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AI has been on the radar for a few years, but now we’re living in its era. It’s no longer a tool on the sidelines – it’s embedded in everything we do.

Some fear AI will replace creative roles. But this isn’t the end of creativity – it’s a new beginning. Disruption is a catalyst. It offers human creativity the opportunity to flourish and elevate in ways we’ve never seen before. Human creativity is more essential than ever, not less.

While brands churn out content at breakneck speed, consumers are tuning out. The volume is up, but the impact is down. People are craving connection, not noise. And that’s where human creativity comes in – harnessing the best of technology, optimizing data and insights, to earn respect and build trust. When brands take away the need to shout for attention and instead produce activities that deliver on personalized needs, cultural aspirations and priorities of consumers, the net effect is a new social contract that is far more valuable: trust.

This new contract demands brands earn the right to be part of someone’s life; just like any other relationship. It’s no longer about how marketing buys attention and returns investment – it’s about how it returns value to people’s lives.

Long-term success today is not measured by customer transactions but by investing in the authentic, human-first relationships consumers crave – something AI still struggles to fully grasp, especially when it comes to mindset and context.

Consumers today are more scrupulous than ever. Financial pressure is at a boiling point. Brands that show their true value – through real impact and experience – delivering on making their consumers’ lives better will earn respect and loyalty. This is fundamental to long-term, sustainable growth.

Resetting the agency model

The agency model as we know it? It’s overdue a transformation. It can’t keep up with the pace or the expectations. It’s become its own worst enemy: fragmented, formulaic and far too slow for the pace of culture. But this isn’t just about a technical shift; we need a mindset shift too. When, not if, brands flip the script from a transactional to symbiotic relationship – the advertising playbook, as we know it, becomes irrelevant.

At Nuevo, we call it “conscious creativity.” Our approach which leads our creative thinking and new world agency model; with one goal: creating brands that mean more to people. To adapt to the new world, and not be left behind, agencies must become more agile, act seamlessly across touchpoints, have the ability to tap into the best talent and not just be on the cultural pulse, but setting the tone.

“With the right talent at our fingertips, AI becomes a creative accelerator.”

My biggest ask? No more creative ivory towers. We need to think and act like record producers, not gatekeepers – moving fast, collaborating dynamically and curating the right talent for the right moment. Tapping into global networks, blending independents, in-house teams and specialists to build agile, high-impact creative squads. Giving the campaign the talent it deserves, not just what’s to hand.

Less red tape. More talent. Bigger ideas.

With the right talent at our fingertips, AI becomes a creative accelerator. It’s not about replacing imagination – it’s about scaling it. Smart networks will bring local insights into a central system to direct the creation of work, able to empower centralized brand building, while taking in localized influence at scale.

And when you then have the means to deploy that work seamlessly – into stores, screens and experiences anywhere – you’re not just reacting to change. You’re driving it.

The future agency is an ecosystem; personal, culturally fluent and real-time. It demands one point of contact, one streamlined team, creative that truly means more to people.

This is how we build campaigns that matter. Work that earns respect. Brands that play a deeper role in real life. It’s how we adapt our strategies to create advertising that’s not just better for brands, but better for people. It’s marketing that earns attention, not demands it.

We’ll go first. Who’s next?