Built for Bots: Inside the First Agentic-First Agency

10,000 Robots (10KR) isn’t just a catchy agency name—it’s a literal headcount. The newly launched agency is powered by more AI agents than human employees, and its founders (all former YML executives) intend to keep it that way. With AI handling tasks typically farmed out to junior staff, 10KR relies on a lean team of senior leaders, including CEO Stephanie Wiseman and Chairman Ashish Toshniwal. They believe scale no longer means headcount, and they’re proving it by having AI create everything from their launch video to their website, built using AI tools like Lovable, Runway, and Sora.

One standout AI personality at the agency is Zoe, an AI-powered creative director with a full-blown fictional backstory—tragic love, Tokyo design school, the works. Far from a gimmick, Zoe was trained on decades of award-winning campaigns and global design portfolios to spark ideas with the nuance of a seasoned ECD. Her purpose? To bring human-like empathy and complexity to the ideation process, prompting richer collaboration and better creative from the jump. She’s not alone either—10KR has a fleet of AI agents embedded across sales, client service, and strategy, making decisions and interacting with other bots autonomously.

And 10KR isn’t stopping at internal automation. The agency plans to rent out AI agents to clients on a subscription basis, offering everything from copywriting bots to client-persona simulators that mimic individual client personalities for feedback prediction. It’s a future-facing approach rooted in an old-school principle: don’t scale by hiring, scale by solving. As Toshniwal puts it, agencies tied to bloated payrolls won’t unlock AI’s potential without undermining themselves. In 10KR’s eyes, staying small might be the smartest way to win big.

Read more at AdAge.