The Prompt Shop by Emily Dontsos

It was finally here. Presentation day. The moment that could define the trajectory of his career.

Jake had stayed up late putting the finishing touches on his PowerPoint, rehearsing his lines. He had one shot, and he had to get it right. No room for error.

He was pitching his ad concept to his agency’s biggest client. His boss had put a huge amount of trust in him, handed him an enormous opportunity. He couldn’t fuck it up.

It was the moment he’d been waiting for. After seven years of long days and late nights proving himself, grinding out pithy, snappy copy and increasingly cutting-edge design ideas, it was finally his time to shine. To showcase the full potential of his creative chops.

His ad campaign idea for this particular client—HiTech, a leading software developer—might even disrupt the entire advertising industry. It was that unique. That brilliant, if he may say so himself. The culmination of two design degrees, a lifetime of artistic practice, a natural gift for creativity, and the time he’d sunk into slogging through the trenches.

He was ready.

He’d spent the past few weeks perfecting his pitch, tweaking his designs, refining his copy. Endless cups of coffee, countless ignored texts, too little sleep.

But it had been worth it. As he showered, put on his best suit, and stepped out into the sunny spring morning to head to the office, he was on top of the world. He was going to crush this presentation.

The meeting was set for nine a.m. sharp, just enough time for one last cup of coffee and a final review of his PowerPoint.

At quarter to nine, he started setting up in the meeting room, connecting his laptop to the giant monitor mounted on the back wall. He pulled up the PowerPoint, flicked through the slides to make sure everything was in order, and straightened out the dozen or so chairs around the board table. Everything was in place.

His boss, Mario, came in and took a seat a few minutes early. Gave Jake an encouraging smile and asked how he was feeling.

"Good," he said, "I’m as prepared as I can possibly be." Mario nodded, picked up his phone and scrolled while they waited.

At two minutes after nine, the glass door swung open and the client’s team of representatives filed in, all suits, hairspray, and aftershave. There were greetings, waters were poured, seats were taken, introductions were made.

Jake tried not to show his disappointment: the client had sent two mid-level marketing managers and a junior marketing assistant. He glanced at his boss, Mario, who didn’t seem to notice the absence of the usual executive team members they typically presented to for an ad campaign of this size. The ones he’d been expecting, preparing for.

He forced himself to move past it; it probably meant nothing. Maybe these managers had more decision-making power than he realized.

As the initial small talk quieted down, Mario made a little welcome speech. Thrilled to present an exciting new concept for HiTech’s latest national ad campaign, developed by our junior art director, Jake Rankin. We think you’ll be thrilled with Jake’s avant-garde vision, which we believe will bring unprecedented attention to the company and could even shake up the tech industry. It’s creative, disruptive, and pushes the traditional boundaries of advertising.

Jake listened with a mixture of pride and fear. He believed in this concept, he really did. It was his best work. But what if the client hated it? What if they didn’t understand it? What if it was too different, too out there?

He glanced at the client team to gauge their initial reactions to Mario’s spiel. He was surprised to see they were all looking at their phones. One of the marketing managers had opened her laptop and was tapping at a couple of keys while scrolling on her phone at the same time.

A bit rude. Maybe they felt they’d heard it all before. Well, he’d show something new. Something that would wake them up, make them think, maybe even inspire them a little.

He thanked Mario and stood up, intro slide on the screen and clicker at the ready. Paused for a moment until the client team finally looked at him with a combination of curiosity and boredom. Not quite the audience he was hoping for, but he wouldn’t let them ruin this moment for him.

He took a breath and began.

His voice was confident, his delivery smooth. His strategy was to walk the team through his creative inspiration and vision before revealing the concept itself. The reveal was what would blow them away, remind them why they chose Creative Strategies as their ad agency in the first place. Make them realize HiTech’s fortunes were about to head into the stratosphere, all thanks to Jake’s groundbreaking concept.

His eyes were on the screen as he finished flicking through his opening slides, setting the stage for the big moment. But when he looked back at the group, his heart dropped. They were all back to scrolling on their phones. Even Mario, his boss.

What the fuck?

He cleared his throat. “I’m really excited to share the concept itself now,” he said, a little too loudly.

One of the marketing managers leaned over to his colleague and whispered something. The colleague smiled, nodded. They looked at her laptop and seemed interested in what they saw.

“The next few slides are really important, so I’d love to have your full attention,” Jake said, trying to keep his tone light and professional. What was wrong with these people?

The group in front of him finally looked up in unison, their faces arranged into neutral stares or polite smiles.

He flicked to the first concept slide, excitement bubbling up in his chest despite his frustration. He looked at it with pride and then turned back to the group for their initial reaction.

