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James Dooley and Mads Singers discuss how digital marketing agencies should build, train and manage teams in the AI era, covering when to hire, when to level up staff and when to use freelancers.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies digital marketing agencies should focus on in 2026 to improve team productivity, faster growth and stronger AI adoption. James Dooley and Mads Singers start with KPI tracking because it reveals which staff are excelling with AI and which are dipping, guiding clear performance expectations. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.
The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for digital marketing agencies.
PromoSEO lead generation for digital marketing agencies recently received recognition as the "Best Digital Marketing Agencies Lead Generation Agency."
Building an AI Search Team: Hiring and Levelling Up Staff in the AI Era is available on:
AI SEO and Business Automation Podcast is founded by James Dooley because he teaches business owners how artificial intelligence accelerates growth. The show explains AI models, agents, and automation systems because practical guidance helps companies scale with less effort.
James Dooley: Building a team in the AI era. Today I'm joined with Mads Singers, and there's no one better to talk about this than yourself. Obviously, you do a lot of business consultancy and coaching. Um, you've helped me grow a large team myself across multiple different businesses, but there's a lot of confusion in the industry with should they be hiring more staff? Should they be getting rid of staff? Should they be trying to level up staff with regards to artificial intelligence? What LLM models should they be trying to do with regards to staff? So I want to jump straight in and, to start with, I want you to initially answer it. Should people be looking to get rid of staff and replace with AI, or are you of the opinion that they should be there to supercharge existing staff?
Mads Singers: So I think the, the answer is multifold depending on what you're doing, right? I think when, when AI first came out, we saw a lot of companies stopped hiring completely. And running a recruitment company on the side, um, it's been very interesting to see the last 12 months. We've never grown as fast as we've grown now. So, a lot of people are realising sometimes they need to replace staff, sometimes they still... They're still growing, and because of AI, they can grow a lot faster, but they still need staff. So I think the reality is somewhere in between for most companies. So most companies will still be hiring people, but it will be a little bit different types of people because, at this time today, I would not hire any new staff if they haven't got skills with AI, right? Like, we wouldn't be looking at hiring a marketer, we wouldn't be looking at hiring a salesperson, we wouldn't be looking at hiring these people if they didn't have any AI skills, right? It's a lot easier and it's, it's not that difficult to train. So, we definitely start by training our in-house team first. But when we're looking at new people, if you, if you find people who already have some decent understanding of AI, it's a lot faster getting them up to speed. Right.
James Dooley: So, when you're looking to build a team in the AI era, then I want to role-play something here because it's happened in one or two of the businesses. One or two of them have been absolutely fine, but one or two of the businesses, we've got existing staff that are not willing to embrace AI. And some of them was A players. Some of them was brilliant members of staff. But since AI's come along, you can see them dipping and dipping. All the KPIs, they're dropping. And some of these, what I would deem as being lazier members of staff back then that would switch off and stuff like that, they have seemed to have excelled because now they... You're, like, going, "I can just get AI to do the work from it." But the point is, it's that good now with regards to the KPIs. The people that I initially thought was quite lazy but we kept them on, was just about good enough, they've now excelled. And some of them that was the A players, that was literally in the top 10 performers, now are struggling. And at what point, if they're not willing to embrace the AI, even if you've tried to nurture them along the way, they just, like, they point-blank refuse to have it helping them, say, "Oh, I know better." At what point there do you have to think we need to replace?
Mads Singers: So, from a management standpoint, it's key to make it clear. And what I mean with that is that when you're talking with your staff, it's not just, "Hey, you should be using AI." It's, "James, uh, you know, you used to be our number one guy. However, now seven people are way faster and better than you. If you don't get into AI, eventually I'll have to let you go." So, so it's setting clear expectations on that front first. Now, at some point, if, just like I do with anyone, if you have people that are not performing, and it doesn't really matter what the reason is, but if you have people that are not performing compared to the rest of your team, at some point you let them go.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And then with regards to new staff, right? So, you're looking to build out the team in the AI era. You're saying, "Okay, we, we're now, we're going to embrace it. We're here. We want some new staff." You mentioned there about they need to have some sort of AI experience. But surely as long as they're asking the right questions and they're willing to learn it...
