AI in marketing is moving from lab demo to daily workflow
Marketing is the industry where AI has left the experiment phase. It's now baked into briefs, production, approvals, and media optimisation. The real test isn't "Can AI do it?"-it's "Does this change the way work gets done?"
Brand accuracy is engineered, not hoped for
Generic models don't know your brand. That's why fine-tuning on brand assets matters-style, look, colours, lighting, even how characters hold objects. The output starts closer to final, which cuts rework and shortens approvals.
In WPP's Argos case, the team trained custom models on two 3D toy characters. The model learned proportions, lighting, and subtle shadows used in the brand's 3D animations. Less time fixing frames, more time crafting narratives and adapting for channels.
Cycle time collapses-and bottlenecks move
Traditional 3D is slow for reactive moments. With brand-tuned models, high-quality variations arrive in minutes instead of months. You don't wait for renders; you iterate on ideas.
But speed exposes the next constraints: review, compliance, rights, and distribution. Those were always there; now they're the real blockers. If you want AI to change daily work, you don't bolt it on-you redesign the workflow around it.
The AI front end is non-negotiable
Teams lose time shuffling assets between tools and fighting clunky interfaces. The fix is a clean front end that hides complexity and connects planning, production, activation, and performance signals.
Think of platforms like WPP Open that turn institutional knowledge into useful assistants and cleaner handoffs. That's where the operational gains show up-fewer breaks between steps, tighter loops from brief to media to learnings. See WPP Open.
Self-serve shifts agency focus
Client-facing AI platforms let marketers handle straightforward tasks themselves. Agencies then focus on the harder parts: designing the brand system, building fine-tuned models, and embedding governance so work is safe and compliant by default.
Governance moves from policy to workflow
Policies no longer live in PDFs-they live where the work happens. "Walled garden" environments let teams explore, prototype, and ship without exposing sensitive data. The best ideas graduate into production systems with guardrails intact.
Planning and insight compress too
Insight work is shrinking from months to minutes. Large language models paired with context and proven prompts speed research, trend analysis, and brief development. That means faster responses to culture shifts and platform changes-and more cycles for testing and learning.
What this changes for your team
Roles shift. Less mechanical drafting, resizing, and versioning. More brand stewardship, creative direction, and experiment design. New roles emerge: model trainer, workflow designer, AI governance lead.
How to operationalise this in your shop
- Audit the work: Where do hours vanish today? (Versioning, resizing, renders, approvals?)
- Pick one use case and define "done" clearly. Ship a small win fast.
- Build your brand dataset: visual identity, product angles, tone, lighting, do/don't lists.
- Fine-tune models so outputs match brand on the first pass, not the fifth.
- Standardise the front end: one entry point, clear handoffs, no tool ping-pong.
- Move bottlenecks: streamline review, rights, and compliance with checklists and gates.
- Put governance in the flow: walled gardens, safe data zones, audit trails.
- Measure cycle time, cost per asset, reuse rate, and performance lift-not vanity metrics.
- Reskill the team: prompt libraries, QA for model outputs, and brand QA skills.
- Enable clients to self-serve. Reserve your time for the complex, high-leverage work.
Your next step
If you're leading a marketing team, build the muscle now: a brand-tuned model, a clean front end, and a workflow that assumes speed. That's how delivery starts to look like a software-enabled supply chain-standardised where it should be, flexible where it must be, and measurable.
Want structured upskilling for marketers building AI workflow capability? Explore the AI Certification for Marketing Specialists.
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