Agency Performance Review 2025: How AI is Rewiring the Ad Agency Workflow
AI has moved from being a buzzword to an essential part of daily workflows in ad agencies. What started as experimentation is now a core element in everything from concept visualization to media targeting and real-time campaign personalization. Despite concerns about AI replacing junior and mid-level roles, agencies emphasize that AI serves as an enabler, not a replacement.
As Christian Pierre, global chief intelligence officer at Gut, explained, “We're not using AI to come up with ideas. We use AI to stand on the shoulders of AI and see beyond that.” This review looks at how agencies of various sizes are integrating AI into creative, strategy, production, and operations, including the custom tools they’ve developed to stay competitive.
1. Fast-tracking Creative Ideation and Concepting
AI is accelerating the jump from brief to concept, helping teams break through creative blocks and streamline early-stage ideation. Tools like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and Runway allow creatives to visualize concepts instantly, enabling quick feedback and iteration. Large language models such as Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot assist by generating initial drafts of copy, speeding up the writing process.
At Monks, AI automates tasks like storyboarding, set design, and lighting mockups, freeing the team to focus on refining ideas rather than repetitive revisions. Similarly, WPP’s AI platform, WPP Open, supports creating storyboards and briefs at scale for clients like Coca-Cola and Wendy’s.
Digitas embedded AI agents into brainstorming and strategy sessions, cutting three days off tight brief timelines by partnering with Google to access better insights, faster. Gut’s custom AI tool, Unprompt, flips traditional ideation on its head by delivering daily, curated data snippets from across the web to spark fresh ideas without creatives having to ask for them.
Unprompt was developed during a campaign for QuintoAndar, a Brazilian real estate brand. A team member uncovered a scientific insight about genetically modified mosquitoes that inspired a bold campaign linking public health with real estate. This example shows how AI can surface unexpected ideas that transform advertising.
2. Production Efficiency at Scale
Generative AI is transforming how agencies create and adapt campaign assets. Assembly uses AI-powered eye-tracking to optimize visuals before launch, ensuring clarity and engagement. PMG employs Gemini to personalize travel itineraries for Best Western and extends single photo shoots into multiple video assets for Creed Fragrances.
VML’s Jen AI campaign for Virgin Voyages let users create personalized video invites voiced by Jennifer Lopez, generating over 25,000 invites and 2 billion impressions. Razorfish’s Tailored Toasts for Grey Goose allowed users to generate personalized celebratory messages, resulting in nearly five minutes of average engagement and a 94% completion rate.
Cristina Lawrence from Razorfish emphasizes the importance of collaborating with clients to translate brand voice into custom AI-driven experience designs with clear creative guardrails.
3. Personalization That Moves Beyond Segmentation
AI now powers deeper consumer understanding by analyzing first-party data, online behavior, and cultural context to create dynamic creative systems. Assembly’s InsightAI analyzes over a million consumer reviews to reveal what drives shopper decisions. Publicis Groupe’s CoreAI integrates billions of consumer profiles and data points, enabling what they call “intelligent content.”
Gut’s AI Personas tool simulates realistic consumer reactions with emotional nuance and conflicting opinions, based on brand data, social listening, and research. This helps agencies validate strategies and better understand the consumer beyond surface-level personas.
Christian Pierre notes that AI Personas bring the client’s voice into conversations, making it possible to ask questions and get nuanced feedback that reflects real-world diversity in opinions and preferences.
4. Smarter Targeting and Safer Media
Agencies use AI to reach audiences with precision while maintaining brand safety. Crispin leverages VwD, an AI vetting platform that flags risks with creators, saving hours of manual checks. Their Community AI tool identifies micro-communities online, allowing brands to engage with real conversations instead of broad demographics.
Mediahub developed a proprietary contextual algorithm to guide real-time media buying by analyzing over 50 million URLs and billions of impressions. The system optimizes for content relevance, attention, and brand safety—essential during high-profile events like the Olympics. This tool has supported campaigns for New Balance, Value Retail, and Kraken by aligning media buys with premium content and reacting to market shifts quickly.
5. The Human Touch
Despite AI’s growing role, agencies agree creativity must remain human at its core. AI is a multiplier that expands what humans can do but doesn’t replace the emotional intelligence behind great work. PMG highlights that AI helps deliver more relevant and better creative, not just more creative.
VML’s Brian Yamada sums it up: success in the AI era comes from combining technology with genuine human connection to engage audiences meaningfully.
For creatives looking to enhance their AI skills and apply these insights to their workflows, exploring specialized AI training can provide practical tools and strategies. Visit Complete AI Training’s courses by job to find resources tailored to creative professionals.
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