Recently, I joined a panel with agency leaders on the future of AI, and someone asked – with all the efficiencies AI promises, what are we doing with our time? My response: we’re going to solve bigger problems.
From Google’s first consumer hardware to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon City and Salesforce’s Dreamforce, I’ve seen how ambitious companies use emerging tech to build what’s next. The conversation was never about shaving costs — it was about moonshots: bold bets that create new businesses, new ways of thinking, even new ways of expressing our humanity and deepening awareness.
We pride ourselves on creativity, yet in recent years ambition has dimmed as AI keeps our industry narrowly focused on efficiency and survival. The real opportunity isn’t to do the same things faster — it’s to imagine entirely new outcomes. As Einstein once suggested, we can’t solve problems from within the same space where they were created. We have to step beyond it if we hope to find real answers.
Agencies should persist in this environment because we bridge imagination and execution, using creativity itself as a methodology for business transformation. Not every agency has succeeded here, but the role is more vital than ever as AI reshapes the world. According to BCG, enterprises that look past efficiencies stand to unlock $200 million or more in new value.
The defining shift of our time is the fusion of human and artificial intelligence — what I call collective intelligence. It’s the choreography of people and machines working in tandem, knowing when to let technology lead and when to let human creativity steer. For agencies, the power of this choreography isn’t efficiency, it’s purpose. Collective intelligence allows us to move past simply selling products to shaping culture, designing services, and delivering impact that extends beyond clients to their consumers, communities, and the planet. In this moment, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to create true “win-win-win-win” scenarios — unlocking brand relevance by aligning business outcomes with human and societal outcomes.
So where should leaders start?
Data is the connective tissue of the marketing industry, and equally the bedrock of good AI implementation. Let’s harness it to solve bigger problems.
Our industry sits atop a wealth of powerful signals about consumer desires – and their unmet needs. Who better to surface real, life-changing problems for our partners than the agencies with a cross-functional view of what the world needs and how to effectively connect with them around those needs? We can help our clients make smart steps to position their companies as beloved problem solvers by surfacing creative solutions to bringing new products, services, and platforms to market to meet those needs. Just by talking about AI out in the world we’re participating in the theater of it, and the desire to “market” AI services is in many ways performatory but necessary. But in order to create real, tangible business transformation, we need to take the initiative and serve up actual product plans to our clients. This is all about framing the value of agencies in our creative methodology, a process of shaping outcomes that evolves our purpose from the campaign to the build itself, and makes impact get measured by lives, outcomes changed, not simply impressions or impact on sales.
A sophisticated R&D approach will help you leapfrog competitors - be proactive about it.
A shining part of our agency has been our evolving relationship with long-term partners like Google. Beyond the great work we deliver, we’ve been able to expand our remit by intentionally being proactive in delivering ideas about their NEXT, whether implementation, marketing, climate operations, or device strategy. The more agencies can set themselves up to be proxy R&D labs for their partners, the better. This means being proactive about carving out the investment needed to keep your agency building.
As leaders, we have to have different conversations about AI.
The dialectic in the ad industry is still “AI vs human” when it should be “AI and human,” and continue onto the next question of “to what end?” Leaders, you should begin to model a new dialectic with AI that empowers creatives to confidently own this moment, and breathe new life into the big idea. The clearest way to guard against the erosion of value / commoditisation of creative output is to focus on how the methodology of creativity brings a unique, consultative power to our clients’ businesses.
At Left Field Labs, we call this ethos “Building What’s Next” — using surplus efficiency to solve bigger problems. For marketers, the mandate is clear: efficiency is the floor. The real work is building the future.