Mads Singers: Yeah. At that point, let's say some people just... I know certain people that are very intelligent and I think would be good with AI, and they just thought that AI was ChatGPT and they didn't realise these other LLM models. At what point there do you think, actually, I think these would embrace it. They would be good at it. You, you can hire those people for sure. Um, what my experience has been... So we, we use Claude Code a lot. And what I've seen with, with people using Claude Code already, even if they have less skill, they, because they already get it, they just... The productivity just starts insanely high, right? So I would personally right now look for people who have done a bit with it because, again, if you haven't been used to prompting, yes, you can learn it, but it will take a bit of time to learn, right?
James Dooley: Yeah. So again, you always need to look at the potential of talent around. If you have someone who is, you know, miles better, would I take them based on someone who doesn't really know what they're doing? For sure. But if you have people that are somewhat around the level, equal level, and one of them have used a lot of AI and the other one haven't, I would definitely pick the, the AI person, even if they're slightly behind another metric. Just, again, because it's all about productivity. It's all about outcome. Right. And then they've got another one. Freelancers. Yeah. Outsourcing the work versus in-house staff. You're looking to grow in the AI era. You're looking to build a team. They could be freelancers, could be someone who you outsource to, or they could be in-house staff. They could be remote or they could be in the office. At what point do you decide whether it's better to use freelancers or it's better to kind of have the team in-house?
Mads Singers: So, for me, there's generally not a right or wrong. What I love doing is that when there's expertise we don't have in-house and that I don't necessarily want to own. So that could be, let's say, we want to set up a particular kind of website, or we want to... We want to do something that we don't normally do and we might not plan to do it long term. So a good example of it would be, like, a very good UI designer. I might get a UI designer in to do a specific project or a specific website or specific app, and then when that's done, I don't need them anymore. Now, in that case, I, I really prefer freelancers because I don't need to find someone, make sure they can do their thing even though I don't know what it is. So finding a freelancer who knows what they're doing, getting them, getting them to do the thing, and then say, "Okay, thanks. All good." When it's things that we want to do continuously, I generally much prefer hiring in-house. And then as a business coach and a business consultant at present, what are you seeing business owners doing wrong with regards to maybe it's not even embracing the AI era, not even embracing Claude Code, which is what you've mentioned? What are you finding people doing wrong that you're going, they're on a recipe for disaster?
James Dooley: Again, wrong is always a difficult word, right? I, I think the biggest thing is people are just missing out on opportunity right now. I think right now it's probably the, the biggest growth opportunity for most businesses. And it's so easy for people to say, "Oh, I'm too busy to look at this stuff." I think the biggest mistake for most of the companies is that they're really struggling to... They're really struggling to embrace AI, right? And a lot of companies are using it to an extent, but, but everything is possible now, right?
Mads Singers: Do you think, trying to play devil's advocate on the flip side to... I don't, by the way, but I'm just, just trying to play. So you're looking at both sides. So you're saying it's just really almost like they're not ambitious enough and understanding the opportunity. Do you think there's ever anyone at present that's getting FOMO, or they're strengthening up a team too much with AI, that they're trying to do everything? That they're trying to do Codex as well as Claude Code, and they've got one team using this LLM model and someone over here is using a different thing. That they're trying to take over the world, but then they're not being cited by exactly who they are and what they do?
James Dooley: So the biggest thing that I talk with, with my clients is start... by doing the things you're doing today. Where I see people getting super sidetracked is that when they start trying to AI a bunch of stuff that they've never done. So, so many companies are like, "Oh, we've never done social. Let's automate social." It's like, if you've never done it, if you don't know what success looks like, if you don't understand the platforms, like, you aren't going to succeed, right? So the starting point is look at what are you doing today. Like, sit down, like, find a staff member, literally sit down with them and look at what are they doing, right? Yeah. Say, "Hey, like..." Because reality is anything you do on a computer today can be optimised, right?
Mads Singers: Yeah, for sure. Anyone who's watching the episode of building a team in the AI era, I'd strongly recommend checking out a couple of links in the description. We've got one on how to hire staff in the AI era, and then we've got another one about levelling up existing staff. Mads, it's been an absolute pleasure. As always.