EP 016 · 68 MIN SAME IMAGE. CALL IT AI, IT FEELS COLDER.
Midjourney at Scale The Superside Blueprint for Teams w/ Phil Maggs (Superside)
The short version
Episode 16 is a guest interview with Phil Maggs, Director of Generative AI at Superside, on scaling generative AI from a five-person skunkworks team to 500 trained designers. Phil describes blind internal tests where labeling an image "AI" made viewers rate the identical picture as colder, and explains why Superside has never shipped a raw Midjourney output without human post-production. He closes with tool picks and advice against over-regulating AI adoption before you understand it.
Key takeaways
- 01
Superside grew its AI team from about 5 people to 500 trained designers in under two years via quiet 'shadow projects' on live client briefs.
- 02
In blind internal tests, the exact same image rated as 'colder' the moment reviewers were told it was AI-generated — the label changed perception, not the pixels.
- 03
Roughly 20% of any team are early adopters needing no push, 60% need structured coaching, and 20% will resist — forcing that last group is the wrong goal.
- 04
Superside has never shipped a raw Midjourney output across hundreds of thousands of images; every asset still goes through human post-production first.
- 05
Don't over-regulate AI adoption before you understand it: keep early spend on credit cards, raise your risk tolerance, and move to real client work fast.
- 06
Superside measures cost, speed, quality and feedback against a 120,000-project baseline, so AI-versus-human decisions come from data across many trials, not one anecdote.
- 07
Phil Maggs wants Midjourney to stop building UI and ship an API instead; he argues the real value is speed from brief to draft, not prompting skill.
Receipts · said on the record
“Superside is a creative as a service platform. So they offer a subscription-based model for design and creative services, and this aims at really helping brands scale creative output.”
“turns out if you just say, if it's AI, people then just have that feeling on the whatever image that you've said is AI. Would you look at that? Who knew?”
“$60 x 250, that's $15,000 a month, times 18 months on that. So mid-January we spent quarter of a million dollars with you, why don't you answer my emails please?”
“We've never shipped anything direct from Mid Journey. I don't think once ever. Hundreds of thousands of images, not one time that we would just go, yep, good enough.”
“But don't say it doesn't work on one. You don't know. You just don't know. Come back to me after the hundred one.”
“If you're a mid-size agency, don't overregulate is my number one advice. Do not put like the absolute iron curtain down before you even understand what it means to your business.”
Chapters
Questions this episode answers
Who is Phil Maggs?
Phil Maggs is the Director of Generative AI at Superside, a subscription-based creative-as-a-service company; he has led its generative-AI transformation, training roughly 500 designers over about 18-20 months.
Does labeling an image as 'AI-generated' change how people perceive it?
Yes, according to Phil Maggs: in blind internal tests at Superside, reviewers rated the exact same image as feeling colder once they were told it was AI-generated, even though nothing about the image itself had changed.
How did Superside scale AI adoption to hundreds of designers?
Phil Maggs describes starting with a small team quietly running AI in parallel on live client briefs, then building a peer-to-peer, coach-led bootcamp in small cohorts once the approach proved out, eventually training around 500 people.
Does Superside ship raw Midjourney images to clients?
No. Phil Maggs says that across hundreds of thousands of generated images, Superside has never shipped a Midjourney output without additional human post-production, comparing it to grading a photographer's raw file.
What AI tools does Phil Maggs recommend?
He names Flux as a 'step change' for brand-specific fine-tuning, and points to ComfyUI's upcoming official release as the best source of real node-based controllability, advising builders to work as close to the underlying model as possible.
Show notes
Episode 16—Midjourney at Scale The Superside Blueprint for Teams w/ Phil Maggs (Superside)
In this episode of the Midjourney Fast Hours podcast, Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn sit down with Philip Maggs, Director of Generative AI at Superside, who has quietly revolutionized how enterprise teams adopt AI. Leading a transformation that trained over 500 designers in 18 months, Phil shares the unfiltered truth about scaling AI operations - from running shadow projects and credit card purchases to building elite "pirate teams" that push the boundaries of what's possible.
The conversation reveals Superside's blueprint for training/operationalizing teams at scale, including their peer-to-peer coaching program and how they measure success across 3,000+ AI-powered projects.
Phil breaks down their innovative Discord-based workflow that processed thousands of images, their approach to client communication, and why they completely banned Photoshop for certain projects to force innovation.
Diving deep into Midjourney's latest features, the trio discusses the reality of enterprise AI adoption, the balance between regulation and innovation, and why following the money in AI investment matters more than chasing the latest tools.
Phil caps the episode with candid advice for agencies looking to adopt AI, emphasizing why over-regulation kills innovation and how to create the psychological safety teams need to experiment and grow.
This isn't just another AI discussion - it's a masterclass in scaling creative operations from someone who's done it at the highest level. Whether you're leading a creative team or building an AI-first workflow, this episode delivers the practical insights and battle-tested strategies you need to succeed.
