AI is getting scary good at graphic design. Google Pomelli can now create professional ad creatives from just your website URL, completely free. It’s better than most graphic designers you’d pay a few hundred dollars. This changes everything for small businesses and puts pressure on agencies that aren’t adapting.
The reality is simple: you either pay thousands for top-tier designers, or you need someone with good judgment who can use these AI tools effectively. The middle ground—paying a few hundred dollars for average design work—doesn’t make sense anymore.
What Is Google Pomelli?
Google Pomelli is Google’s latest experimental AI tool that creates ad creatives automatically. You give it your website URL, and it generates on-brand ads for you.
The process takes minutes. Pomelli scans your website to extract your brand’s colors, fonts, logo, and writing style. It then creates a complete set of ads across multiple formats—Instagram posts, Facebook ads, web banners, and story graphics. All the creatives are editable, so you keep creative control.
Right now, it’s completely free through Google Labs. That’s zero cost for professional-looking ad creatives that would normally cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
How Good Are the Results?
Pomelli produces work that’s better than the average graphic designer. Not the best designers out there, but better than what most small businesses would get for a few hundred dollars.
This matters because most businesses don’t need award-winning creative for every social media ad. They need consistent, on-brand visuals that convert. Independent evaluations show it delivers that at scale, though it works best as a brainstorming tool rather than a complete replacement for creative professionals.
The tool can generate dozens of ad variations in the time it would take a human designer to create one. For testing different messages and formats, that speed is valuable.
When Should You Still Hire a Designer?
You should still invest in top-tier designers for high-stakes campaigns. If you have thousands in your budget and need a truly unique creative concept, human expertise matters.
The best designers bring strategic thinking, cultural insight, and originality that AI can’t replicate. They understand target audience behavior, platform-specific nuances, and visual storytelling at a level machines don’t.
But for everyday advertising needs—social posts, standard banner ads, promotional graphics—AI tools can handle it. Industry experts note that unless you’re spending thousands on top-tier designers, you just need someone with good judgment who knows how to use these tools.
Where Facebook and Google Are Heading
Both Facebook and Google are moving toward ad creation that requires minimal human input.
Mark Zuckerberg has described a vision where Meta’s ad system acts as an AI co-pilot. Small business owners would input basic information—their business page and marketing goal—and Meta’s AI would generate the ad visuals and copy automatically.
Google has taken this further with Performance Max campaigns. As of mid-2025, advertisers can simply provide a campaign goal, target cost-per-action, and landing page URL. Google’s AI then crafts the ad copy, generates custom images and videos, and automatically decides where to show the ads across Search, YouTube, and Display networks.
This shift removes traditional agency services from the equation. The platforms are essentially building ad creation capabilities directly into their systems, making it far easier for small businesses to run sophisticated campaigns without hiring outside help.
The Agency Problem
Here’s what frustrates me most: many agencies are either refusing to use AI tools or hiding their use from clients.
Some agencies have convinced themselves AI will never make anything valuable. They refuse to adapt. Others are quietly using these tools but deliberately hiding it from clients, charging old-school rates for work that’s become cheap to produce.
This is incredibly common. It’s the primary reason I left my last agency to start my own.
At my new agency, we’re completely transparent about using AI tools. We recently reviewed our workload and estimated we’re doing about four times the work we did at the same rate at my previous agency. And we’re still plenty profitable.
Clients now expect agencies to achieve more with fewer billable hours by using AI. The agencies refusing to adapt or hiding their AI use are falling behind.
Red Flags When Hiring an Agency
Watch for these warning signs:
Lack of transparency about tools. If an agency won’t discuss whether they use AI or bristles at the question, that’s a red flag. Many agencies are already using generative AI behind the scenes to produce graphics, copy, and videos with far fewer resources. They might be hiding it to maintain high rates while keeping the efficiency gains for themselves.
Unexplained high costs for basic work. If an agency charges thousands for simple social media ads or banner designs, compare that to what AI tools can produce in minutes. Ask them to justify the cost.
Generic, template-like deliverables. If their work looks formulaic, you might be paying premium rates for AI-generated content with minimal human polish.
No emphasis on strategy or data. In the AI era, an agency’s real value is strategy, creative direction, and data-driven optimization. If their pitch focuses only on deliverables without discussing how they’ll improve results, be cautious.
A good agency uses AI tools to work more efficiently and passes those benefits to you through faster turnaround, lower costs, or more output for the same price.
Cost Comparison: AI Tools vs. Designers
Google Pomelli costs $0 during its beta period. Small businesses can generate unlimited campaign graphics without paying anything beyond their time.
By contrast, hiring a designer gets expensive quickly. Freelance graphic designers typically charge around $100-$300 per ad creative. Design agencies charge $500-$1,500 for the same work. For a dozen different ad variations, you’re looking at thousands of dollars in total fees.
Traditional agencies often work on retainers of $5,000-$10,000 per month for creative services. Pomelli offers an “unlimited” graphics package for free.
The time factor matters too. Pomelli delivers results in minutes. A human designer might need days to concept and polish the same work across multiple formats.
How Agencies Should Adapt
Forward-thinking agencies can use AI to increase client output without raising costs. The key is transparency.
Agencies should automate production but add human insight. Use AI to generate initial drafts quickly, then have the team curate and refine the best options. This “AI + human” workflow means more output without needing more hours.
Charge by value, not by hours. Rather than billing 50 design hours when AI cut that to 10, charge based on outcomes. Pack more deliverables into the same fee. Agencies like WPP have already moved away from hourly pricing because they acknowledge AI efficiency.
Pass the savings to clients. If AI lets you produce 15 ad visuals in the time it used to take to create 5, give clients that extra output for the same price. Some agencies report being able to handle 4x the workload using AI assistance while keeping costs steady.
Everyone can win. The client gets more content for the same budget. The agency maintains profitability while handling more projects.
What This Means for Your Business
As long as your agency keeps up with available tools, everyone can be more efficient. The agencies that thrive will embrace AI transparently and use it to deliver more value.
For small businesses doing marketing in-house, tools like Pomelli remove major barriers. You can now create professional ad campaigns without design expertise or large budgets.
The middle tier of graphic design work—paying a few hundred dollars for decent but unremarkable ads—is disappearing. You either invest in exceptional creatives for major campaigns, or you use AI tools with someone who has good judgment.
That’s where we’re heading, and it’s happening faster than most people realize.
Ready to Stay Ahead?
At TJ Digital, we’re completely transparent about using AI tools to deliver better results for our clients. We’ve rebuilt our entire workflow around these technologies, and we pass those efficiencies directly to you.
If you want an agency that’s honest about how marketing works in 2025 and focused on getting you real results, let’s talk.