AI won’t save advertising, says Digitas’ Amy Lanzi

Summary

We’ve got a special Decoder today — I had the chance to talk with Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America, in front of a live audience at the Uber Villa at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the South of France. I know, it’s a hard gig, but I do it for you. AI won’t save advertising, says Digitas’ Amy Lanzi The CEO of Digitas on why overpromising with AI is a dangerous path for marketers. Amy has been on Decoder three times now, and she’s one of my favorite people to chat with — she is clear-eyed about what the advertising industry really is and does for brands and what all the money sloshing around the ad-supported internet really accomplishes. You’ll hear her say that she thinks the traditional chief marketing officer role is done for and that her job is driving business results using data and analytics. That might sound straightforward, but it was a shocking statement at Cannes, which is where the entire advertising industry gathers every year, drinks rosé, and convinces itself of outrageous nonsense. This year, the big trends were creators, and, of course, AI. And Amy, alongside her parent company Publicis, aren’t holding back when it comes to calling out the AI nonsense for what it is. Publicis actually put out an ad before Cannes listing all the false promises being made about AI when it comes to advertising, so I asked Amy about that, and what AI might actually be good for, beyond just generating slop and slop headlines. After all, Meta and the rest of the big platforms were all at Cannes talking about generating more and more ads with AI — something that threatens almost every other company in the industry. Of course, we also talked about the creator economy and how all the creators at Cannes were openly calling themselves marketers — essentially turning themselves into small ad agencies of their own. On top of that, the biggest creators in the world almost all launch their own products — something Amy and Digitas see as an opportunity, as those companies will need operational scale and excellence if they’re going to be successful over time. There’s a lot in this one — like I said, Amy is as sharp as they come, and I really enjoy talking to her about how the money really works. Okay: Amy Lanzi, CEO of Digitas North America, live at Cannes. Here we go. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Hello everybody. I’m Nilay Patel. I’m the editor in chief of The Verge and the host of Decoder. Hi. Amy Lanzi, CEO of Digitas, part of Publicis Groupe. I’m very excited to be here with Amy. Amy, we have to stop meeting like this. We only talk during Decoder podcasts. I know. We do. We have to do this more. We both live in New York. We should get together more IRL. Yeah. We only travel long ways to talk to each other in front of live audiences, which is wonderful. Thank you all for being here. Thanks to Uber for having us. I have a lot to talk to you about. It seems like every year we hang out and the entire advertising industry is in a new form of chaos. And that chaos doesn’t really get resolved. We just move on to the next form of chaos. This year, it’s AI. Yes. I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone in this room. Everywhere here at Cannes, the conversation is about AI. Let’s just get started. Publicis put out what you would call a fake ad, a documentary ad. It’s called “The Wrong Promises” and it is basically just a series of vignettes of promises people are making in pitches, including “you don’t have to pay us until you win a Lion,” which is incredible. And it says “this is real” at the bottom. Yes. Tell me about what you are hearing in these rooms that are leading to these crazy AI promises getting made. Thank you for bringing up our fun video. It was really designed to stimulate conversations like this. In the business right now, it’s crazy. I’ve been in this business for a long time and we are seeing all kinds of partners offer wild things in the pitch process. It’s different than it’s been before, whether it’s all the things that were, of course, hyped in that video, but also just insane commercial deals that are just generally bad for people and the business. And they’re coming in all different types — whether it’s about free AI, free platform, free whatever — that are creating a dynamic that is not good for all of us in this industry. Because we all need to work together. It is a people business and all of those things really, long-term, create a people problem. Not to get all Toy Story 5 here, but the conversation that you and I are constantly having is about the pressure of the tech platforms on the media ecosystem, whether that’s publishers, whether that’s agencies, whether that’s creators at some point. We’ll come to that. But the idea that the platforms have enough scale to promise you business results and then deliver them — whether or not that happens, but they certainly can make those promises — is leading to some of these outcomes. And some of these promises about AI and what it might be able to do, is there any reality to that? Or is that just a reaction to the pressure the platforms are putting on the ecosystem? Whenever this conversation comes about, the promise of AI, I always go back to the promise of programmatic. How many of you remember when programmatic was a thing? No more people, it was all going to magically— No one in this room admitted that they remembered that programmatic advertising was a thing. Yes, right, exactly. And that was a time when it was all just going to magically happen and it magically still needs people, still has the nuance of brands and the marketplace and all of the things that we do to define our partnerships and what are going to be game changers. I go back to that because I feel like the AI story is the new programmatic story, with the promise of everything just being absolutely automated, and that absolutely did not happen. When programmatic was rising, there were all those promises at that time as well and now we are living that. But what is different here is it’s coming from either agency partners or tech and platform partners. It creates a different chaos to where you started. Publicis and Digitas also have huge investments here. You were early, right? You bought Influential in 2024 to do analysis of how the creator ecosystem was doing. You have Digitas AI, and it’s been two