“I’m having so much fun building”: How a talent agent challenged the Hollywood status quo

In the early 2020s, business was slow at U-Shin’s talent agency; with pandemic shutdowns and industry strikes, he had time on his hands. During this period, he discovered an unexpected new interest – AI and automation. Little did he know that his hobby would soon change his professional life. 

It started when U-Shin’s wife planted a seed: Why not apply all this new knowledge to his own business? At the time, U-Shin was managing around a hundred clients in Hollywood, remotely from Vienna. Could automation make his work easier? Or better? Or both?

U-Shin deconstructed his entire talent representation process, identifying where automation could enhance his work. 

Soon, “Ari”, a fully automated AI chatbot serving his celebrity clients, came to be.

Within months, he'd scaled from 100 clients to 300. 

Then a reporter called. 

She wanted to know how one talent agent represents so many more clients than is the industry standard. With minimal staff.

After three weeks, the article was published. 

Ten minutes later, a private equity firm in New York reached out, eager to learn more. 

Then a Hollywood influencer turned the story into a video. 

And it went viral overnight!

"All of a sudden, I started getting emails from private equity firms, and they were asking me how I was doing this. And they're like, ‘can you do this for other companies?’ I said, ‘I could try.’"

U-Shin soon realized that he had set in motion an entirely new career trajectory, one that combined his passion for building and his challenger spirit. Seemingly overnight, U-Shin the talent agent became U-Shin the "AI architect". 

The challenge: big ideas, limited resources

U-Shin's agency had been thriving, but the pandemic hit the talent industry hard. When the business started recovering, although things were working, U-Shin knew processes could be improved. 

Within his business and beyond his business, he often felt constrained. He was constantly shaping ideas, both for his work and for his personal life. But without staff or capital, those ideas stayed trapped in his head. 

"The hardest thing for me is to see the vision in my head clearly. When I look at an idea, it seems big, but when I start working on it, it's ginormous. If I were to do stuff manually, I would never get it done. And that would be really heartbreaking for me."

The solution: Building success, one LEGO piece at a time

He started to wonder if automation could be the difference. Whether it could be the enabler he was looking for.  

He needed a tool that would complement his creativity. U-Shin tried a number of platforms first and found them overly complicated. But when he discovered Make, everything clicked, and he started building. 

"The first time I saw the interface, there were different colors. It was big. It was fun! I got to take an app and connect it to another app. It was basically like playing LEGO with my kids while building real products."

When it “clicks”: Pushing limits with a visual interface 

The visual interface, powered by AI, was the difference. U-Shin could see his automations, understand connections at a glance, and troubleshoot without struggling through text-heavy documentation. Something he wanted to avoid due to his dyslexia. 

Make Grid made troubleshooting intuitive. When something broke, U-Shin could see exactly where the automation stopped and fix it quickly. 

“My dyslexia makes anything that has reading or a lot of typing involved hard for me. Writing an email could take me as much as two hours. With Make, it happens in seconds.” 

AI combined with Automation helped him overcome limitations and opened his eyes to more possibilities. Soon, he was solving problems throughout his life: automating outbound emails with ChatGPT; creating a lead capture system for his friend’s real-estate company; building a golf-loving AI Agent for his father-in-law. 

Challenging the norms: a Chatbot that tripled the client count

Then his wife asked: Why not use automation to improve his own business?

U-Shin deconstructed the entire talent representation process and built "Ari". An AI agent chatbot that covered everything from routine communication to recommending outfits for movie premieres. Ari managed everyday client inquiries, freeing U-Shin to focus on relationship-building and deal-making.

The result was incredible. He tripled his client count, from 100 to 300.

"I was able to multiply myself and the agency without having to add any new staff. As a result of the AI automation, my clients had more resources available because I didn’t have to be there to answer every question."

Make was the glue, binding ideas into a solution

U-Shin describes Make as the glue that brings his vision to life. That helps him bring together different discrete elements into something bigger and more powerful. A new process for agents and a new experience for clients. One that challenges the status quo and solves a real industry problem.

"Make doesn’t only allow me to put a set of software together. It lets me connect that set with another set. So it's kind of like glue. I glue this chunk of smaller automations together and connect them with ten more. All of a sudden, it creates this beautiful domino effect."

The results: Talent Agent made AI Architect

Ari became a viral success overnight

Three weeks after U-Shin told a reporter about Ari, the article was published, and the story went viral. 

The seeds of a new career trajectory were being planted. Venture capital firms started asking him to run workshops. They wanted him to teach their core teams and portfolio companies (as many as 26 companies for one client) how to implement similar automation strategies. 

A domino effect had been set into motion. At light speed, U-Shin went from talent agent to what he now calls an "AI architect", turning his newfound passion into a career. 

"The skills that I developed using Make are super transferable from the entertainment industry into any other industry. Even those I would never have thought myself to be in. Who wouldn't be using this product?"

Growing to 1,000 clients

U-Shin is positive about the future of talent representation and determined to scale from 300 to up to 1,000 clients. The traditional agent-to-client ratio, he believes, exists not because it's optimal, but because it's all that's been manually possible. A limitation that leaves many talented actors without representation.

The viral AI experiment proved that automation could break through those constraints. It also proved that AI and automation are not here to replace relationships, but eliminate the friction around them. 

"The lesson was never to replace the talent agent, but to protect their energy. Through my model, as many as 700 actors currently without representation can get it. I found a new way!"

U-Shin can now also heavily focus on holistic process automation, for example, an end-to-end actor application management. He saves 15 hours weekly, creating more time to nurture the client relationships that define great representation. 

And to ensure everything is done ethically, he worked with SAG-AFTRA (the labor union representing entertainment professionals in the US) to establish guidelines on AI use in talent representation, creating a foundation others can build on. 

“I’m having so much fun”: Finding the true path

The most unexpected transformation was personal. When U-Shin teaches workshops on automation, it lights him up. It’s a new element of his career that he enjoys so much, he feels he will never call it work. 

“I’m having so much fun building. When I started, I already thought this was like a Swiss Army knife of tools. Now, when I'm actually really deep into it, I see that it's more adaptable than I ever thought. I think everybody in every industry should be and will be using Make."

“Just start tinkering.”

U-Shin has a message for aspiring change-makers unsure where to begin.

“Don't wait for the perfect plan. Start experimenting.”

His journey originates with nothing but curiosity and a willingness to explore and experiment during a pandemic shutdown. He didn't have a roadmap, only ideas. His curiosity and Make's engaging visual interface helped him bring those ideas to life. 

For solopreneurs with big visions and limited resources, for people with great ideas trapped in their heads, for anyone wondering if they have what it takes, U-Shin's story proves that the most important step is simply starting.

Because when you start exploring, that's when you make it happen.