Agency Performance Review 2025: How AI is Revolutionizing Creativity, Personalization, and Media Targeting in Advertising

Agency Performance Review 2025: How AI is Rewiring the Ad Agency Workflow

AI has shifted from hype to a daily operational tool in ad agencies. What started as experimental is now embedded in workflows, transforming concept visualization, media targeting, and campaign personalization in real time. The big question remains: will AI replace junior and mid-level jobs? Agencies stand firm that AI is an enabler, not a replacement. As Christian Pierre, global chief intelligence officer at Gut, puts it, “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 report covers how agencies of all sizes are applying AI across creative, strategy, production, and operations, including the custom tools they’ve built to stay competitive.

1. Fast-Tracking Creative Ideation and Concepting

AI is helping agencies break through creative blocks and move faster from brief to concept. Tools like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and Runway let teams visualize ideas instantly, allowing quick feedback and iteration. Large language models such as Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot generate initial copy drafts, speeding up messaging development.

For example, Monks highlights how AI automates labor-intensive pre-production tasks like storyboarding and lighting mockups, freeing teams to focus on refining creative ideas. VML’s AI-powered platform, WPP Open, scales storyboard and brief creation for brands like Coca-Cola and Wendy’s. Digitas has shaved days off its brief timelines by embedding AI into strategy sessions through partnerships with Google.

Gut’s custom AI tool, Unprompt, takes a unique approach. Instead of asking AI for ideas, it delivers daily curated insights from across the web to inspire creatives. Each piece of information is scored by Gut’s creative team to spark new thinking. For example, a campaign for QuintoAndar was inspired by a scientific finding about genetically modified mosquitoes, blending public health with real estate in a fresh way.

“Creatives don’t have boundaries to what they think,” says Pierre. “Unprompt helps bring those crazy ideas to life.”

2. Production Efficiency at Scale

Generative AI is transforming how campaigns are produced. Agencies create assets in various formats, adapt content for different markets, and test visuals in real-world settings more efficiently. Assembly uses AI-powered eye-tracking to optimize visuals before launch by analyzing attention patterns and clarity.

PMG used Google’s Gemini to personalize travel itineraries for Best Western’s “Life’s a Trip” campaign and extended photo shoots into multiple video assets for Creed Fragrances. VML’s Jen AI campaign let users create personalized video invites voiced by Jennifer Lopez, generating 25,000 invites and 2 billion impressions.

Razorfish’s “Tailored Toasts” for Grey Goose created personalized celebratory messages through an AI system with a 94% completion rate and nearly five minutes of average engagement. Cristina Lawrence, EVP at Razorfish, emphasizes carefully setting creative guardrails to preserve brand voice in AI-powered experiences.

3. Personalization That Moves Beyond Segmentation

AI is becoming essential for consumer insight. Agencies use AI tools to turn first-party data, online behavior, and cultural trends into dynamic creative systems. Assembly’s InsightAI analyzes over a million consumer reviews to reveal what matters most. Publicis Groupe’s CoreAI integrates billions of consumer profiles and performance data for “intelligent content” creation.

Gut developed AI Personas, built on Meta’s Llama, combining brand data and social listening to simulate realistic consumer reactions, including emotional nuances and conflicting opinions. This tool brings the consumer “into the conversation,” helping with campaign testing, influencer matching, and brand perception modeling.

“AI usually agrees with you, but real people don’t,” says Pierre. This approach creates a 360-degree consumer view beyond traditional personas.

4. Smarter Targeting and Safer Media

AI is helping agencies reach audiences with precision and responsibility. Crispin partners with VwD, an AI vetting platform, to flag risks when working with creators, saving time and guiding partnerships. Their Community AI identifies micro-communities and social clusters, so brands engage where real conversations happen, not just broad demographics.

Mediahub developed a proprietary contextual algorithm for real-time media buying that optimizes content relevance, attention, and brand safety. It analyzes billions of impressions and millions of URLs, protecting brand reputation during high-profile events like the Olympics. This tool supported campaigns for New Balance, Value Retail, and Kraken by aligning content with brand values and market shifts.

5. The Human Touch

Despite AI’s impact, agencies agree the creative soul remains crucial. PMG points out that AI is a force multiplier, expanding what’s possible without replacing the human spark. AI scales human creativity and enables co-creation where technology and people complement each other.

Brian Yamada, VML’s chief innovation officer, sums it up: “The winners in this AI era will focus on relevance — not just more output, but better work — using technology to engage audiences in genuinely human ways.”

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