years that you’ve been into that. How do you think about those products and those platforms in an ecosystem that is full of these promises? For me — and I’ll talk about Digitas AI in particular — we started to make our people better unicorns, as we talked about the last time we met. It was really to say, “Okay, everyone look at what’s on your desk, what’s in your day, and think about what you absolutely could build an agent to do and that way we free up our time to do this.” That’s where we started. And then what was fascinating is the magical things that were able to be built by the young talent in the industry that is solving a working problem but eventually a business problem. That still holds because every day, as a Gen Xer, I always say, “Hackers wanted.” If you have a hacking mentality and you’re curious, you can actually do better things than I did when I was a hacker in that age. It enables us to use our agents, use our data to get to better ideas, better workflows that are more of a surprise and delight to clients than what you might have brought in the first round. Because you can do many rounds before you actually get to the final product and that’s how you get to the unique outcome. You can tell that Amy is a Decoder pro because she has led directly to the Decoder questions. I’m very curious if AI, at least in the enterprise context, is a top-down or bottom-up change agent. You just restructured Digitas, right? You put in a bunch of new roles. You have a new chief intelligence officer, a new chief systems officer, and my favorite, a chief transformation officer. He turns into a robot. What are these roles? [Laughs] I hope he hears this because that’s going to make him laugh. Anyway. It’s very exciting. The toy line is going to be great. What are these roles for? How are you changing the structure of Digitas? You’ve always inspired me by asking “how do you structure yourself” and “how do you make decisions?” The first time we talked about it, I had been in this role for just a little bit of time and we had set our culture, which is, “We’re fearless, inventive and generous.” That still holds on how we make decisions. Org structure-wise, we needed to figure out exactly what you just said: how do we do things in the underpinning of the agency that will enable all of our different practices to be able to scale faster? To leverage intelligence — and, of course, intelligence is code for AI in this story. We are moving — so that’s why we have our chief intelligence officer, which was a pickup from data and analytics — into liberating that into an intelligent platform that all of our agents are built on and then also all of our employees use. The second is systems thinking. We took the traditional COO role, turned that into a chief systems officer role and really redefined both of those roles because all of our client conversations are really about marketing systems. You need to have someone who can come in and understand that and meet them where they are. Then we think about the marketing flows that we’ll marry to the system that works within some of their tech choices, et cetera, as two examples. The third, the chief transformation officer is — and this is a big conversation here — around clients wanting to transform, particularly CMOs transforming into CGOs. What is a CGO? Chief growth officer. Okay. Did you not know that? I’m a journalist. My job is not to innovate. It’s unfortunate. [Laughs] Okay. I just ask the questions. That’s why we’re good friends. I make up a lot of things. Yeah. I was just coming from the Forbes CMO Council thing and there was a whole conversation on the rise of the CGO. What that means is CMOs, formerly, were really responsible for making marketing magic. Campaigns and media investment. Now they’re responsible for building capabilities and they need a partner to help transform their solutions, so it’s a people problem as well as a tech problem. That’s why we have that discreet chief transformation officer role. You are a data person, you’ve always been a data person. I’m really curious about that. The idea that the marketing function is now so directly tied to business results, I see it on the tech platforms all the time. You and I have talked about this before. Mark Zuckerberg will just look every single one of you in the eyes and say, “I’m going to kill you.” He does it without remorse. His vision is that you will just pay Meta and it will make creative for you, it will find the audience for you and they will deliver you business results and almost everything in the middle, from money in to money out, gets automated away by Meta’s intelligence stack. The idea of the chief growth officer feels of a piece with that. That the marketing function is now a business function and it needs a data layer, it needs all these things. Where do you see the creative fitting into it? Where do you see the classic form of brand building? It’s a fundamental part of that capability that needs to live, like the marketing capability now, as a system. Brand building and the fundamentals matter more than anything. What you stand for and how you show up, what you’re the answer for, especially with LLMs, is really important and it has to be authentic for the brands to grow. That’s still the case. You just can’t stop there. It needs to be attached to a system and ideally, you have some data intelligence layer so I’m learning more and more about you and I can then redefine my marketing stories to reshape how I’m showing up if it’s not working, if it’s not selling more candy, if it’s not selling more cars. How we change faster versus the CMO being responsible for building these campaigns and then moving on — that role is a dying role and it should be. It should be that marketing drives commercial value, marketing drives shareholder value. You heard it here first, CMO is a dying role. The previous version of the CMO. Sure. Just like the whole, we are in a chaotic world. We’re in an area of convergence. If you are a CMO and you’re not thinking about your data layer, you’re not thinking about your full stacks, [you’re not thinking about how] you can get closer to the consumer and get to better creative, better use of creators, you are not going to be doing well in the future. Whether it’s CMO 2.0 or you’re moving into that CGO role, that’s really the future of that type of function in an organization. The audience here at Cannes knows this, but for the