runs multistep jobs across Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Premiere.
Launched Apr 16
Canva
AI 2.0
AI 2.0
Turns one prompt into a layered, editable design.
Launched Apr 17
Claude
Design
Design
Prototypes, slides and one-pagers built on a team’s own design system.
Staying out isn’t the default anymore. It’s a choice.
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Where we sit
Professional services ranks second.
Professional services firms using AI
34%
vs. 18% of all US firms. Only one sector uses AI more.
US marketing agencies using gen AI
9 in 10
Up from about 6 in 10 in 2024.
Agencies’ top use
74%
summarize documents. Research is next at 70%. That’s edge work, which we’ll get to in section 02.
Sources: US Census Bureau, “The Microstructure of AI Diffusion,” Apr 2026 · Forrester and the 4A’s, Jun 2026.
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Designers
If you’re skeptical, you’re
in good company.
in good company.
- 40% of graphic designers use AI daily. Marketers: 60%.
- Only 32% of designers say they can rely on its output.
- 45% of creative pros will never trust it for final work.
Sources: Envato, Nov 2025 · Figma, 2025 AI report · Adobe, Oct 2025.
Same. Hold that thought.
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The pace
Last year’s AI doesn’t count.
Major AI launches, Sep 2025 to Oct 2026. Each dot is one.
Sep 2025
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan 2026
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep 2026
Oct
6
versions of Claude’s top model in 10 months.
13×
cheaper each year for the same capability.
<6 mo
before OpenAI shut down its viral Sora app.
10×
price cut on Claude’s smallest model in one year.
900M
weekly ChatGPT users, up from 400M a year earlier.
~100%
top coding-benchmark scores, up from about 60% a year before.
Sources: Anthropic release notes · Epoch AI, Sep 2026 · Engadget, Mar 2026 · Anthropic pricing · OpenAI via TechCrunch, Feb 2026 · Stanford AI Index 2026.
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01
What I’ve been
building.
building.
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Show & Tell
Nine months
of tinkering.
of tinkering.
1
Services
Overview
Overview
Mar 13
2
Movie
Watchlist
Watchlist
Mar
3
Malley
Dashboard
Dashboard
May
4
NBA
Stats
Stats
Jun
5
Tools &
Resources
Resources
Sep
6
Leviosa
workouts
workouts
Sep
7
Design
System
System
Oct
8
Logo
Suite QA
Suite QA
Oct
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It started at home
I started with personal software.
Movie Watchlist
Our family’s shared list. Posters, ratings and where to stream, pulled from three movie databases.
Since March
Open liveNBA Stats
Live stats, standings and a guess-the-player game, straight from ESPN.
June
Open liveLeviosa
A wizard-themed daily workout generator for Liam. It plans his week and adjusts as he logs sets.
Since September
Open live
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Then: could it
get us right?
get us right?
A Services page, built three
times in one afternoon (March 13).
It got the look right. It didn’t
do anything useful.
Open the page
times in one afternoon (March 13).
It got the look right. It didn’t
do anything useful.
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First try: meh.
The first Tools & Resources page didn’t do much,
so I set it aside and built something else.
so I set it aside and built something else.
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Malley Dashboard · since May
Something we’d open every day.
Pulls from
- QuickBooks: cash and invoices
- Teamwork: hours and budgets
- Google Analytics + Search Console: the website
- Mailchimp: the newsletter
- Instagram, Dribbble, LinkedIn: social
- Lead tracker: the pipeline, plus a research
dossier on every new lead
Eight logins.
One page.
One page.
Refreshes every 15 minutes. Money
on hand stays blurred for today.
Open the Dashboard
on hand stays blurred for today.
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Along the way · Website audits and scopes
Small fixes, built on the fly.
MOLC website audit
SEO, speed and accessibility, with a fix-now list.
Ideal website audit
Market position, buyer research and a proposed sitemap.
CH audit + estimate
The latest: findings, a 42-page sitemap and phased pricing.
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Along the way · HALCON website
Built for one job.
Thumbnail selection
47 products, two crops each. Pick, nudge and hand the decisions back to Claude.
Open the toolCrop review
Every crop drawn in the browser from the source photos. Live, so try it.
Open the tool
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Then I
went back.
went back.
Same request, months later.
13 tools and 15 resource
categories, built around how
we actually work.
Open Tools & Resources
13 tools and 15 resource
categories, built around how
we actually work.
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Claude Design
Then I taught it
our brand.
our brand.
The Malley Design System holds our colors, type, logos,
components and 20 slide layouts measured from
our own InDesign decks.
This deck is built on it.
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Logo Suite QA
Now it checks
our homework.
our homework.
Pre-run on the Punch suite: the
Illustrator master and all 60 exports.
About four minutes, no Illustrator.
Illustrator master and all 60 exports.
About four minutes, no Illustrator.
What it found
- All 24 artboards off the 300 ppi grid,
the cause of 1 px export drift - No PANTONE EPS. Does Punch have
PMS specs?
What it checks
- Naming against our convention
- Artboards and the pixel grid
- A complete file set
- CMYK, PANTONE and swatches
- Stray points and slivers
- Rasters hiding in vector files
- A visual and copy check
It doesn’t make anything.
