Paid ads return to the acquisition shortlist as AI lowers creative cost

Creative production and competitor research are getting cheaper. Paid acquisition deserves a small test budget again, but only with tight CAC guardrails.

• —More founders at DC Mexico are considering paid ads as the next channel; the signal is channel fatigue plus cheaper execution.
• —AI cuts ad-creative production and competitive research work, reducing the old fixed cost of experiments.
• —No CAC, ROAS, or channel benchmark is given. Treat this as test-budget signal, not a playbook.