Decoder audience in their cars listening to this, the conventional wisdom was that CMOs only ever had two years on the job, maybe less. You were dead the moment you showed up, you got to execute one big campaign, you found the bathroom and then you were out. [Laughs] Yes. I hope you heard everyone in this room laugh. I did. That was the most knowing laugh in the world. This seems like a much longer-term role. If you show up as the new CMO and your job is to transform the entire business from the bottom up over and over again, it’s a lot of instability. Do you think these are longer term roles? If you do this right and you create a marketing system, you will be able to live beyond the two years path, because you’re creating a growth engine. If you only want to do two tent pole marketing campaigns, that’s probably not going to go well after two years. I basically have two themes that I want to talk about. One is data in scale and one is creators. This sits right in the middle of them. And I just keep thinking about this phrase that I’ve heard Meta use the most, but the other platforms use it a lot too, and it’s “creative is the new targeting.” I hear that and I don’t make ads. We make two podcasts a week. We don’t do scale at that level, but I hear “creative is the new targeting” and I think that is a demand for output like no one has ever heard before — “We’re going to find your customer for you; you just feed the machine with as much as you can.” It seems obvious to me that you have two choices in that world of “creative is new targeting.” Meta’s Andromeda system is the biggest example of this, and it’s that you’re going to feed it with AI creative and you’re going to let them do it, or you’re going to have your own AI creative system or you’re going to let a million creators and influencers do it for you. How do you plug a growth engine into a world where that’s what the platforms are all saying? The closer you are to your consumers and all the places they’re spending time from a data identity, however you’re systematically doing that, is the most important thing so you can see how they are reacting to… what did you say? Creative is new targeting. I’ve never heard this phrase. I don’t like it. Yeah. I figured you wouldn’t. It’s terrible, right? It’s terrible for our business — “creative is targeting.” Only because it sounds horrible. Creative is emotional and lovely and magical. How can it be emotional and magical if it’s targeting you? Those are two words that don’t go together. The brands that are doing really well are deciding not to do that or to do it in a way that feels so contextually relevant because they know so much about Gen Z on [Meta’s products], that they’ve decided that they need to do this to be able to drive velocity for a certain type of brand that feels fit for that brand. But we are not in a world where we need more content. Does anyone want more content? We are not in a world where we need more content. That idea, creative targeting, assumes that we have endless amounts of content and impressions as a concept. Those are two worlds that still need to be decoupled, but when they’re put together, it needs to be in a way that you are constantly learning. “How did that do? Did I gain more attention from a certain type of growth audience I’m trying to get to?” Can I push you on this? Not to support Meta’s ideas here. Yes, yes. Let me just make the argument because you and I have talked about it before. The way, in particular, Mark Zuckerberg talks about it is at some point they know more about the viewer of Instagram than anybody, or they want to know more about the viewer of Instagram than anybody, and they will just deliver the right creative to that person at the right moment. This is the same argument as programmatic. Only now they have acres of GPUs with which to do it. The argument there is yes, the army of unpaid teenagers will make the fun stuff that you watch and the advertising will just show up magically in the platform and find the right person at the right time. Again, I read that as, “You should just let Meta make the creative for you.” You just give them a picture of the shampoo bottle and they will put it in the right place, on the right background. For me, it will be pictures of trucks jumping over things and exploding and then shampoo will appear at the end. They’re like, “That’s shampoo for me.” It would work. If any of you need an idea to target me specifically, that would work. [Laughs] Don’t. No agency is ever going to make something that niche, but for example, Publicis just bought LiveRamp to take all that data out— It’s still in the situation. Oh no. Yeah. I mean, it’s out there, but the deal is not done. Presumably the goal of buying LiveRamp, which is a giant data platform, is to lever up against Meta and say, “Actually, we know as much about these customers as you do. We can distill information across all the platforms and we will actually do a better job for our clients of placing the creative in the right place at the right time.” This implies that Meta will participate. Why would they do that? Because people are complicated. And today, look at how often on this beach there are different players on the beach. Everyone doesn’t stay in this position forever and people are complicated. I would offer that if I started seeing your wonderful ad 50 times, I would say, “I don’t want to see this anymore and I actually don’t like that shampoo.” That’s what happens when it’s just left to go on its own without someone thinking about suppressing messaging, without understanding consumers better because you actually win hearts and minds when you’re doing something that’s not as expected. Because people are complicated. It’s like we say to our clients, “You need to work with all of them because all of us spend time in all these different places for different reasons. Why does someone choose to spend time on Pinterest versus [a Meta product] versus Amazon versus Walmart Connect? All of them are different roles, in terms of how the platforms work for you and your life. So why would you put all of your dollars in one place?” For me, those players are shifting in and out depending on what we think that growth audience is doing and how they’re thinking about intersecting with that category. Are they good at participating in an ecosystem in that way? This is something that strikes me every time. Some of them are and some of them are