What was Artisan's Stop Hiring Humans campaign?
It was a run of ads in San Francisco in 2024 telling businesses to stop hiring humans and hire Artisan's AI agents instead. Artisan, a Y Combinator company from the winter 2024 batch, sells Ava, an AI sales development rep. Founder and CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack built the campaign around one line and tried it in several places before it caught on, according to SF Standard's profile of 7 April 2025.
| When | Where | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024, after Y Combinator | A building in the Marina, San Francisco | On move-in day at the team's Russian Hill house, Carmichael-Jack spots a billboard on a Marina building and rents it for a year | SF Standard |
| 2024 | Main booth at TechCrunch Disrupt | The slogan under Ava's face; Carmichael-Jack says it didn't really pick up | SF Standard |
| Next | Billboard on Highway 101 near SFO | A lukewarm response | SF Standard |
| Next | The team posts anonymous criticism of its own campaign to start a conversation | SF Standard | |
| By December 2024 | 50 bus shelters around the city | Death threats, notes from other startups' marketers, then calls from investors | SF Standard; DesignRush, 25 Dec 2024 |
| 9 April 2025 | Press | $25M Series A announced; about 250 customers and $5M ARR, per Carmichael-Jack | TechCrunch |
| June 2025 | Old Street Station, London | The campaign reaches London | BusinessCloud |
| August 2026 | Artisan's blog | Slogan retired; Artisan hiring its first human BDR | Artisan essay |
Why did the conference booth fall flat?
The people who saw it were puzzled, not angry. SF Standard reports that Artisan rented the main booth at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2024 and put the slogan across it beneath Ava's face, and that the message left conference visitors baffled. Carmichael-Jack's own verdict, as the paper reported it: it didn't really pick up.
The company went bigger with a billboard on Highway 101 near SFO, and the response was still lukewarm. SF Standard says the team was so discouraged that it posted anonymous criticism of its own campaign on Reddit to try to start a conversation. SF Standard says it got only some traction, though Startups Magazine reported that a Reddit post of a booth photo reached 35,000 upvotes before moderators removed it.
The next attempt worked. Carmichael-Jack put the ad on 50 bus shelters around the city. The reaction arrived in two forms. Death threats piled up on social media, and SF Standard reports that Carmichael-Jack stayed away from San Francisco for a time, first in Miami and then in London. At the same time, marketing managers at other startups sent admiring notes, and then investors started calling.
The part worth noting for any small team is persistence. The core line stayed the same from the booth to the bus shelters, though Startups Magazine and DesignRush report that the billboards and bus shelters also carried other lines, such as Artisans won't complain about work-life balance. What changed most was the placement and the scale. That is our reading of these reports, not a lesson Artisan has drawn in public.
What did the campaign bring in, by Artisan's own account?
Revenue, recognition and a funding round, all self-reported. In a statement published by Startups Magazine on 26 February 2025, Carmichael-Jack said October and November had been Artisan's biggest months ever, bringing in over $2M in new ARR, and that the company had seen thousands of sales meetings booked. Carmichael-Jack also said that about 70% of new people met in San Francisco now knew Artisan, against around 5% before. That is a personal estimate, not a survey.
On 9 April 2025, TechCrunch reported a $25M Series A led by Glade Brook Capital, with Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Oliver Jung and Fellows Fund among the participants. Carmichael-Jack told TechCrunch that Artisan counted 250 companies as customers and had reached $5M in annual recurring revenue. SF Standard, two days earlier, reported the same round as unannounced, about four months after the bus-shelter backlash, with around 250 customers and $5M ARR according to Carmichael-Jack.
The same TechCrunch piece is candid about the product. Carmichael-Jack admitted that Artisan, like others in the AI SDR market, had customers quit, said the first version had bad hallucinations but that Ava now hallucinates in maybe one in 10,000 emails, and said the company had sold to many of the wrong customers and now qualifies them heavily. Neither source separates sales driven by the ads from sales driven by anything else.
What did the ads cost, and what hasn't been published?
Artisan has published one cost figure, and it covers more than the 2024 San Francisco run. In an essay on its site dated 3 May 2026 and updated in August 2026, Carmichael-Jack wrote that Artisan spent $2M putting the slogan on billboards across San Francisco and New York. The essay also says the campaign generated billions of impressions and millions in ARR.
| Question | Published? | What exists, as of 20 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Total billboard spend | Yes, as one figure | $2M across San Francisco and New York (Artisan essay, May 2026) |
| Cost of the 2024 San Francisco booth, billboard and bus shelters | No | No breakdown by city, year or placement |
| Leads or cost per lead | No | Only thousands of sales meetings booked (Carmichael-Jack, February 2025) |
| Revenue linked to the ads | Partly | Over $2M new ARR in October and November, with no attribution method |
| Retention of customers won in that period | No | TechCrunch reports churn in general terms only |
For a sense of scale, another startup did share a number. SF Standard reported in September 2026 that Pylon, a Y Combinator company, spent about $350,000 on 12 billboards and bus ads that started running in July. That is one company's figure, for a different campaign, and not an estimate of Artisan's costs.
How did Artisan's message change from 2024 to 2026?
It moved from provocation to explanation, and in 2026 the slogan was retired. Asked by TechCrunch in April 2025 whether AI would really replace people, Carmichael-Jack said: "No, which is ironic, because we did the billboards that said, 'stop hiring humans' but that was mostly just for attention." Artisan then employed 35 people and was hiring 22 more.
The campaign reached Old Street Station in London in June 2025. BusinessCloud reported critical LinkedIn posts from people working in tech, including a head of growth who wrote that they were looking for an outbound tool that same week and that it would not be Artisan. That is the kind of buyer cost an impressions count doesn't show.
