End of the road for the ‘Mad Men’ as AI moves into advertising

When you think of the world of advertising, do you still picture large agencies staffed by creatives, with offices filled with whiskey and brilliant ideas? Today, the reality is that less than 1% of campaigns are influenced by artificial intelligence, but according to David Jones, CEO of Brandtech, in a few years, 70% of advertising will be managed without any human involvement. Here’s the argument: It’s not just the end of an era; it’s the very model of the advertising agency that has been disrupted. For decades, they have sold time, brainstorming, and iconic campaigns, but now clients are demanding tangible results, and they want them right away—while AI promises to deliver those results at a fraction of the cost. Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis, puts it bluntly: “We've seen more change in the last 12 months than in the previous 12 years.” Rory Sutherland, Vice President of Ogilvy, adds: “Every time the advertising industry has to make a big decision, it always chooses the wrong path.” Two historic mistakes: separating creativity from media, and getting paid by the hour. Neither of these approaches holds up anymore. And while agencies are rushing to cut costs—like WPP, which aims to save half a billion pounds a year by 2028, and Omnicom, which has just absorbed IPG, laying off thousands of people—the real upheaval lies elsewhere: the technological tsunami has shifted money toward tech platforms. Today, more than two-thirds of advertising spending in the UK goes directly to Google, Meta, and other giants, bypassing intermediary agencies. Jessica Tamsedge of Dentsu Creative reports that AI has already reduced the headcount of creative agencies by 15% in just one year. But the hardest part to swallow is that big ideas are no longer the gold mine they used to be. Mark Read, former CEO of WPP, is blunt: “Ideas still matter, but that’s no longer where the real profit is made.” And if you think agencies can simply chase after technology, some are warning: betting everything on self-service products to compete with OpenAI or Microsoft is a “dangerous game, and that’s not where we’ll win.” But the story isn't just one of failures. Annette Male, Head of Dentsu UK&I, insists that “our creative and connected people remain at the heart of things. This will continue to be a people-driven industry.” Yet, the unease persists: scale is no longer the trump card, and those who cannot integrate agility and technology risk disappearing. Here is the perspective missing from the debate: While everyone is wondering if AI will replace human creativity, no one is talking about the opposite risk—namely, that in order to survive, agencies will be reduced to mere providers of tech tools, with no say in brand strategies whatsoever. If you leave the definition of taste to algorithms alone, what you lose isn't just jobs: you lose the ability to set the cultural tone, to come up with “ideas that cut through,” as the Mad Men used to say. Here’s the takeaway: Advertising isn’t dying because of AI, but the power of those who create it is shifting hands completely. If this has helped you see creative work in a new light, you can mark it on Lara Notes with I'm In—it's your way of saying that this perspective now belongs to you. And if tomorrow at dinner you tell someone that agencies risk becoming mere technology providers, on Lara Notes you can tag them with Shared Offline: that way, that conversation lives on, not just online. This story comes from the Financial Times and will save you 3 minutes of reading time.