The AI problem in agencies: Why originality is becoming a premium skill again

Generative AI has accelerated rapidly since late 2023. Across Indian agencies today, it drafts copy, scans culture, builds decks, analyses sentiment, generates images, restructures strategies and compresses timelines. What began as experimentation has now become infrastructure.

Inside creative, marketing and PR firms, AI is no longer a side tool. It is embedded into everyday workflows.

But as machine-generated content floods the system, a new problem is emerging — not of productivity, but of personality.

Why is AI-written copy starting to look the same? And why are clients and readers beginning to notice?

The rise of the ‘sea of sameness’

According to Maninder Singh, chief of innovation and creative at Rediffusion Brand Solutions, the most visible failure of AI-generated work is not inaccuracy, but indistinction.

Read More: AI in Advertising: A game-changer or a creativity killer?

“AI tends towards politeness, explanation and consensus,” he said. “These are fatal qualities in strong communication. It struggles with subtext, irony and incompleteness — the very things that make ideas powerful.”

Clients, he added, are already sensing this hollowness.

“There have been clear instances where work felt technically sound but spiritually empty. When an AI copy is treated as final rather than provisional, its greatest weakness shows — it cannot feel the consequences of what it says.”

VML India CEO Babita Baruah believes the industry is entering what many marketers quietly describe as a “sea of sameness”.

“Content may be grammatically perfect, but emotionally flat,” she said. “It lacks jagged edges, wit and distinct perspective. Brands begin to sound alike because they are all drawing from the same AI well.”

At ad agency Talented, the resistance often appears subtly. “The feedback usually comes as, ‘This feels generic’ or ‘This doesn’t sound like us,’” Varun Khiatani, strategy, Talented said. “That is the AI problem in its most visible form.”

Kushager Tuli, president (creative), Tilt Brand Solutions, put it more bluntly. “AI-generated copy lacks soul for the most part. People can see through the coldness and the lack of real thought.”

As generative tools flood the system with competent writing, what is becoming scarce is not content — but character.

Speed without meaning

Anup Sharma, PR and strategic communications advisor, believes AI’s most dangerous impact is not creative. It is cultural.

“AI has lowered the barrier to publishing. When content is abundant, meaning becomes scarce,” he said. “AI amplifies what already exists. If the narrative is shallow, it simply scales the problem faster.”

Sharma pointed to over-automation, weak editorial oversight, uncorrected bias and ethical shortcuts as the most common missteps.

“AI can help detect misinformation. But deciding how to respond requires moral judgement. Ethical communication has become more important, not less.”

He added that AI often produces polished language without emotional or cultural depth.

“It struggles with humour, regional nuance and the subtle signals that shape public perception. A message in Dibrugarh cannot sound like one in Muzaffarpur. That difference has to remain human.”

This loss of emotional calibration is increasingly being felt in both advertising and public relations, where credibility depends less on output and more on intent.

When technology becomes the idea

India has already seen both the promise and the pitfalls of AI-led creativity.

In 2021, Mondelez International’s ‘Shah Rukh Khan My Ad’ Diwali campaign used AI and machine learning to generate thousands of personalised ads for local retailers, allowing small businesses to appear alongside the actor in hyper-localised films. The campaign was widely celebrated as a meaningful use of technology in service of a human idea.

But recent years have also delivered cautionary tales.

In 2024, Coca-Cola faced global backlash for an AI-generated film referencing its iconic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ commercial, criticised for feeling soulless and emotionally hollow. A similar reaction followed its 2025 AI-led holiday campaign. McDonald’s Netherlands also drew criticism for an AI-generated Christmas film that quickly became a reputational problem rather than a creative one.

At Talented, Khiatani said most AI-led campaigns fail for two reasons — one on the creator’s side and one on the consumer’s.

“On the creator’s side, there is over-reliance. Brands start mistaking the use of AI for the idea. AI is not the idea. It’s a means to an end,” the spokesperson said. “When AI becomes the reason a campaign exists, the work feels like posturing rather than innovation.”

On the consumer side, the problem is trust. “Poorly executed AI content still feels cheap. Audiences sense when effort is missing. Right now, the backlash isn’t against AI. It’s against weak creative decisions dressed up as technology.”

Singh agreed. “Many campaigns fail because they confuse novelty with relevance. Audiences can tell when technology is being used as a shortcut rather than a tool.”

Alongside this sits an ethical undertone that is growing harder to ignore. Questions of authorship, authenticity and cultural exploitation are increasingly shaping how audiences judge brand communication.

The erosion of judgement

Carol Goyal, chief of client servicing and business development at Rediffusion, believes the deeper crisis is not output — it is discernment.

“AI has democratised generation. It has not democratised judgement,” she said. “Creativity today is less about producing ideas and more about recognising which ideas matter.”

While AI accelerates exploration, she argued, it must never define voice.

“Human creativity brings lived experience, moral awareness and cultural memory. In a landscape saturated with content, meaning is the true differentiator — and meaning remains a human responsibility.”

Agency leaders increasingly describe this erosion of judgement as the real risk: when speed replaces thinking, and coherence replaces courage.

Why human creativity is becoming premium again

Ironically, as AI makes execution cheap, it is making human creativity more valuable.

“At near-zero cost, almost anything can now be made,” said Talented’s Khiatani. “Which means execution alone is no longer impressive. The only real differentiator left is the quality of the idea.”

Sharma echoed this. “AI analyses patterns. It does not live experience. Creativity in communications is about judgement, restraint and emotional intelligence.”

Baruah added that the biggest drawback of AI-generated work is the loss of emotional edge.

“It misses discomfort, humour and risk — the things that create distinctive brand voices. Clients are becoming sensitive to that loss because it works directly against authenticity.”

Tuli believes agencies putting out average work in the name of being “AI-forward” are making a strategic error. “It signals laziness more than innovation.”

As AI commoditises production, agencies are rediscovering that originality, taste and point of view cannot be automated.

From automation back to authorship

Most agency leaders agree the way forward is not less AI — but far stronger human control.

“Agencies must shift from automation to strategy,” Sharma said. “AI should support listening, analysis, testing and optimisation. Humans must lead storytelling, ethics and relationships.”

Singh framed it more bluntly. “AI is a multiplier, not a mind. It expands possibilities. It does not decide meaning.”

Goyal summed it up: “Originality survives when humans retain control over point of view and emotional calibration. AI should widen the field. Humans must decide where to stand.”