Made by ON: The agency model built for the AI frontier

“Most briefs are terrible AI slop,” says Tudinh Duong, founder of Made by ON. “We often tell clients, ‘Thanks for the brief, but throw it away. We’ll write you a better one.’”

It's a blunt assessment from the founder of Made by ON, but one that captures how fundamentally the agency model is being rewritten. While traditional shops debate what AI means for their business, Made by ON has spent years building the infrastructure for this exact moment.

The agency didn't emerge from a polished pitch deck. Duong registered the domain in 2008, frustrated by a recurring pattern: agencies that siloed brand from digital, creativity from technology, when clients needed all of it working together. That idea stayed dormant until COVID arrived and demand for digital exploded overnight. 

Duong's phone wouldn't stop ringing with requests from former colleagues and clients who needed help navigating a suddenly remote world. "I called up Guanglun Wu, who I met at a hackathon. I was like, I'm doing this thing. I need a day a week of your time." That single day became seven. CCO Barry Cumberlidge followed the same trajectory. What looked like an overnight launch was actually decades of accumulated relationships and experience converging at the right moment.

The creative technologist stops being an exception

Made by ON's structure challenges the standard agency hierarchy. The team includes strategists who code, designers who understand technology, technologists who design. "We really embrace various skill sets and have a multi-disciplinary approach, truly and deeply," Duong explains.

That composition creates a direct line between client and craftsperson, eliminating the layers of account handlers that inflate traditional network agencies. But it also differentiates the agency from solo consultants wielding AI tools. "They don't have the breadth of knowledge in terms of stakeholder management, the business needs, things that go beyond the actual craft," Duong notes.

The approach has kept clients like Greenpeace returning since 2017. The relationship works because Made by ON views technology as an evolving partnership rather than a one-time implementation. "Change isn't overnight for many people," Duong says. "We're always there to help them."

Clients who can build what they imagine

The most significant industry shift is about collapsing the distance between idea and execution.

"Nowadays client teams can come up with an idea and build it with AI," Duong observes. "With the opportunity to vibe code and prompt things into existence, it calls into question the role of the agency."

For traditional agencies, it's an existential threat. For Made by ON, it validates everything they've built. The agency empowers clients with the same tooling, teaching them to manifest prototypes themselves. "That can feel quite intimidating for agencies, but for us, the aspect of empowerment means that you're going to get to a better quality solution," Duong says.

Recent work with Semrush demonstrates the approach. Made by ON built an experience to articulate the SEO analytics platform's new product, which Semrush then deployed across different parts of their business. When the client went through a rebrand, the agency worked seamlessly with their brand shop to evolve the experience without starting from scratch.

With Air, a creative operations platform, the relationship became cyclical. Made by ON delivered an award-winning launch, then adopted Air internally for their own workflows. "We've created tools and technologies on top of their system that has actually inspired them to create new experiences from what we've done," Duong says. "The relationship is not just, hey, you give us a brief and we're going to respond to it. It's, hey, let's work together, let's collaborate really deeply."

Prototypes that replace presentations

What surprises clients most is how quickly ideas become tangible. "Clients are used to being presented with a complete deck, a narrative. All that stuff is great," Duong says. "But if you can start experiencing the end output sooner, the dynamic changes and it changes the volume of ideas that are possible."

The agency presents working prototypes, not polished keynote slides. Design and development happen in parallel from the start. "I'm personally surprised that clients find that surprising because that should be the way that agencies operate, not under the veil of a 100-page keynote and no real output."

Rewriting the brief before the work begins

Made by ON's advice to prospective clients starts with an uncomfortable question: why can't you do it yourself?

"Sometimes clients go to an agency because they feel like they're missing the actual execution to manifest their idea," Duong explains. "But sometimes they're coming to a client because their brief is unstructured. Whilst it looks like it makes sense, strategically it doesn't."

That self-reflection unlocks more honest conversations early in the process. Clients can acknowledge they need help with strategy, not just execution. The agency can shape direction rather than simply responding to a flawed brief.

The second question clients should ask: how agile is this agency to change? "Whilst a brief could be well thought through or not and whilst there could be certain milestones set in place, the world around us changes," Duong says. "Is this agency going to put me on strict guardrails that I have to follow through as a client, or are they going to be nimble and agile enough to change as I need?"

Where the frontier moves next

Made by ON's recent work with On Running points towards new territory. The agency delivered cutting-edge interactive in-store experiences that connect physical retail with technology in ways previously out of reach for the brand.

"We've spent many years building a great culture, great ways of working and now being able to unlock that for more clients in new ways," Duong says. "There's going to be more products like that that will be able to help clients realise their ambition and vision that they've not been able to unlock before."

For Duong, the path forward is clear. Made by ON will continue shaping the tools other agencies use whilst maintaining its position at the frontier. "We've always been at the frontier and we're shaping the tools that other agencies are using," he says. "Made by ON is going to be a key leading force within our industry, not only for our clients but also to support the wider agency community."

The agencies worried about AI disruption might find the answer isn't in resisting the change, but in rebuilding their entire model around it.