It checks what we made.
It checks what we made.
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Your turn
What could we build next?
Think about
What do you dread doing
every week?
every week?
What do you check by
hand on every project?
hand on every project?
Add yours from your phone, or shout it and Bryan will type it in.
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02
How we’ll
use it.
use it.
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Where AI fits
AI at the edges.
People in the middle.
People in the middle.
AI helps
People only
AI helps
1
Kickoff and
discovery
discovery
2
Scoping
3
Strategy
4
Design
5
Refine
6
Expressions
7
QA and
launch
launch
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Why
Why the middle stays ours.
01
Craft is
the product.
the product.
Clients hire us for judgment and taste. That’s the part they can’t get anywhere else.
02
Who owns
the work.
the work.
In the US, AI-generated work generally can’t be copyrighted. If AI made the logo, our client may not fully own it.
03
Looking like
no one else.
no one else.
AI averages what it has seen. A brand’s whole job is to stand apart from that average.
US Copyright Office, Copyright and AI, Part 2 (Jan 2025) · Thaler v. Perlmutter; the Supreme Court declined review in Mar 2026. Not legal advice.
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Your turn
You make the call.
Edge Middle Not sure
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The gray areas
Where it gets
interesting.
interesting.
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Ground rules (draft)
Poke holes in these.
- Confidential client files never go into tools
that train on them. - A person reviews everything before it leaves
the building. - We tell clients where we use AI.
- We keep an approved tools list, with team accounts.
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03
Clients are
using it too.
using it too.
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What brands expect from agencies
Our clients got there first.
Major brands
96%
use AI in marketing, up from 45% in 2023.
Agency disclosure
69%
require their agencies to disclose AI use.
Contracts
59%
have added AI clauses to agency contracts.
Visibility
13%
say they can actually see how their agencies use AI.
Budgets
15.3%
of marketing budgets go to AI. Only 30% of CMOs feel ready to scale it.
Pulling both ways
45%
of creatives get asked to use AI to cut costs. 18% get asked not to.
Disclosure is becoming normal. So far, it only runs one way.
Sources: WFA, Sep 30, 2026 (54 marketers at 46 global brands, directional) · Gartner CMO Spend Survey, May 2026 · Envato, Nov 2025.
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You’ve probably
seen this email.
seen this email.
Two greetings gave it away.
An AI detector scored it 100% AI.
An AI detector scored it 100% AI.
When feedback comes from ChatGPT
- Ask for their top three. AI lists everything;
their three tell us what matters. - Check it against the approved brief.
AI doesn’t know what we already agreed on. - Count it as a revision round. It’s still
feedback, and that keeps scope honest.
42% of workers say AI-written messages make the sender seem less trustworthy.
Stanford and BetterUp, Harvard Business Review, Sep 2025.
Michelle Jacobson, New Life Academy, Oct 2. Her leadership team’s names are blurred.
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Covenant Pines Ministries
And this.
What we designed for them
What they made with AI
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Copyright and trademark
Who owns
it now?
it now?
Not legal advice. We’d talk to
a lawyer before any of this goes
into a contract.
a lawyer before any of this goes
into a contract.
What we know
- The mark we made by hand is still protected.
- An AI regeneration of it likely isn’t copyrightable.
- Uploading it to some tools grants them a license
to whatever you upload. - A myth to correct: AI logos can be trademarked.
The real risks are looking like someone else’s
mark and drifting from the registration.
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10.13.2026
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The open question
Should clients tell us?
Nobody requires this yet,
so we’d be early
so we’d be early
A
Two-way
disclosure
disclosure
A contract clause. We say where we use AI, and clients tell us when their briefs, feedback or comps are mostly AI‑made.
B
Integrity
disclaimer
disclaimer
AI-altered versions of the marks aren’t covered by our warranty, and may not be protectable.
C
Kickoff
sheet
sheet
One page at kickoff: where AI helps, and where we’d rather they didn’t.
D
Feedback
protocol
protocol
When feedback reads like AI: ask for top priorities, check the brief, count the round.
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Draft kickoff sheet, for clients
Coaching, not policing.
Go for it.
- Researching your industry and competitors
- Organizing your thoughts before a review
- Summarizing long internal docs to share with us
- Checking your live site for typos and broken links after launch
Tell us.
- AI-drafted feedback. Label it and add your own top three priorities.
- AI-written copy you send us to work from
- AI-made reference images or mood boards
- Any plan to alter a brand asset with AI
Please don’t.
- Generating logos or comps while we’re exploring
- Regenerating or “fixing” finished marks
- Uploading unreleased work or master files to public tools
- Swapping in AI images where we planned real photography
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Before you go
Okay. Ask me again.
Start of lunch After today
Scan to vote
or raise a hand
or raise a hand
Malley Design
10.13.2026
AI Lunch & Learn
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Next steps
What happens
Wednesday.
Wednesday.
- Write our AI policy. Bryan + Trev
- Set up the tools list and team accounts.
- Draft the client kickoff sheet.
- Get a lawyer’s read on any contract clause.
- Work through the build-next list from today.
Malley.design
For ideas worth chasing.
Thank you.
Questions?
Comments?
High fives?
Comments?
High fives?
