Top creative and media agency heads on how AI will impact the advertising biz

On the sidelines of Goafest 2023, Storyboard18 caught up with a few creative and media agency heads to understand their views on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it will disrupt the advertising business. According to Ajay Gupte, CEO-South Asia of Wavemaker data is the centrepiece in any AI-led work. He believes AI comes with various facets. Agencies can use AI to understand the consumers better and help in better reach. Once agencies have an good understanding of consumer behaviour, AI can enhance the ability to sharp-shoot and customize data.

Shashi Sinha, CEO, of IPG Mediabrands, thinks AI will help organise data. He explains, “There is a fair degree of repetitive work that happens in advertising. From that point of view, AI can process and direct large realms of data." However, he also thinks creativity will always require human intervention, human intelligence and human application.

Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer, BBDO India has a different take. According to Paul, AI is only as good as your EI (Emotional Intelligence). "When you democratize creativity and everything is equalized, what makes things different are the people behind it and how they use it. The context of a person’s life, the context of change, and what you want to change from a brand perspective. For me input is important, and EI is one of those inputs. When EI goes into AI, it truly becomes AI. It becomes Artist Insight,” adds Paul.

Anusha Shetty, chairperson and group CEO, Grey Group, highlights that just like in the past how Metaverse and social media were in trend. Today it’s AI. “I don’t think AI will replace creativity. AI is a great tool that will allow us to probably do more and better. Every new technology powers us to do better. You can’t stop change, you can embrace it and see how you can perform better," she adds.

Prasanth Kumar, CEO, GroupM Media feels that the topic of discussion and debate should not be AI but generative AI. “These tools allow you to be more agile. Our ability to catch things faster, get good insights, and use them to make our work faster and sharper. It allows the advertising ecosystem to think new and innovative. We are seeing that happening in multiple media solutions," he concludes.