When AI Generates a Campaign in Minutes, What’s Left for Us to Do?
- Jan 26
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 27
If you work in marketing, you’ve probably had this thought, maybe late at night, maybe during a client review: If AI can generate ideas, visuals, copy… what’s left for me?
The fear is real. And it’s not irrational. We’re surrounded by tools that promise speed, scale, efficiency and quietly threaten relevance.
This question came up repeatedly at GoTech World 2025, where Angus George, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy UK, took the stage to talk openly about what AI is really changing inside creative teams. Beyond the session, we continued the conversation in a written interview digging deeper into how human creativity and AI actually work together in practice.
And his perspective reframes the problem entirely. The real shift isn’t AI versus humans. It’s humans with AI versus everyone else.
🔍 The real problem isn’t job loss. It’s sameness.
Let’s ground this in reality. Around 71% of images shared on social media today are generated using AI tools (SQ Magazine, 2025), a number that reflects the sheer scale at which AI is already shaping visual content across platforms.
Meanwhile, the broader AI marketing landscape continues to expand rapidly. Estimates show that AI technologies in marketing are valued at tens of billions of dollars today and are projected to grow substantially over the next few years, reflecting widespread adoption across brands and agencies. (Growth Folks, 2025).
The result? A sea of content that is correct, optimized… and painfully forgettable. As Angus put it on stage at GoTech World: “The most profound learning for me was that its work lacked, not just originality, but it lacked soul. It was all correct, but it felt empty.”
In his session, Angus shared a real experiment his team ran at Ogilvy. They took a single brief and gave it to three separate teams. One relied entirely on AI. Another worked without any AI support at all. And the third combined human creativity with AI tools throughout the process.
AI alone was fast but generic. Humans alone were insightful but slow. The human + AI team went further, faster and created work that actually resonated.
🤝 The future isn’t Human or AI. It’s both (done right)
One of the strongest examples Angus shared was VCCP’s “Daisy” campaign for O2: an AI-powered grandmother designed to waste scammers’ time by keeping them on endless, meaningless phone calls.
That’s not AI replacing creativity. That’s humans using AI to execute an idea that simply wasn’t possible before. Angus is realistic about where this is heading: “100% will use AI in some way. I’d be surprised if we’re not already at this figure. Even if it’s as simple as AI taking notes in creative reviews or generating insights, through to full AI production.”
But he’s just as clear about the risk: “A pure reliance on AI will kill originality. Humans partnering with AI will be the ultimate amplifier.”
His vision of the future creative department isn’t tool-first, it’s human-first, supported by AI agents that handle the grunt work, compliance, and scale, while people focus on ideas, meaning, and emotional truth.
🎯 What this actually means for your next campaign
Maybe we’ve spent the past year looking back more than we realize, trying to make sense of how quickly our industry is changing. Familiar processes are disappearing, production looks different, and many of the creative rituals we grew up with no longer apply in the same way.
The question isn’t “Will AI take my job?” It’s “How do I use AI to create work that wasn’t possible yesterday?” Because while AI floods the market with technically correct mediocrity, it also makes human-crafted distinctiveness more valuable than ever.
As Angus reminds us: “Always remember we’re making work for humans. And our role will always be to bring the humanity.”
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