Can Advertising Survive the AI Apocalypse?

When the Cannes Lion Festival opened this year in France, the leaders of the advertising world gathered with thousands of media and technology executives in tow, all asking the same question, “How much time does the advertising world have left?” Is it a code red emergency or a code blue warning?

So begins the onset of the insane chaos and disruption that AI is beginning to unleash on the world. The major ad agencies and buying firms have started to slash thousands of jobs, all in the name of automation and savings. This is already being felt worldwide in the industry. The shedding of dedicated workforce is never pleasant to watch, but as with all change in any industry, it is inevitable. Kind of like Darwinism.

Exponential change is happening rapidly, starting the practice of buying and selling — a discipline which is increasingly becoming automated. AI will only supercharge that trend. Imagine the new workforce of potential AI agents tasked with creating full media plans that are deployed based upon data and not human impulse or hunch. Sadly, one can only see thousands of jobs in this sector worldwide being eliminated.

Now for the creative side. AI will dramatically change the creation of the ads themselves. Super Tech company Meta, for example, would like to have AI tech in the marketplace by the end of next year. This would allow brands to create, target and deploy ads via prompts to the AI botAcross he entire industry, these tools are being used to create dozens of ads or video spots. The result looks like a business plan that could include radically smaller work staff. My thought is the agencies of tomorrow will be a shadow of what they are today.

Our only saving grace is the fact that there is nothing that can match human creativity and experience. Major media companies have already reorganized themselves to enable more automated ad buying and transacting with heavy data approaches, targeting and guarantees. Can the advertising community make the same changes necessary for the continuity of the industry?

From research to creative, AI will generate significant cost efficiencies – despite predictions of chaos in the advertising industry. The question will be how smart ad firms use this technology to automate the things that can be automated while using human creativity to drive the magic moments advertising is known for.

Artificial intelligence is going to be the major disruptor moving forward throughout all firms on Madison Avenue and will engulf the entire media world. It’s about to impact everyone’s neighborhood— really fast.