not. The more they start to see headwinds, they lean more into participating. Ideally we want to do data collaboration with these partners because it’s better for our clients that we can say, “We knew more about this growth audience on the platform — I’m not going to say X because I’m not saying X —- on platform Y. We know more about them and this is—” No one knows anything about X. Right. “And this is how we’re going to grow your brand.” That’s a good joint story for a platform and an agency partner to come in to talk about because we’ve been able to actually share data and look at that in a way that’s beneficial for the consumer in the end. There are only two business models, right? Bundling and unbundling. In the agency world, there’s a lot of bundling going on right now, right? There’s a lot of bundling going on. Obviously Publicis is huge. Omnicom just bought IPG. CAA is out here saying they’ve invented creators this year. I don’t know if anyone heard. They’re very proud of themselves, but they have a [$250millionfundtotakestakesindirectlyincreatorbusinesses](https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/caa-tpg-250-million-compound-creative-holding-company-acquire-creator-businesses-1236771598/).There’salotofscale.There’salotofbundlinggoingon.Whatdoyouthinkisdrivingthat?It’sthedesiredstateofasystem.Hencewhywehaveachiefsystemsofficerandtherearecapabilitiesthatwebuilt.Lasttimeortwowemet,Italkedaboutbuildingthecommercecapabilityandthe[acquisitionofProfitero](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/urgent-publicis-acquires-e-commerce-software-company-profitero-200-mln-euros-2022-05-03/)thatIled.Thatwasreallytogettoauniquesetofdatasowecouldbuildabettercommercecapabilityandadviseourclientsonhowtheyshouldbeinvestinginsomeoftheseretailmediapartnerspacesatthetime.Howtowinthedigitalshelfwasreallythebusinessproblemtosolvewhenwemadethatacquisition.ThatholdstruefortheacquisitionofInfluential.Howdowecreate“creator”asachannel?Howdoweharnessthecreatorinawaythat’salsoeasierforclients?Ifyoudon’tbringthosethingsintoabundledoffer,it’sactuallyreallyhardforclientsbecausetherearesevendifferentversionsofProfiterocallingonthem.TherearesevendifferentInfluentialpartners,orthosetypesofpartnersthatarecallingonthem,andthenyou’relookingatadecentralizedsetoftechnology,andit’s,again,ideallynottiedintoasingledataidentityspine.Themoreyouhavethemconnected,themoreyoucanactuallysay,“Didthisreallywork?Diditreallydrivesomeonetobuymorethings?”That’sthereasonwhythecapabilitiesarenowbeingbundled.Thinkaboutthemascapabilitiesversusassetsinthisconversation.TalkmoreaboutInfluential.Thatwasabigacquisitiontwoyearsago.I’massumingit’sbeenintegrated.Thatwasthebigcreatorplayforyou.Iknowyouwereinstrumentalinthatacquisition.Itfeelslikethecreatoreconomyhastakenonanewshapethisyear.Wearehearingmoreandmoreaboutthebiggestcreatorsintheworldandthebiggestplatforms.Influentialwasmuchmoreofascaleplay,right?Ithadanideathatyoucouldgoanddoalotofanalysisofwhatwashappeningontheseplatformsatmassivescale.How’sthatworkingout?It’sworkingoutverywellbecausewehavetakentheirtechnologyandconnectedittoouridentitysothatIcannowseeyou,Icanseewhoyoufollow,andthenIcanunderstandhowtogetclosertoyouorhaveeitherthetypeofrightcreatorchoiceorrightcreativedecisionsthatcangetyoutofeelanemotionalconnectiontomybrand.It’salsoreallythatthecreatorasachannelisalsosuperefficient.Youcanalsohavecreatorstalkinawaythatisalittlemoreauthentictotheaudiences,whereabrandmaybecan’tgooutwiththatmessage.Butit’sverycomplicated.BeforewehadInfluential,itwasveryhard.Everydifferentbrandpartnerhadadifferentcreatorsolution.Westillareinteroperable.WeworkwithotheronesthatareouttherelikeCreatorIQ,butitiseasierforusifit’sconnectedintooursystembecausethenwecangettoseeifitactuallyworkedfaster.What’sthestepafterthecreatorinteraction?Youopenoneoftheseplatforms,youscrollsomevideos,youseesomecreatortellingyoutobuysomeproduct.Isitthentogosearch?Isitthentogoopenaretailappdirectly?Youmeanfortheconsumer?Yeah.Imean,itdepends.Oneofthehottesttopicswe’regettingrightnowisTikTokshops,whichisanotherinterestingtopicwecanhaveanotherdayandthat’sbecausecreatorsaresaying,“Don’tyouwanttobuythisthing?”It’saone-clickopportunitytogogetit.Forus,whensomebrandsthataremoreusedtosellingthroughtraditionalretailchannels,it’saprettybiglifttobuildthatout.Itstillis.Butthedesiredstateis,“Iwanttobuyyourkitofparts,whateveryou’retalkingtomeaboutinyourcreatorvideo,andIwanttobeabletobuyitanddoitthen.”That’samovewe’restartingtosee.Wealsojustsee“followmeandlearnmoreaboutmeasacreator.”It’sactuallyacheatforCRMbecauseifI’mabrandandyou’reoneofmypowerinfluencersandIwanttoreallyhaveanownedrelationshipwithyou,thisisawayforustogetclosertoyouasabrand.ThereasonIaskthatquestionisI’verunaroundthepasttwoorthreeyearsaskingeverywebhostandwebcompanywhyanyoneshouldmakeawebsitenow.IfIwasanewcreativeandIwasstartingTheVergeoveragainin2026,Iwouldnotmakeagiantfancydesktopwebsite.IwouldprobablybeaTikToker.Mydancingisprettygood.It’snotgreat,butIwouldprobablystartthere.TheanswerfromallthewebcompaniesI’vegottenis,“Oh,becauseyouwanttodoretailandyouwanttoescapefeesonplatforms.Youwantadifferentfeestructure.”ThebestanswerIevergotwasfromtheCEOofSquarespace,whosaid,“Alotofpeoplestartwebsiteswithusjustfortheappearanceoflegitimacy.”Havingthedotcom—orIguessthedotainow—givesyouanappearanceoflegitimacythatacustomerwillgoandtransactagainstversusjustdroppingaTikTokshopandwhoknowswhatsortofTemuproductyou’regoingtoget.IlookatthatandIsay,“Okay,you’regoingtogototheweb.”That’samoveeverybodywantsyoutodoandthewebisfundamentallyunderthreatbyagenticsearch,byAIoverviews—everythingeveryoneknowsabout.Doyouseethatchanginginyourfunnels?Interestingly,weareseeingmoreandmorebriefsforrevisingwebsites.Yesandno.It’sactuallyprettyinteresting.Thisissomethingthatthemarkettalkstoyou,clientscomein,theylookfornewthings.Whowouldhavethought,ifyouaskedmeattheendoflastyear,“Areyougoingtodoalotofwebsitework?”Iwouldhavesaidno.We’veseenalotofitfortworeasons.One,thefutureofwebsitesisknowledgesites.Websiteswerebuilttocontainabunchofrandominformationthatdidn’treallyenableyoutoshowupwellinasingleresponsetoanLLM’sprompt.Sopartofitisthat,butalsoifyou’regoingtobearealbrandandit’sliterallyyourlegitimacypoint,youreallyneedtohaveyourownassets.Youwanttoownthatandeventuallyyoudon’talwayswanttohavetofunneleverythinglikepackagedgoodsthrougharetailpartner.Youwanttobeabletohaveyourownrelationship.Thatdoesn’tmeaneveryone’sgoingtobuyfromthatsite,buttheideaisthatitisasitethat