Carmichael-Jack's May 2026 essay restated the idea: "'Stop hiring humans' was never a sentence about humans at large, it was a sentence about a category of work." The essay names that work as email blasting, template churn and list-building, and says cold calling still belongs to humans. Its August 2026 update says Artisan retired the slogan and is hiring its first human BDR.
By September 2026, SF Standard reported, one of Artisan's newer bus-shelter ads carried the line I'm not taking your job, and Carmichael-Jack said the backlash against provocative tech ads was earned. Other companies had already pushed back on the idea in their own ads: KQED reported in March 2026 that Abby Connect, a virtual receptionist service, ran bus-shelter ads reading Humanity: Stop firing humans, and Nooks, which sells software that automates parts of a salesperson's job, ran a pair of billboards along 101 reading AI won't take your job and But someone using Nooks will!
How can a small team take a sharp stance without insulting its buyers?
Aim the stance at a task or an old way of working, and leave the people who buy from you out of the joke. A small team usually has no funding round to absorb a backlash, so the line has to provoke the right reader. These are our suggestions, and every line in the table is an example we wrote, not an ad anyone ran.
| Aimed at your buyers (avoid) | Aimed at the task (example) |
|---|---|
| Your sales team is the problem | Your sales team should never build a list by hand again |
| Recruiters are obsolete | Stop making recruiters schedule interviews over email |
| Agencies are a waste of money | Pay for meetings booked. Skip the hours logged. |
| Founders who post on LinkedIn are cringe | Your best customer story is sitting in a sales call recording |
Four checks before a line goes out:
- Who signs the order? If the person who approves the purchase is the target of the joke, rewrite it.
- Can you write the long version first? Artisan published the reasoning behind its three words in May 2026. Write your one-paragraph explanation before the ad, and put its key phrase in the ad itself.
- Would a customer repost it? Nooks' line casts the buyer as the person who wins. That is the test: your customer should look good sharing it.
- What is your stop rule? Decide in advance what reaction makes you pull the line, for example two target buyers saying they would not buy because of it.
For the question underneath the slogan, see our guide to AI SDR vs human SDR.
What can a 1 to 5 person team test this week?
Test the stance in posts before you pay for a single placement. These steps are our suggestions; the numbers are examples.
Write the stance in one sentence that names a task
For example: manual list-building wastes a seller's best hours. If the sentence names a group of people, rewrite it until it names a task.
Draft five lines and show them to three customers
Use the table above as a pattern. Ask each customer which line they would repost, and which one would annoy their boss.
Post the top two on LinkedIn from the founder's account
Count comments and DMs from people who match your buyer, and ignore everyone else's reaction. For formats, see our LinkedIn post templates.
Price one placement before you commit
Ask a local outdoor seller for a quote on one bus shelter or one billboard for four weeks. Compare it with what a month of founder posting costs you in time.
If your stance is about outbound, run the outreach alongside the posts. Siela's AI SDR writes each LinkedIn and X message for one person, from their profile and the signal that surfaced them, and a second AI reviewer checks it before it is sent. If you are comparing AI SDRs, our Artisan alternatives page lays out the options.
Frequently asked questions
Did Artisan stop using the Stop Hiring Humans slogan?
Yes. Artisan's essay on the campaign, first published on 3 May 2026 and updated in August 2026, says the company officially retired the slogan in August 2026 and is hiring its first human BDR. SF Standard reported in September 2026 that one newer Artisan bus-shelter ad carries the line I'm not taking your job.
How much did Artisan spend on the Stop Hiring Humans billboards?
Artisan says it spent $2M putting the slogan on billboards across San Francisco and New York, according to CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack's essay on the company blog dated 3 May 2026. The essay gives no breakdown by city, year or placement, and we found no published cost for the original 2024 San Francisco run.
How much did Artisan raise in its Series A?
Artisan raised a $25M Series A led by Glade Brook Capital, TechCrunch reported on 9 April 2025. Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Oliver Jung and Fellows Fund participated. At the time, CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack said Artisan had 250 companies as customers and $5M in annual recurring revenue. It had raised $12M in September 2024.
Where did the Stop Hiring Humans ads appear?
In San Francisco, the slogan appeared on Artisan's main booth at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2024, a billboard on Highway 101 near SFO and 50 bus shelters, per SF Standard. BusinessCloud reported ads at London's Old Street Station in June 2025, and Artisan's essay mentions New York billboards.
Did Artisan mean Stop Hiring Humans literally?
No, by its CEO's account. Jaspar Carmichael-Jack told TechCrunch in April 2025 that the billboards were mostly for attention and that AI would not replace people. Artisan's May 2026 essay says the slogan was about a category of work, such as email blasting and list-building, and that cold calling still belongs to humans.
Sources
- SF Standard (Rya Jetha): The real humans behind the Stop hiring humans ads (published 7 Apr 2025)
- TechCrunch (Julie Bort): Artisan raises $25M and is still hiring humans (published 9 Apr 2025)
- Artisan (Jaspar Carmichael-Jack): Why we put stop hiring humans on billboards, and why we retired it (published 3 May 2026, updated Aug 2026)
- Startups Magazine: Clickbait stop hiring humans campaign made Artisan go viral (published 26 Feb 2025)
- DesignRush: Dystopian Marketing or Bold Innovation? Artisan's Campaign Divides Opinions (published 25 Dec 2024)
- BusinessCloud: Artisan AI stop hiring humans ads cause outrage in London (published 5 Jun 2025)
- KQED: What do San Francisco's AI vs. humans billboards say about our working futures? (published 17 Mar 2026)
- SF Standard (Natallie Rocha): anti-AI billboard graffiti (published 2 Sep 2026)
- Siela: Artisan alternatives (checked 20 Oct 2026)