The bet: A 40-person creative agency can move faster on AI than any global holding company — if someone builds the system.

Context

In late 2025, AI was everywhere in the conversation and almost nowhere in the workflow. Agencies were running pilots, posting LinkedIn manifestos, and quietly hoping their clients wouldn't ask hard questions about productivity.

UltraSuperNew is a Tokyo-based independent creative agency working with Anthropic, Mozilla, Amazon, Salesforce, Adobe, Porsche, Spotify, Daimler, and others, with offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Amsterdam, and Colombo. The conditions were right for actual transformation: small enough to move, senior enough to know the work, independent enough to make decisions without a global capability deck.

What was missing was an operating system. I built one.

What I built

USN AI OS — an agency-wide capability platform that turns AI from a tool conversation into an organizational capability. Designed and built independently, in production across Tokyo HQ, with phased rollout to Colombo, Singapore, and Amsterdam.

It is not a tool stack. It is a system: curriculum, governance, measurement, automation, and change management — engineered to make AI fluency the default, not the exception.

The components

14 role-specific AI guides — From Junior Designer to Creative Director to Business Development, each function gets a tailored playbook showing what AI changes, what it doesn't, and what to do differently starting Monday.

12-lesson Claude Playbook — A self-paced curriculum for Account and Producer roles. Built for the way agency people actually learn: short, applied, with real USN project examples.

AI Role Impact Analysis — A strategic capability map across 15 agency functions, classifying each role by AI replacement risk (red), transformation scope (amber), or value increase (green). Used by leadership to inform hiring strategy and capability investment.

SoW automation pipeline — Tally → Zapier → Notion → Claude. Producer turnaround on standardized client SoWs dropped from hours to minutes.

Responsible AI Guidelines (EN/JA) — Bilingual governance covering client confidentiality, IP handling, and disclosure standards. Built before clients started asking — not after.

AI Pitch Playbook + Tools for Creative Production — Operationalizing AI for RFPs, competitive pitches, and production workflows, with the rate card to back it.

Measurement layer — Quantitative time-allocation survey + structured 1-on-1 interviews establishing baseline adoption, capability gaps, and rollout priorities. Tracked quarterly against defined KPIs.

The numbers (Selected Cases)

86% cost reduction in voice-over localization ¥460,000 → ¥65,000 per project (validated against USN project data)

15 roles mapped in the AI Role Impact Analysis Red / Amber / Green tier classification

14 functions with role-specific AI playbooks 12 lessons in the structured curriculum 4 offices in the phased rollout roadmap

What's harder than it looks

The technology is the easy part. The hard parts are:

• Getting senior people to admit what they don't know

• Designing learning that respects how busy people actually are

• Translating "AI productivity" into a billing model that doesn't collapse on itself

• Building governance before a client incident forces it

• Maintaining momentum after the launch announcement fades

USN AI OS is engineered around these problems, not around the tools.

What's next

• Value-based pricing model (Phase 2)

• Multi-office rollout: Colombo → Singapore → Amsterdam

• External AI capability positioning for new business

• LMS-backed certification via TalentLMS + Credly digital badges

Role

Initiative Lead: Strategy & leadership. Drives adoption across teams, designs personalized AI Guidelines, conducts 1on1 interviews, reports ROI to leadership, coordinates with all Directors.