,one,doesitsjoboffeedingtheLLMsbutalsobuildsyourbrandandgivesinformation,too.Oldwebsitesprettymuchweren’treallybuiltinawaythatmakessenseformodernconsumers.Whoareyougivinginformationto?Isitconsumers?IsitAIagents?Both.IsitjustGoogle?No.Imean,yes.Ifyouhavetobuild,webuildformachinesandhumans.Whatdoyouthinkhappens?EverytimeIgotoGoogleI/O,I[sitdownwithCEOSundarPichai](/podcast/936445/sundar-pichai-ai-search-google-zero-youtube-web)andIaskhim.Everysingledemoofsearchforyearsnowhasendedinatransaction.Idon’tknowifyouhavenoticedthis.EveryAppledemoendswithtripplanning.EveryGoogledemoendswithtripplanningthatendsinbuyingshoes.YourealizetheaudienceispartiallyVergereaderswhojustlovetechandpartiallyit’sotherdevelopers.AndthenahugepartofitisindustryanalystsandtheirinvestorsandtheywanttoseetherevenuereturnoneverysinglefeaturethatGoogleannouncesandsotheyallendintransactions.Overtime,thosetransactionshavetakenplacecloserandclosertoGoogle’scoreplatform.Thisyearthey[announcedintelligentshoppingcarts](/news/932927/google-io-agentic-ai-shopping-universal-cart)thatarejustgoingtotrackpricesandexecuteapurchaseforyou.You’retalkingaboutrebuildingwebsites.There’saworldinwhichthewebsiteisjustthebackenddatabaseforaverycomplicatedGooglesystemthatisdoingallofthethingsthatyou’retalkingabout.Isthereahedgeagainstthatoristhattrainjustonthetracks?It’salittlebitofahedgeagainstthat.Iwouldsaythatformanyofourpackagedgoodsfriends,oneoftheirbiggestthreatsisAmazon.ThatistheGoogleinthisstorybecauseifyouaresodependentonapartnerlikeAmazonthatalsocan—andwelikeourpartnershipwithAmazon—buttheyalsoareaplacewhere,becauseofthesizeoftheirmarketplace,ifyou’vebuiltabrandthathasastory,isaknownbrand,someofthesemarketplacebrandscanimmediatelywinbecauseofhowyou’veinvestedandbuiltthecategory.Soyouneedtohaveyourownassetstobeabletothinkaboutwhatisyournextstory,whatisyournextmovesothatyoudon’tgetcommoditized.ThatappliestobothAmazonandGoogle,toadegree.Doyouthinkthey’recompetitorsinthisspaceinthatway?Idon’tknow.Idon’tdoanyshoppingonGoogle,soIdon’tknowifIwouldcomparethemtothat.HaveyoueverplannedahikingtriponGoogle?They’regreatatit.[Laughs]Actually,no.IusethisthingcalledMindtrip.It’smyfavorite.IlearnedaboutitinTheNewYorkTimes.YougotoMindtripandit’llmagicallyplanyourtrip.It’sprettygood.Itcandomostthingsandthenitbreaksincertainareas.Butthisideathatyou’regoingtohaveabunchofagentsjustplanningthetripsforyou,buyingallofthegearthatyoumightwant,ortrackingpricesforyou,whichisanotherbigpromisethateveryonehas.Andthenthebrandsmightpayforpreferredresultsinallofthosespaces.ThatdoesseemlikeamoredirectcompetitortoAmazonthannot,right?Absolutely,itdoes.Ijustthinkthere’stheplanningpartandthetransactionpart.Thosearetwodifferentthings.Ithinkontheplanning,you’recompeting.Amazonistryingtogetup.They’regoingtogetaddedtransactionintothatplanningcomponent—whenyouthinkaboutallthethingsthatthey’redoingwiththeirowncreatorsandevenjusttheirmoveonfullfunnelandcontent,that’sreallytomakeAmazonyourtotaldestination.ButIthinkintheagent-to-agentbuyingspace,theconceptoftrustisstillveryimportant.Whatyou’rewillingtodoandnottodo,IthinkasaconsumerisstillTBD.Here’smywonkiesttechquestionforyou.Googleisvery,veryproud—[Laughs]Thisishard.Oh,Lord.Igotit.It’sfine.Becauseagain,isAItop-downorbottom-up?Iunderstandhowit’sbottom-up.We’regoingtoempowerallofoursmartestpeopletodoagenticthingsinourworkplaces.Andthenthere’stop-down,whichisthatGoogleisveryproudofitsuniversalcartstandard,whereagentsaregoingtobeabletoaccesscartsacrossdomainsandcomparepricesanddoallthatstuff.That’sacorporatedecision.That’sastrategydecisionandthey’reprettyproudthateveryone’sonboard.Theirargumenttomeis,“Well,wejustneededsomething.Andthisisthesomething.”Ihearthetechindustrysay,“Wejustneededsomething.”AndIthink,well,ofcourse,butit’sthissomethingthatyoucontrolandeveryonemightneedsomething,butnooneisthinkingitthrough.Attheendofthis,oneplayerwillcontrolit.Whenyourclientsandpartnersthinkabout,“We’regoingtoadoptthesestandardsforagenticworkflows,forhowcommercewillbedoneinthefuture,”isthereanypausetosay,“Google’sgoingtocontrolthestandardsagain?”Yesandno.TheclientsIspeakwithtodayarenotasworriedaboutGoogleasacommercepartnerastheyareaboutthetransformationoftheirmoretraditionalpartners,likeAmazonorotherretailers,thathavetransformedfrombeingaretailpartnertobeingmediapartners.Thattransformationisoccurringoverthere,theirmediapartners—It’schangedthisdynamicofwhataretailerdoesandwhatasupplierormanufacturedbranddoes.Thatdynamichaschangedandthatmakesthenegotiationbetweenthemsuchthattheyneedeachothertogrow.Whenthey’vetransformedintomediapartners,thischangesthatequationsignificantly.Thisisthewholeretailmediaconversation.“Aretheyamediapartneroraretheyourretailpartner?”Yeah.That’sstillmuchmoretheconversation.HasAIchangedthedynamicofthatatall?Yes,becausethemoreAI-orientedproductstheyhave,themoreitputsfocusonmediainvestmentswiththembecauseofthesemagicalproducts.It’snotnecessarilysolvingacoreshoppingproblem.Soletmefliptotheothersideofthis,becausesofarwe’vetalkedabouttechanddataandscale,andIthinkthatisthepromiseofAI.“We’regoingtoautomateeverything.Itisgoingtobemagic.We’regoingtodoprogrammaticagain.”Allyouneedisdataandtheyneedyourmoney.Theothersideofthis—andI’mjustwalkingaroundhereatCannes—iscreatorseverywhere.Somethingvastlymorehuman,vastlymorebespoke.Mytheory—andIwasjustwrongonthis,soI’llcoptoit—Ithoughtcreatorrateswouldfalldrasticallythisyear,astherewasmoreAIcontent,astheplatformsgotmoreandmorepunishingaboutwhatwouldworkontheiralgorithms,astheystarteddoingtheirowncontent.Instead,IlookaroundandeveryonehereatCannesisjustsoproudabouthowthecostperminuteofvideoisskyrocketingagain.What’sgoingon?Again,it’sallaboutsupplyanddemand.Oncecreatorsstartmovingintoamorefamousspace,thensuddenlythey’reworthmore.Lasttimewetalkedaboutthis,wetalkedaboutthedifferencebetweenacreator,aninfluencer,andacelebrity.Istillthinkthatholdstrue.Unileverwentout,probablythistimelastyear,sayingthattheyweregoingtospend50percentoftheirdollarswithallcreatorsversuscreative.Tome,aninterestingconversationis,“Whatiscreativenow?”Ifyou’reputtingitallinthehandsofacreator,whatdoesitmeantobeabrandthatdeliverscreativeandhowdoyoumakethosethingsworktogether?Becausewecan’thaveanotherthingthatalsopricesusoutofthemarketandyougettoapointwhereyou’recedingsomuchcontroltothevoiceofthecreatorthatthat’sprobablynotgoingtobuildyourbrandovertime.Thecreatorsseethemselvesasmarketers,atleasttheverybestoneshere.Imeanthey’rehereatCannes.Smallbusinessowners.They’reallsmallmediabusinessesoftheirown.Someofthemareverylargemediabusinessesoftheirownandthey’reveryopenthatwhattheydoismarketingforbrands.Thatcomesrightupagainstagencies.Itcomesrightupagainstyourcreatives.Allthecreatorsknowtheywantmorecontrol.Theywantthebrieffromthebrand.Theywantbusinessresults.Andtheysay,“Leavemealonetodoit.I’mjustgoingtodoithoweverIwanttodoit.”What’sthatdynamiclikeasyoustartworkingwiththebiggerandbiggercreators?Westillholdtruetobrandfundamentals.Strategymatters.Whattheconsumerinsightisforthatbrandhastobesomethingthat’sanexchangebetweenabrandandacreatorinorderforthecreator’sworktoreallybuildwhat’suniqueaboutthatbrand.It’sstilltheideaoffreedomandaframeworkthatthatcreatorisbriefedon.Theycontrolhowthey’regoingtodoit,buttherearesometoneandvoiceandthingsthat,ifacreator’sactuallygoingtobuyintothis,theyneedtobuyintothat.Thatstillisreallytheexchange.That’salwaysbeentheexchange.DoyourememberwhenUGCstartedinTongal?Doyourememberthatwholething?Itwasthesamething.IwasworkingonJohnson’sBabyandweweretryingtofigureouthowtoreallycreateauthenticfirst-timeexpectantmomstories.Wehadthisgreatdebateabouthowwe’regoingtogetthenewcreators—likemombloggers,wasthelanguage—togetthemtotellthesestories.Sowehadthis:thisiswhatthebrandstandsfor,herearesomethings,butyouneedtobuyintothisandbelieveinit.Thatexchangestillexists.Wejustcallthemcreatorsnow.Andthenyoucandoitinamorescaledway,throughasystemlikeInfluential.Iguessmaybemynewpredictionisthatwe’llseeamorebarbellshapedcreatoreconomy,wherethebiggestcreatorsaremakingmoreandmoremoneythaneverandthemiddlegetssqueezed.Eitheryou’vegottogetbig,you’vegottobeabletocommandratesbecauseyou’reacelebrity,oryouenduptowardsthoseUGCrates,whereyou’rejustdoinginfomercialsonTikTokandthat’sthebusiness.What’sleftforthemiddle?It’sareallygoodquestion.Idon’tknowtheanswertothat.Idothinkthere’ssomuchdemandforthisspaceandthere’salotofdemandforthemiddle.Soyoucoulduseitasawaytoeventuallylaunchyourselfintothisupperechelonofcreators.Someonesaidtomethatcreatorsaredaytimestarsfromsoapoperas,whichIthought,“Thisisprettyinteresting.”Becausethey’reinyourhouse?Becausethey’rejustsoon.It’snotnoisebuttheykeepyoucompany,theykeepyoubusyandthenallofasudden,oneofthosepeoplebecomesamoviestar.Which,tome,isalittlebitofthatmiddleofwhatyoujustarticulated,whereweknowthecreators.I’vewatchedmydaughterovertheyears,andI’vewatchedallofhercreators[grow].EmmaChamberlainwasacreatoronYouTubewho’snowastar,doingEsteeLauderadsorwhatevershe’sdoing.She’sreallyacelebritynow,butshestartedasatinycreatormakingadorableshowsonYouTube.OneofthethingsthatyouandIwerebrieflytalkingaboutbeforewecameonstagewasatsomepointcreatorshitascalewheretheirbusinessesneedtobebusinesses.That’swhereyoumightneedanagencytocomeinandactuallyoperateyourbusiness.Thatscaleisstillprettyhuge.ItmightjustbeMrBeastatthatscale,andheneedstooperateafullbusiness.ButIseelotsofcreators.Ithinkit’sfascinatingthatthecreativeeconomyistheonlyonewherepeopleroutinelytransitionfromsellingbitstosellingatoms.It’scrazytomethatthePaulbrothersarelike,“Bottledwaterisagoodbusinesstobein.”Historicallynotagreatbusinesstobein.Shippingwateraroundtheworldisvastlymoreexpensivethanjustmakingonemorevideo,butthere’snobusinessinmakingonemorevideothatscales.Youhavetomakephysicalproductsandsellthemtopeopleandthatscales.Isthatbecomingabiggerandbiggerlineforyou?“We’regoingtogofindthebiggestcreatorsandmakethemproductsandscalethatup”?Thelasttimeortwowemet,Ihadpredictedthat,atsomepoint,therearegoingtobethesecreatorsthatbecomeenterprises,let’ssayaMrBeastthatactuallyneedsanagency,andithashappened.Wearenowstartingtoseebriefsfromthesescaled,started-as-a-creatorbusinessesthathavenowturnedintoenterprisebusinesses,wheretheyneedanagencypartnerandtheyalsoneedsomeonetohelpthemtofigureouthowtoinvesttheirmediasotheycangrow.They’relikerealbrands.MrBeasthimselfcannotflipoverthebarsatWalmart.Ijustthinkpeopleneedconsultants.Youneedsomeonetohelpyou.Noonehaseverlookedmeintheeyeandsaid,“Peopleneedconsultants,”before.[Laughs]Icallmyselfaconsultant.Lookmeintheeye.Yes.IhavehereAccenturejustboughtWhalar,whichislikeanalltimenonsenseDecoderphrase,butokay.Yes.You,asanenterpriseownerorasanownerofacompany,youneedhelptofigureouthowyou’regoingtogettoyournextgrowthpath.Thisiswhat’shappeningwithsomeofthesebusinesses.Thesecreatorsthathaveturnedintoanenterprisewhoarewondering,“Whatisnext?Gee,it’sexpensivetoshipwaterallovertheworld.WhatdoIdo?HowdoIdothis?WhattypesofpartnersdoIgoto?HowdoIfigureoutwaystogrowmybrandinunownedecosystems?”Becausethat’sthequickestwaytogrowyourbrand,notjustinyourownchannels.There’sthistermthatI’vebeenhearingcalledtheinfluencercliff.Iwanttogivecredit.TheTikTokerwho[cameupwithitisnamedCarmenVicente](https://www.tiktok.com/@carmscrolls).I’monlygivinghercreditbecausenoonegivesmecreditforGoogleZero.[Laughs]Ido.I’mtryingtoreinitiatekarmaintothisworld.It’sherterm.It’sgreat.Ifyou’relisteningtothis,we’ll[putthevideointheshownotes](https://www.tiktok.com/@carmscrolls/video/7638068031851187464).Butherthesisisthatcreatorscandothebrandedcontentbecausetheaudiencesaretherefortherealcontentandtheywilltoleratetheadsinsupportoftheworkthatthey’retheretosee.Andthenwhenthecreatortransitionstosellingtheirownproduct,thismisalignstheaudiencefromthecreator,andwhenthebrandintegrationsgettoooverpowering,itmisalignseverybody,andthenthecreatorshavetoissueapologiesandthey’vefallenoffthecliff.Iseethisallovertheplace.Iseethiswithtechcreators.Iseethiswithfashioncreators.Onceyoustartshillingtheproductdirectly,yourrelationshipchanges,somethinggoeshorriblywrong,maybeyoubacktrackalltheway.There’ssomeclassofcreatorsthat’sabletodoit,thatmakesthetransitiontosellingproductsdirectly.You’veseenalotofthesenow,you’veseenthebriefs.Whatqualitiesletyoutakethatnextstep?Ithinkauniqueproductisreallyimportant,versusame-tooproductthatacreatorhasdecidedtheywantedtosell.That’simportant.You’veseensomecreatorswhereit’sthatthey’reintosportsorthey’reanathlete,andthey’removingintoaspacethattheyfeellikethisissomethingthatmadethemabetterathleteandisauniquepartofthemarket.Ifsomeone’sfollowingforthat,thenthatmakessensethatyouwouldbuyintothat.Whenitfeelslikesomeonewokeupandwantedtojustputtheirpersonaonacertainbrandanditdoesn’tfeellikeit’sbeentheirtalktracktoyouasyourfriend,thenitdoesn’twork.Doyouseeanyparticularproductsthataregoingtochangecategories?OneofthethingsthatIthinkthathasbeenreallyinterestingbutisnottalkedabout,isactuallyauniqueexampleandmoreofacelebrityexample,arebrandslikeFabletics,KateHudson’sbrand.It’ssuperinteresting.It’srightinherlifestyleplayandherdesiretobehealthyandallofthat.AnditwasreallyherlaunchingFabletics,notherendorsingFabletics.That’snotreallyagoodcreatorexample.Ihavetothinkmoreaboutthatone.I’mverycuriousbecauseIthinkthat’scoming.Yes.Asparticularratesatthetopendofthecurvegoup,theideathatyoucanjustlaunchyourownbrandandcollectthosemarginsdirectly,Igetit.Itmakesrationaleconomicsense.ButI’mwonderingiftheaudiencesaregoingtotakethatatscale.EvenifyoujustlookattraditionalbrandsthataretryingtoscaleDTC-likebrands,itisveryhardtodobecauseit’sveryhardtobefoundandthedistributionpartisveryexpensive.ThereisareasonwhyWalmartisincrediblysuccessful,becausethey’vesolvedtheroutetotheconsumer.Andthatisverychallengingandexpensivetotrytobuildthatout,eveniftheproductisincredible.Youmeandistributionofproductoutinthechannel?Yeah,ofproduct.BecauseIwasgoingtoaskaboutthat.Youtalkedalottotheweb.IfeellikeIhavetoaskyoubecauseIbroughtupGoogleZero.Isthattrueinyourworldaswell?It’sdefinitelytrueonthepublishersidethattrafficfromGoogleisgoingdown.Isdiscoverytraffictoallthosewebsitesgoingdownaswell?Topublisherwebsites,yes.Wearedefinitelyseeingachangeinpartnershipsfromourpublishersthataretryingtounderstandhowtheycancreatecustomcontentthatisnotasdependentonsearch,butit’sdefinitelysomethingthatisabigconversationthat’shappeninghere.Iwouldsayinthiscase,ifyouareapublisherandyoureallyhaveanauthentic,truevoice,peoplewillfollowyou.They’llcomefindyou.Versusifyou’retryingtofightitoutinsearch,that’sgoingtobeverydifficult.Allright.Well,I’llbeinthebarattheCarltonlater,ifyouwanttofindme.Okay.We’vegotafewminutesleftandthenwe’regoingtodosomeaudiencequestions.ButIhavealightningroundforyou.[Laughs]Okay.Thishasn’tbeenalightninground?Ohmygosh.Thishasn’t.No,thisisthedepth.Allright.IhavetalkedtoalotoftechCEOsandAICEOsoverthepastyear,andthere’safuriousdebateoverwhetherAIhasamarketingproblem.SamAltmanwillsay,“Wegottodobettermarketing.Wegottobuyapodcastfor$200 million.” Great haircuts from those guys. I think about them every single day. I don’t mean this as an insult. Those are some of the best haircuts in the world. I’m working on it. I don’t know if $200 million of podcast haircuts is going to fix it for OpenAI. Sundar Pichai will tell you it’s not a marketing problem. Satya Nadella will say we have to earn social permission. Do you think AI has a marketing problem? I think AI is misunderstood. It’s a marketing problem and the problem it’s solving. I’ll say that one of my favorite people to follow who talks about AI — my friends here are going to know what I’m going to say — is Shelly Palmer. If you follow Shelly Palmer, he published something recently about AI being electricity and how electricity is really what fundamentally changed the industrial revolution. The companies that were fast — and he referenced Ford in this — to really reshape how they work and were able to get to more efficient production as well as speed to market, will win. I think that’s the lost conversation on AI, which is, for me, all of us have too much to do on our computers and our desktops, if you think about it. You can use AI to do those things, and you don’t call me because you’re like, “Hey, did you clean out your email box?” Things like that are not necessarily game changers that are advancing all of us. Also we have a lot of busywork because all of the work is distributed everywhere. The more we can use AI to connect those things and get those things done enables us to do more things like this. Once we use AI to transform the way we work and to be more efficient in how we’re getting to the outcomes, it’ll then make time in all of our lives to do the things that are going to be game changers. It’s a marketing problem and a misunderstood problem. Is that going to stop the kids from booing at college graduation ceremonies? I think so. Right now — and my daughter’s a third-year — they’re worried about their jobs because all they hear, to your point about a press problem or PR problem versus marketing problem, is that AI is going to be the thing that replaces all of them. I would say we want new young talent because if I watch my 12-year-old, he’s been doing Google Slides since he was eight, because of COVID. All of them got right into Google Classroom and they all learned how to co-work and use many different apps at once and produce presentations easily. Anyone that’s coming out of school we want — we want bright, curious hackers. We’re not not hiring them because we need them. We need people as the lifeblood of our business. Do you think AI creative is going to get good enough? I do not. No? Ever? I do not. I think the minds and complexity of humans make great stories that you are attracted to. I’m not using the word creative. I’m using stories. I think AI enables you to be able to get to those concepts faster or to get to higher production more efficiently. I went to an event and it was fantastic. It was a case for Virgin Cruises and they were talking about building these beautiful long-form content stories. The creatives were talking about how they used AI to be able to get to the concepts faster, curate from static art to digital art to really make these beautiful, multimodal boards, to bring this to life faster. But it wasn’t the core of the idea. They had thought, they had used their brains to come up with the idea. It’s interesting. In our newsroom, we do a lot of first drafts now with AI — of art, not writing — because it lowers the stakes on saying things are good ideas or bad ideas and just that has empowered people to have more ideas. I see a lot of that. I would challenge you: I think at some point the bottom end of the creative, the UGC world, that stuff gets taken over. For everyday creative, I’ll give you an example: product display pages that are when you search on Walmart or Amazon and that page gives you all this information. If it’s not done with robots, you’re not doing it right because that’s like looking at the back of a packaging. If you really do it right, you can make it dynamic. It knows what you bought the last time and it can be magical, but that’s like everyday creative that we need in order to get to personalization. We should be using those tools to be able to do that versus someone making those in an analog world, which is where we all started on that. For some things. When I think about big creative and storytelling, it still needs humans. I’ve asked you about GEO several times. I’m asking you now in lightning round format. Is this just another wild goose