Analysis, trends and the advertising industry.
The industry has learned to generate assets with AI. The adult question is different: who has an idea worth automating?
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Marketing's relentless focus on short-term performance metrics is systematically defunding the brand-building work that drives long-term business value.
When Svedka replaced its creative team with AI and consumers noticed, the brand discovered that transparency about AI use is no longer optional.
The pitch for agentic AI in media buying is compelling. The current implementation reality involves more human supervision than the vendors suggest.
A structural argument is emerging in the agency business: the traditional full-service model is losing to specialist networks organized around capabilities rather than categories.
Value-based agency pricing has been discussed for twenty years. The arguments in its favor are stronger than ever. The structural barriers to adoption are equally strong.
WPP invested $300 million in AI infrastructure in 2025. The question the market is asking in 2026: does proprietary AI actually produce better advertising, or just cheaper advertising?
The rejection of purpose-driven advertising in 2024-2025 produced a retreat to pure product advertising that is also underperforming. The answer is more nuanced than either extreme.
The advertising industry has argued about the relationship between creative quality and business effectiveness for decades. The 2026 version of the debate has new evidence — and the same old positions.
The traditional creative brief was designed for a world where humans executed creative decisions. AI changes the assumptions. What the brief becomes in an AI-enabled creative process.