The short answer.
R/GA is a global creative agency. They design brand experiences, campaigns, and customer-facing products, with AI now woven through the work. The deliverable is creative output and the systems around it.
Average Robot is a change management firm for the AI transformation of the workplace. We diagnose why AI investment is not converting into value inside your organization and design the people, process, and platform strategy to fix it. The deliverable is alignment, not creative.
One makes the work. The other gets the team making the work to use AI well. Different jobs, often confused on the same shortlist.
Who they are.
R/GA is an Interpublic-owned creative network with a long history in digital, product, and innovation work. The AI practice extends that lineage - using generative AI inside campaigns, brand systems, and consumer-facing products for global clients. Their case studies and AI work live at rga.com.
The model is agency-shaped. Creative directors, strategists, technologists, and producers staff a brief. Engagements are sized for visible, high-craft output. If you have ever briefed a creative network, the shape will be familiar - and the overhead will be too.
Who we are.
Average Robot is a San Francisco-based change management firm founded by Matt Perry, a former marketing and brand leader, with Rob Cannon, PhD, a behavioral scientist focused on workforce adoption of AI. We co-authored The Elephant in the Algorithm, a playbook for marketing, creative, and talent leaders navigating AI.
We do not produce creative work or campaigns. We run a 3P diagnostic - People, Process, Platform - to find where AI adoption is stalling inside the team, then design a roadmap your people will actually use. The work is internal alignment, not external output.
Where each of us wins.
Pick R/GA when
- You need a brand-led campaign or consumer-facing experience that uses AI.
- The brief calls for creative directors, strategists, and producers in the room.
- You want a global network with production capability behind it.
- The success metric is creative work in market.
Pick Average Robot when
- Your AI investment is real but the return is not showing up.
- Adoption inside your marketing or creative team is patchy, performative, or stalled.
- You need to align business strategy, AI strategy, and customer strategy.
- The success metric is teams moving from AI swirl to strategic intent.
How the engagements differ.
An R/GA engagement looks like agency work. Briefing, creative development, production, launch. Timelines run in months. The team is a creative team. The artifact is output - a campaign, a product, a brand system.
An Average Robot engagement looks like change work. The free AI Alignment Snapshot is an eight-minute leader survey. The AI Alignment Playbook is a done-with-you engagement starting at $4,999 that gives a leader and team a personalized read and a 90-day plan. The AI Alignment Partnership is a custom engagement for senior leaders aligning AI across multiple teams or a whole division. The artifact is alignment - across leadership, teams, workflows, and tools.
Working with both.
The two firms solve different problems. Agencies refer clients to change firms when the campaign shipped but the internal team did not change how it works. Change firms refer clients to agencies when the read is that the work itself needs to look different in market.
If you are not sure which job you are buying, a 45-minute discovery call will get you to a clear answer faster than another round of internal debate.
Questions people ask.
Is Average Robot a creative agency like R/GA?
No. R/GA is a global creative agency with a product and innovation practice. They ship brand-led creative work and the systems around it. Average Robot is a change management firm focused on getting AI adopted across people, process, and platform. We do not run campaigns or build brand systems.
When should we hire R/GA instead of Average Robot?
When the deliverable is a campaign, a brand experience, or a customer-facing product with AI woven through it. R/GA and firms like it are built to ship creative work. Hire us when the AI tools are already in place inside your marketing or creative team and the question is why your people are not getting value from them.
Can a holding-company agency really do AI change management?
Some can, at the brand and consumer-experience layer. The gap tends to show up inside the client organization. Network agency overhead is built around campaign delivery, not internal adoption work. For change inside the team, a specialist change firm usually moves faster.
Do you work with R/GA-style agencies?
Yes. We have collaborated alongside agencies when the brief had both a campaign component and an internal adoption component. The honest scope is usually two engagements with two specialists, not asking one firm to do both jobs.
Who does Average Robot work with most often?
Marketing, creative, and talent leaders inside mid-market organizations, typically between $40 million and $150 million in revenue. The buyer is almost always a CMO, CCO, or CHRO whose AI spend has outrun their AI strategy.