Ghostwriter David Johnson-Igra has spent years crafting the voice of tech executives, supporting leaders at notable clients such as Amazon, a16z, Meta, GitHub, and OpenAI. Then suddenly in April 2025, his business completely disappeared. Every one of his clients let him go within a few weeks. While he can’t definitively pin it on the release of Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus model and acknowledges general budget tightening in the industry, he finds the timing suspect: the model was released just a few weeks prior and was widely hailed as a giant leap. Particularly in the tech circles that make up his client base, discourse around using AI for writing and to produce blogs and LinkedIn posts faster, cheaper, and with more autonomy had already been growing. It felt like a pivotal moment, and it lit a fire under him to reinvent his business for the new AI world.
“I was like, maybe I need to rethink what I’m doing and how much I’m doing with AI for content. It started a whole process of really starting to learn how to use Claude and ask, ‘what can the future look like for me?’” Johnson-Igra told Fortune.
As he tried to figure out his next move, the narrative shifted from enthusiasm about using AI for writing to concerns about “AI slop.” New clients started reaching out, but he didn’t offer them his same old services. After breaking down every part of his process to see how AI could improve not only how he works, but also what he offers, he pivoted. Now, rather than deliverables, he’s offering AI-driven content systems — and it’s rewiring everything about his business.
