Edouard Fillias, who founded French digital agency Jin, has expanded the business into Germany and the UK and grown it to a firm with annual revenue of €20 million. In conversation with Paul Holmes, he discusses his agency’s origins, its successes—and failures—in acquisitions, building a culture of innovation, and why he might choose an artificial intelligence to lead his firm in the future.

Key takeaways:

  • Fillias says he “lost a year” playing online video games, which introduced him to “the concept of of a virtual community… a group of people that would stick together for months, for years building common values, building common projects.” It was a lesson in value of virtual communities—and in leadership.
  • As a “classical liberal,” he decided to use his digital skills to organize a protest—against the strikes that roiled Paris at the time—and later ran (unsuccessfully) for office before working with the communications team for former president Nicolas Sarkozy. He didn’t doscover until later “that the things that I was doing like talking to the news or rallying people or working on social media campaigns had a name.”
  • One of the things Fillias has learned is that “you can't delegate innovation…. So I really believe in in in finding partners and bosses that love innovation and that want to embrace it, that are being curious about innovation and twant to drive innovation throughout their teams…. Digital is always about being the first.
  • Key, he says, is “Freedom to try, freedom to fail. I failed a lot. We failed a lot. We invested millions of euros in software that did not work…. We failed, I think, 10 times and succeed one or two. But that's the culture of innovation engine I believe in a nutshell.”
  • After several acquisitions—and some aborted deals—Fillias believes that acquisitions work “when you get to know the people for real, you know their birthday, you know their kids, you know who they vote for, you know what they like or dislike. You know them and that takes 18 months, perhaps two years.”
  • “AI is is a massive disruption for for everything we do…, The storytelling is AI is going to automate junior jobs and it's going to help senior ones that we're going to earn even more money on AI. That's simply not true. AI is going to disrupt every one of us from the smartest to the dumbest.” What will be left for humans, he says, is “relationships, getting to know each other, building sustainable, meaningful relationship that are not just useful but also part of a cultural significance.”
  • Finally, “we have to think about how AI is going to change leadership. Do we need to have AI lead PR agency in the future? If you are a shareholders of a big business, would you rather have an AI that will lead your business or a very impetuous, not predictable CEO… I do think have to perhaps build AI leadership that will optimize our business, that makes it smarter, smoother.

    “I do think that I might have to be replaced myself by AI at some point.”