INC. Magazine Feature’s: LUNA+EISENLA
3 Principles to Help Your Business Thrive in the AI Era by Brad Luna & Kristofer Eisenla
LUNA+EISENLA co-founders Brad Luna and Kristofer Eisenla penned a new article for Inc. Magazine titled, “3 Principles to Help Your Business Thrive in the AI Era” where they argue that small firms who embrace AI will be the ones to succeed:
“Our own experience as founders of the strategic communications firm LUNA+EISENLA also informs our belief that smaller firms are uniquely positioned to lead. Many early decisions we made from necessity after launching in 2012 have become strategic advantages today.”
In the piece, they also outline three principles they have embraced in their own business to great success and share with other entrepreneurs to help them thrive in this new AI era:
1) Virtual work is an efficiency engine – Post pandemic,Gallup reports that today nearly 75 percent of white-collar workers operate in hybrid or fully remote environments. Years before this shift became widely accepted, LUNA+EISENLA argued for the legitimacy of remote work in a letter to The New York Times. The lesson for entrepreneurs is simple: today’s unconventional choice may be tomorrow’s best practice
2) The billable hour is fading – “From day one, our firm opted against billable hours in favor of a retainer-based model, reasoning that clients hire us for outcomes, not activity. In communications work, success is measured in results. Our clients view their return on investment through the lens of earned media placements, narrative shifts, or reputational impact, not the hours of time our team expended to produce a deliverable.”
3) Young talent is the accelerator for AI adoption – Interns and early-career subcontractors pushed us to adopt AI tools and other emerging platforms faster than we otherwise would have, with one intern offering an analogy that stuck: adopting AI is like hiring a plumber. You don’t want someone banging on pipes—you want someone who understands the system. Small firms must become the plumbers of AI. Clients will pay for mastery, not experimentation.
You can read the entire article, along with additional principles we suggest for those looking to stay ahead in a time defined by disruptive technologies, on Inc. Magazine’s website, here.