chase? GEO? Yeah. No, I think for certain platforms, it’s a recast of search. We’re seeing this happening, where you need to be, instead of being found, you need to be known for, so that’s the GEO response. But I also think it’s a better curation of information. I think it’s harder work for marketers because you need to be figuring out how you are leveraging Reddit or all these other different places so that you are showing up in a positive way with the LLMs. But I do think, if we’ve all been talking about the concept of personalization at scale, we should be delivering on that. GEO allows us to do that. Have you had to change your SEO practice to account for that? Talk about a practice that you thought was not going to be big. When you look at the capabilities you have and what you don’t think is going to be a high growth engine, our SEO team has exploded. In addition to new websites, this is a big one and that is really a conversation around influence. It’s how you’re showing up and how you’re also influencing LLMs when you actually get into that. Is that something you can measure? I worry that LLMs are inherently non-deterministic. Every result is different. Do you have a system of measuring those? We do. We do have an audit format to see what is your share of voice within that, so you can identify where you are in the moment, but it’s a movable feast in comparison to share of voice for search. It is something that we audit so we can start to see what the different levers we need to be pulling are. By the way, the LLMs are also fed by different things. Recently, one of the new ones is longform YouTube content. That makes sense — that tracks. Why do you think we all make podcasts now? [Laughs] Right. Everyone’s just trying to get to three hours of YouTube content. I don’t know if you can have a lightning round question that starts from a place of existential dread, but here we go. I feel like we’re all here. Did you all see Adam Mosseri’s post about customizing the Instagram algorithm two weeks ago? This is maybe one of the most important posts in the history of media. I’m not kidding. And of course, he issued it as an Instagram carousel, one of the least consumable forms of media that you can possibly have. It’s also on Threads. If your brain is broken and you use Threads, you can go look at it there. It’s very long and it’s about how offering the ability to customize the algorithm was previously impossible because no one could describe the series of matrix multiplication equations that led to your algorithm showing you a piece of content, except LLMs can now. It can tell you why you’re seeing content in a very direct way. And then you can talk to the LLM and it can customize the algorithm for you. He said, “This is great and we think this will give people a sense of agency.” And then he went on and said, “Soon I will customize all of Instagram for you and the app will be different for every single person. Some of the experiences will be interactive. Some of the UI controls will literally be different. How we organize everything will be different. And you can see how this is the obvious future for us.” He went on again and he said, “This might be bad. This might ruin the shared fabric of truth that we all rely on every single day,” which for a Meta executive is remarkably prescient, but he didn’t say he was going to do anything about it. He was just like, “Here’s what I’m going to do to you.” I look at all of Cannes and I look at all of our talk about the creator economy, about measuring the data and I think, “Adam Mosseri is going to make Instagram different for every single person. That is his stated goal. He said it two weeks ago and he knows that this might distort literally our shared sense of reality, the media experiences we all have.” This is the lightning round question. It was a big buildup to a lightning round question. Is that good? It’s terrible. Okay. Is there anything we can do about that? Not engage in it. How do you not engage with Instagram? If I told you about my oldest stepson, who is absolutely analog, that’s why. I think we are seeing more and more consumers [like that]. Think about it. If you sat down in front of your TV and it was like, “We’ve made all these decisions about you and you’re only allowed to do this based on…” It feels like Black Mirror. If that happens to you, you would say, “I’m not going to engage in this anymore. I’m going to go read a book.” It’s also counter to the value proposition of a social platform around community. It was designed to make this connected world. So that’s the most disconnected world. People are lonely and isolated. The more you’re just in your doomscroll, it will be terrible. We need shared community. One of the things that’s really interesting and a bright spot about creators is creators show up and they have a community, and they listen to their communities. They’re not influencing, they’re talking to their communities, in a way. Brands that do this right are really bringing the community along. It’s why we’re seeing the rise of IRL. People want to get together and talk about things. Is it just going to be that competitive pressure that keeps them honest? I look at the creator economy and Instagram is a load-bearing part of the creator economy. Disrupting that, maybe you break the whole thing. What keeps them honest? What keeps them from going down this path that they’ve very clearly said they want to go down? Is it just people switching away? I think it’s people switching away. When brands stop putting media dollars there, and all of those things come together, you might realize, “Wow, they’re not buying what I’m selling and this is not going to work for me.” There are plenty of platforms that are no longer [prominent], if you think about it. Big blue Facebook. It’s there for my parents. It’s even on their own platform. Okay. Last question for you and then I think we’re going to take some questions. This one’s really easy. What’s next for Digitas? What should we be looking for this year? What’s next for Digitas? We are very much focused on marketing systems and how we are helping brands build out their growth engines so that it’s not just about your media needs, your creative needs, your CRM needs. It’s how we can really make all of those different capabilities work together so that it’s easier for our brands to grow. Great. Well, thank you so much, Amy.

By Nilay Patel

Original Article