Keven Ellison’s depth of experience is such that he remembers a time before the internet. Perhaps the vice president of marketing at Advanced Imaging Solutions of Las Vegas may have even tapped away on a typewriter back in the day. But Ellison is not one to romanticize the past, because he’s acutely aware of what the future holds, and he (for one) vows to be prepared.
Ellison’s Feb. 10 presentation on AI during the Executive Connection Summit at the Scottsdale Resort & Spa in Arizona was one of several to examine the subject. But his 40-minute talk was unlike any other that day, to be certain. It had all the earmarks of a smack in the face and a shaking of the shoulders, the brand of delivery that causes jaws to drop and eyes to bug out. The tone was less “the future is closer than you think” and more “look out!”
It’s clear that Ellison, eats, sleeps and breathes AI. When the early murmurs predicted AI to be bigger than the internet, he mobilized while others nodded politely. He spends three-quarters of his day interacting with large language models (LLMs) while trying to keep ahead of the technology and have a firm hold on what comes next. Now, he’s like a scientist who knows an asteroid is coming toward earth, and he’s trying with all his might—without giving in to hyperbole, which is tough because the future is far more unbelievable—to be the evangelist our industry (and every industry) desperately needs.
In an ironic application, I asked Copilot to assess Ellison’s ECS address. It concluded “What he sees coming is nothing short of a structural rewrite of how organizations operate.” In other words, mind-blowing and scary as hell.
Not-so-Secret Agents
What is coming is the age of Agentic AI; in fact, he called 2026 the “year of the agents.” Not to be overly dramatic, but these agents have the capacity to take people’s jobs. And while many companies, including those in our industry, vow that AI will be used to support and not displace employees, that won’t be the case for many others. And Ellison said, flatly, that agents will indeed take away jobs. Don’t just take his word for it; the chatter is already out there, on LinkedIn, in sub-Reddit communities, employee and company boards, etc. One gets the feeling that something big is about to happen.
The threat is prompting people to reassess their value propositions. Ellison shared the example of a content creator at AIS, a seven-year staffer who typically writes three articles per week, encompassing research, keyword strategy, structure, links, etc. Her work consistently ranks high on Google searches, and she is clearly quite talented. Ellison was able to replicate the employee by extracting the job description’s tasks and entering it into a workflow requirements document. He then fed it into Gemini to generate JSON code, and deployed it through a tool called n8n.io. The resulting agent replicates the human. building the content calendar, drafts SEO and AI‑optimized articles, generates images, and even writes schema code.
The result: an agent that is capable of producing the same amount of articles as the human. But while it took the person a week to accomplish the tasks, the agentic workflow can do the same work in 17 minutes. Human salary: approximately $70,000 annually. AI cost: about 12 cents per article, or roughly $150 a year. And there are applications that can ensure an AI-penned article comes across in a writer’s tone, eliminating the robotic quality that often accompanies AI-generated copy.
A Company of 80 or a Company of Six?
Ellison didn’t stop at content. Over the past year, he has mapped his entire organization—sales, marketing, video, social, demand gen—into an agentic org chart. The result is a future structure in which an 80‑person company could, theoretically, operate with about six employees. In illustrating how easily it can be done, Ellison was being modest in saying he is far from the smartest person in the room. And AIS is not planning to divest its human team members. But the message was clear: it can be accomplished, whether you’re a software engineer or the head of marketing.
Ready or not, here it comes.
“Now you’re probably all shaking your head and saying ‘No way is that ever going to happen,’” Ellison told the audience. “I guarantee our landscape is going to change five years from now, and it’s going to start looking like this, if it hasn’t already changed. As executives, we need to start thinking about this.”
The implications ripple far beyond headcount. Revenue per employee may shoot through the roof, but what of the human toll? Executives planning for traditional growth—more space, more bodies—are, in Ellison’s view, misreading the moment.
“It’s going to be about changing lives, so I don’t know how that’s going to pan out,” Ellison said. “But I need to be prepared for this.”
Companies need to plan for it, decide their strategy and understand that there are risks and a need for AI leadership within organizations. Buy or build as a strategy is less important than getting on board.
The stakes are high for employees and companies alike. “I want to make sure that I’m giving my team the best and the most longevity for them to be in business,” Ellison added.
