We Convinced the Internet That We Replaced Our CEO With AI - Here's How
On April 1st, Jaspar stepped down as CEO of Artisan.
Or at least, that’s what hundreds of thousands of people on social media thought.
LinkedIn followers went into meltdowns. Friends were concerned. A few executives saw an opening and Jaspar got five job offers.
And it was all fake.
Welcome to the most ambitious April Fool’s campaign we’ve ever pulled off — executed in under three weeks from idea to launch. And yes, we’re already scheming on the next one.
How We Came Up With the Idea
The team was in Las Vegas. It was day two of the HumanX conference. We’d seen too many booths, sat through too many panels, and heard the word “AI” used with very little understanding.
Somewhere between conversations with prospects at the booth, Jaspar and I started spitballing ideas:
“What if I stepped down as CEO?”
"What if you were replaced by an AI CEO?"
“What if we made it cinematic?”
We had less than three weeks until April 1st. For the kind of campaign we were imagining, that was barely enough time to get the ball rolling. But we work at a startup—moving fast is kind of the whole point. So we decided:
“F*ck it. Let’s do it.”
24 Hours Later…
With the ever-constant help of ChatGPT, I jammed out a full script in a few hours. It was rough, but good enough to get things moving. We sent it to our videographer that afternoon, and by the next day, he had a full storyboard and shot list ready to go.
Within 48 hours, we had:
✅ Actor locked
✅ Film crew booked
✅ Location secured
We chose LA for its easy access to talent, crews, and locations—it meant faster turnaround, fewer logistics, and lower costs without sacrificing quality.
By the time the HumanX conference wrapped, we had rerouted to fly directly to LA to shoot the campaign.
The whole thing went from idea to execution mode in under 72 hours. When we say we move fast—we mean it.
Lights, Camera, “Resignation”
We shot the entire thing in a single day. Which meant everything was severely chaotic. But that's nothing new for us at Artisan.
The night before, I was sprinting through H&M 15 minutes before closing, grabbing outfits for our actor, praying that they would fit him.
The day of the shoot, this is what our "set" looked like:
1 actor
1 makeup artist
1 cameraman
1 producer
And me, overseeing the script with my only experience being an 11th Grade film class
It wouldn’t be a true scrappy startup shoot without at least one curveball. Ours came in the form of our Jaspar 2.0 actor (Tanner) getting stung by a bee mid-scene.
At first, we thought he was fine. Ten minutes later, his face was swelling on camera. We paused production, put in a priority order for antihistamines on Uber Eats, iced his cheek, and hoped continuity wouldn’t fall apart.
Thankfully, the swelling went down and we resumed production with no more hitches.
Once Again Racing Against the Clock
The next two weeks were pure post-production hustle. VFX. Sound design. Color grading. Every detail mattered, and every hour counted.
We were pushing right up against the deadline—hours before launch level of tight. Our videographer, Ro, was making final edits until 2AM the night before, while the rest of us worked to finalize social media posts and launch assets.
The video was just one piece of the puzzle. To make the campaign even more convincing, we also built out:
A fake landing page advertising our AI CEO
Billboards of AI Jaspar in SF and NYC
Social posts for multiple Artisan leaders to post
Some of these little elements came to us spontaneously during the day too, like Jaspar turning on his "Open to Work" banner on LinkedIn, or all the Artisan employees commenting under Jaspar's post about how much he'd be missed.
Happy April Fools!
The results over the past 2 days speak for themselves:
150,000+ impressions across LinkedIn, X, and Instagram
50,000+ video views
5+ job offers (real ones, from real companies)
Panic texts from investors that were not given a heads up
And a very real reminder that good storytelling still works
Interestingly, a lot of people also asked if the video was AI-generated.
And while Tanner does look eerily AI-generated, it was 100% human made.
While I'm sure that AI is definitely getting close to being able to pull something like this off, sometimes it’s just more fun to work with real people 😉
Even if we're all getting replaced by Artisans very soon.
If You’ve Got a Crazy Idea, Run With It
This whole thing started as a throwaway idea at a conference—just two people joking around between meetings.
We had no script. No plan. Barely any time. But we said yes, and figured it out on the way down.
Was it a mad dash? Definitely.
Our entire crew pushed to the edge—late nights, last-minute scrambles, tight deadlines, and a lot of duct tape holding things together.
But the end result? Totally worth it.
The payoff wasn’t just the views or the impressions (though those were nice). It was the energy it sparked inside our team. The feeling of pulling off the impossible. The reminder that creativity still wins—even in a world drowning in AI-generated everything.
So if you’ve got a crazy idea?
Run with it.
Don’t wait for the “perfect” timing. Don’t overthink it. Say yes, commit hard, and build as you go.
You’ll be surprised what you can pull off in under three weeks.
More stunts coming soon—stay tuned.
While we don't have an AI CEO yet, we do have an AI BDR, Ava! Book a demo to see what she can do to supercharge your sales team.
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