AI in advertising: Dumb gets dumber… and smart, smarter

A few months back, I wrote about AI adoption in Indian advertising, close on the heels of the WPP CEO stepping down — allegedly for not making WPP agencies AI-friendly.

The s***’s hit the ceiling now. Brands have cottoned on to nifty GenAI tools that can write strategy, create media plans and content, including videos at almost zero cost, and give regular reports on what’s working and what’s not.

ChatGPT is passé — even 21-year-old interns with milk teeth are talking about AI agents. Sounds James Bond-ish? It is.

But let’s rewind. When I joined advertising in the mid-1990s, an ad agency was a cool, pony-tailed, smoke-filled affair with writers, designers, media planners, account managers and even a couple of sinister-looking, hard-drinking gents who looked straight out of Mad Men.

There were multiple touchpoints between the client’s business need and the final product — the ad that the consumer saw on TV or in a newspaper or billboard.

A simple ad could take weeks, if not months, in being researched, re-re-re-written, scores of media plans evaluated, and so on.

Fast-forward to 2025. No second sentence can roll past without an AI inserted somewhere. AI is being hyped as the ultimate game changer, promising to reinvent everything from healthcare to content creation.

Already, AI is replicating or replacing core agency functions.

Copywriting and content generation are handled by platforms like ChatGPT, Jasper and Copy.ai — these AI tools can write headlines, social posts, SEO content and even long-form articles.

Videos can be created on Veo 3, InVideo or Synthesia in the blink of an eye.

For visual design, tools like Midjourney, DALL·E and Adobe Firefly are generating high-quality images in minutes.

On the media side, planning and optimisation tools that can segment audiences, optimise bidding strategies and iterate creatives at scale haven’t really taken off. It’s still Excel mostly.

Even influencer discovery, previously a labour-intensive task, is being automated by platforms like Influencity and Affable,which use AI to match brand goals with relevant creators across demographics and geographies.

While industry veterans are cautiously optimistic, snarky young marketers are embracing the shift with boldness. As one marketing consultant recently posted on LinkedIn: “The marketing agencies you’re paying thousands to will be replaced by AI before your own job will be replaced.”

The sentiment is provocative but not entirely off the mark. With the right tool stack, a dude can now run a mid-sized agency — handling content, design, performance marketing and reporting.

Solo operators and boutique agencies are already leveraging tools to reduce manpower costs, deliver faster turnaround and test multiple iterations of creatives. Generative AI also democratises access — smaller clients now have access to visual and copy quality that was once only available at premium pricing.

Productivity gains are staggering: PwC reports that 70 per cent of Indian CEOs expect GenAI to transform marketing within three years, and EY data show a 41-45 per cent increase in output across marketing functions using AI automation.

But hang on. Operational scalability is not the same as strategic depth. AI is not going to hide mediocre thinking. Especially when everyone has the same AI models. AI often regurgitates clichés, fails at tonal nuance and lacks the cultural sensitivity required for Indian audiences. Algorithms cannot yet replace lived experience.

What does the agency of the future look like then? It is not necessarily smaller — it is reconfigured, more fluid, with a core of creative strategists and AI specialists, supported by plug-and-play experts.

New roles will emerge. Traditional account managers may give way to customer experience leads who oversee AI and human interactions. Subscription-based micro-agencies may proliferate, offering fixed monthly retainers to execute a full range of services using automation.

My last word: AI will make smart marketers smarter, dumb marketers dumber.

(Shubho Sengupta is a digital marketer with an analogue past)

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Published on August 11, 2025