I lost my in-house motion design job a month ago and just started out on my own. The market isn’t going back to what it was, so I’d rather build something that still makes sense in a few years than wait for the old way of working going back.
What I’m considering offering is a hybrid setup: AI does the groundwork, I finish it by hand. It runs through an MCP into After Effects, so the AI builds the comps, layers and a first rough blockout directly in my project, and I’m training my own custom MCP on how I work so that starting point already looks like something I’d have set up myself. From there I do the part that decides whether it’s any good: timing, easing, design changes, the details that make it feel deliberate instead of generated.
My two actual questions, and I’d really like to hear it from people doing this for a living:
1. Do you think the industry is genuinely moving this way? Is a hybrid workflow something you’ll need to have in a year or two?
2. How far would you sell it as a USP? Lead with it, mention it only when asked, or keep it out of the conversation entirely? It’s honest and it explains my turnaround and my price, but to a client who doesn’t know the difference it could just as easily read as AI slop with a human rubber stamp. If you already work this way, I’m curious how clients actually react when it comes up.
Mostly curious whether anyone here is already working like this, and how you position your services because of it. Do you name it, or do you just quietly deliver faster?
No links, nothing to sell. Just trying to get others within the industry their opinion before committing to anything.