Only one person was still looking at the screen. The junior marketing assistant. He looked deep in thought, his brow creased, one hand rubbing at his chin. Then he looked down at his laptop and started typing something.

The room was dead silent except for the sound of clacking keys. One of the marketing managers yawned.

Jake felt like he might vomit. This wasn’t how the presentation was supposed to go. Had he done something wrong? Were they expecting something—or someone—different? Oddly, not even Mario looked concerned about their reaction as he mindlessly scrolled on his phone.

“What do you all think so far?” he asked, smiling, looking at each of them even if they weren’t looking at him. “Thoughts? Reactions? Questions?”

The junior marketing assistant turned his laptop toward one of the marketing managers, who gave a quick nod of approval. “Perfect. I love it,” she said.

Jake felt a pang of relief. “I’m so happy to hear that—”

“Sorry, not yours,” said the manager, glancing at him. “We just asked ChatGPT for a few concept ideas and they’re really good.”

“ChatGPT?” Jake felt his stomach drop. “I know AI can be a useful assistant, but we worked really hard on this concept. I’d love to talk about it and hear your thoughts.”

The junior marketing assistant pointed to something on his screen and they all leaned in to read it. Laughed.

“This is great,” said one of the managers. “Snappy, kinda quirky. Let’s just go with that.”

They all nodded. The junior marketing assistant made a few notes on his laptop and closed it. The others closed theirs. They all looked over at Jake.

“Thanks, Jake, but I think we’ve got our concept,” the manager said. “We fed ChatGPT a couple of the ideas you mentioned at the start and it came back with some really good stuff. We’ll take it from here.”

The client team stood up. Mario stood up. Jake fought back his rage and disappointment as they said their goodbyes and Mario walked them out of the meeting room.

When the room was empty, he sat down in one of the chairs. What just happened? Did he just lose the agency’s biggest client to ChatGPT? They hadn’t even given him a chance. Had just been humouring him. In fact, had stolen his ideas and fed them to AI right in front of him.

Mario came back into the room, shut the door. Sat down.

After a beat of silence, he cleared his throat.

“Jake, I’m so sorry. I knew they were planning to start using AI to generate ad concepts, but I wanted to try one last time to impress them with our stuff.” Mario paused. “It’s clear they’d already made their decision, though. They don’t need us anymore.”

Jake felt like he was falling off a cliff. His heart started racing. He looked at Mario. “So that’s it? All that work, all those ideas, meaningless? For nothing?”

He expected Mario to disagree, deny, give him hope that this was just a one-off, just a case of one good client gone bad. But Mario was quiet.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “For nothing.” He waited a moment then added: “We’re closing the agency, Jake. The HiTech presentation was our Hail Mary. It’s a lost cause. We’re bleeding business. Everyone is using AI now.”

Jake sunk down into his chair, tapped his fingers on the table. Closed his laptop. Let the humiliation consume him, then the despair.

#

Two years later

Jake looks over his notes. Just two more prompts and he’ll call it a day.

Create a social media campaign for The Roasted Bean Coffee Co., he types.

ChatGPT spits out a comprehensive campaign plan, complete with a social media calendar and fully drafted content, in the span of one minute. He emails it off to the client.

Last one. Write an eight-hundred-word article for YouthACTion about the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on youth mental health. Include sources.

This one takes less than thirty seconds. He gives it a cursory glance then sends it off to the client.

Done. He closes his laptop and stands up, ready to head home for another evening of scrolling through AI-generated videos before bed. There’s nothing else to do.

He passes by Mario’s desk on the way out. Glimpses the prompt he’s feeding into ChatGPT: Create a marketing strategy for HiTech to promote their new AI tool. 

The agency hadn’t closed, after all. It became a prompt shop. The choice was pivot or die. Some chose to die; Creative Strategies chose to pivot.

Write a thousand-word essay about the future of…

Design a new brand look for…

Create a series of photographs showing…

Make a cityscape painting that our client can hang over…

“Hey, Jake?” Mario puts a hand on Jake’s arm as he passes by. “Quick question. I’ve been trying to prompt a new ad concept for one of the bank clients, but nothing is quite hitting the mark. Wondering if you want to sit down with me and see if we can come up with some ideas?”

Jake stares at Mario for a moment, a little taken aback. Ideas?

He hitches his laptop bag up on his shoulder, takes his phone out of his pocket. His thumb starts swiping almost on its own, scrolling, scrolling.

“Sorry, Mario. I’m all out of ideas.”

He goes home.

Emily Dontsos holds an Honours B.A. in English Literature from McMaster University and an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Toronto, where she served as a co-editor of echolocation, the literary journal of the Graduate Department of English. Her works of fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in Blank Spaces, The Fiction Journal, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. She works as a professional writer and editor specializing in non-profit communications and lives in Toronto with her husband and son.