Confessions of an agency founder and chief creative officer on AI’s threat to junior creatives

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By Kimeko McCoy • November 29, 2024 •

Ivy Liu

This article is part of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor to get an unvarnished look at the people, processes and problems inside the industry. More from the series →

A growing number of brands, like Klarna and Mondelēz International, are turning to generative AI to streamline their marketing operations. Increasingly, companies are leveraging AI for ideation and content creation, aiming to reduce costs, scale and expedite the process. While marketers tout AI cost savings as a win , the shift has sparked concerns about the impact on creative agencies, especially junior level creatives who often handle the more routine tasks that can be automated by AI.

Earlier this month, Coca-Cola dropped its annual holiday commercial using Real Magic AI , Coca-Cola’s artificial intelligence platform powered by OpenAI. The spot ruffled feathers across the marketing industry, brought up concerns about AI’s impact on the way ad agencies get paid as well as questions about why marketers are pushing AI ads that seem to flop as many consumers aren’t into them.

In the latest edition of our Digiday Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for candor, we hear from an agency founder and chief creative officer on AI’s potential impact on creatives and how C-suite executives are thinking about the cost savings.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

You were part of a boardroom conversation where the topic of AI replacing junior-level jobs was broached. What happened?

I witnessed a conversation in a presentation where private equity [execs] was asking questions about: How can we eliminate the human capital to find more profit in these companies that we own? Obviously, the number one line item at creative companies are the people. Just taking a very objective look at the numbers, an investor or private equity person or a board member would look at that giant line item that is the creative department, and it’s, “How can we decrease the expenses of that line item while increasing the profit?” So the question was asked: “How can we scale this business and eliminate that human capital line item?” For whatever reason, the conversation was: “Eliminate the juniors who, for … Read More