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Lerma's José Julián Acosta on the Disruption and Promise of AI
'The tools changed. Great people adapted'
“There’s always a way,” says José Julián Acosta, head of production at Lerma. “It may not be the first way. It may not be the way we budgeted. It may require calling someone at 4 a.m., learning something completely new, changing the entire production approach or admitting that my original plan was wrong.”
“But don’t tell me a great idea can’t be made until we’ve exhausted every possible way of making it. I love the challenge of finding the path that keeps the ambition of the idea alive. That’s what producing is to me.”
José leads the agency’s integrated production practice and helps shape how emerging technology is incorporated into the creative process. Previously, he served as AI solutions director and executive producer at Monks and SVP, director of production for FCB Chicago.
Acosta has led efforts for Stellantis, Walmart, SC Johnson, Pfizer, Amazon and Target. He contributed to “Caption With Intention,” which received the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix and recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its contribution to accessible storytelling. Originally from San Juan, P.R., Acosta studied production and engineering at Berklee College of Music.
We spent a few minutes with José to learn more about his background, inspirations and on being certain about the timing of all things.
What’s your “off-brand”? (e.g., something you do or like that is completely out of character)
Putting my daughter to bed every night while she pinches my hand until she falls asleep. We call it “Pinchies.” She will kill me if she ever finds out I said this publicly. Apparently, that’s comforting.
If someone wrote a book about your career so far, what would the title be?
Could We? I think that question has followed me through most of my career. “Could we make this?” “Could we do it differently?” “Could we find another way?” I’ve always had a hard time accepting that something simply can’t be done. Usually there’s another angle, another approach or someone out there who knows something you don’t. That’s basically producing.
What’s a source of inspiration you return to constantly?
I genuinely believe musicians are some of the best problem solvers you’ll ever meet. Something doesn’t sound right? Troubleshoot it. Gear dies? Figure it out. Someone changes the arrangement? Listen and adapt. You’re playing with people you’ve never met before? Find the groove. And when it works, a room full of people doing completely different things somehow becomes one thing. I went to Berklee to study music production and engineering. Looking back, I think I was also learning how to become a producer without realizing it. Now my son is playing the trumpet, too, which makes me smile. Music keeps finding its way back in.
What’s an AI tool actually worth the hype?
Ask me next Tuesday. Seriously. That’s how fast this is moving. This week, I’m spending a lot of time in Claude Opus, and I’m especially fascinated by what I’m seeing with Fable. But I’ve stopped getting too attached to any one model or tool. They’ll change. What I’m more interested in is what happens when AI starts helping you work through a problem. That’s why I’m so interested in agents and agentic workflows. If AI can take some of the repetitive stuff off a producer’s plate and give us more time with the idea, our creatives, directors, editors and teams, that’s a tool worth the hype.
A non-advertising industry you learn from?
Formula 1. It’s one of the best examples I know of humans, design and technology making each other better. Hundreds of people, ridiculous amounts of data, engineering at the absolute limit, decisions happening in fractions of seconds—and then you put one human being in the middle of all of it and ask them to drive a car 200 mph. When something goes wrong, nobody stops to write a deck about it. They solve it. I LOVE that.
What attracted you to this new position at Lerma?
They handed me a relatively blank piece of paper. That’s rare. My conversations with Paco and Pedro weren’t about coming in to maintain a production department. We talked about what production could become. Lerma already has great creative people, cultural intelligence and an entrepreneurial spirit. My job right now is to listen, learn what already works and help build on it. Being the first head of production is a big responsibility. I don’t take that lightly. But for a producer who loves building things? It’s a pretty great assignment.
How does this new role speak to changes in the creative landscape and what do you seek to achieve with it?
I don’t want to build an AI productiion department. I want to build a great production department that’s curious about what’s possible. There’s a big difference. I don’t know what the hottest model will be six months from now, and frankly I don’t want our future dependent on guessing correctly. I don’t expect producers to become technologists. I want us to be curious enough to keep learning, grounded enough in craft to know what good looks like and connected enough to bring the right people into the room. I want production sitting with creative early enough to ask, “What if we could … ?” Sometimes the answer will be AI. Sometimes it’ll be a camera. Sometimes it’ll be both. Sometimes it’ll be something we haven’t figured out yet.
How has your lived experience shown up in your work?
I’m Puerto Rican. I come from music. And, strangely enough, I kind of grew up on sets. My mom would take me to casting calls in Puerto Rico when I was between 5 and 11 years old. I ended up acting in a bunch of commercials. My parents were going through a divorce and those little jobs also helped my mom make some extra money to take care of my sister and me. I didn’t fully understand that until much later.
I also spent four years at Admiral Farragut Academy, a military boarding school in St. Petersburg, Fla. That experience taught me discipline and resilience. And I come from generations of people who built things and a family where you were expected to figure things out.
Puerto Rico gave me community and culture. Music taught me how to listen and improvise. Farragut taught me discipline and resilience. And my dad probably gave me this inability to leave a problem alone. My mom gave me everything else. But the older I get, the more I realize the most important part is people. I will go ridiculously far for an idea I believe in. But I’ll go even further for my team.
You’ve got 2 minutes with the industry. What’s your hot take?
Stop trying to protect your job description. Protect what makes you valuable. AI is going to change jobs. Of course it is. Pretending otherwise isn’t helping anyone. I’ve spent enough time close to this technology to be both excited about it and respectful of how disruptive it’s going to be. Plenty of other technologies were supposed to change everything too. The tools changed. Great people adapted.
So don’t compete with AI at moving information around, making 100 versions or doing the repetitive things it’s eventually going to do really well. Get ridiculously good at the things that are harder to automate: Taste, judgment, relationships, empathy, negotiation, curiosity. Knowing when an idea isn’t there yet. Knowing who to call when nobody else knows what to do. Knowing when to fight for something. Knowing when to let it go. And for producers especially. Be the person people want in the room when shit goes sideways. Because it will.
2 Minutes With is our regular interview series where we chat with creatives about their backgrounds, creative inspirations, work they admire and more. For more about 2 Minutes With, or to be considered for the series, please get in touch.
