'Six months from now, this discussion may already be outdated.'
That observation has stayed with me because it captures the speed at which our industry is evolving.
AI is moving faster than almost any technology we have seen before. New capabilities are emerging constantly, and every advancement reshapes how marketers think about creativity, media and customer engagement.
The Wrong Question
For the last two years, the conversation has largely focused on what AI can do: generate content, create images, write copy, personalise communication, optimise media and build content at scale. Those capabilities are remarkable but they are also becoming accessible to everyone.
I increasingly believe we're asking the wrong question. The real question isn't what AI can do. It's what AI can't commoditise. That's where the next competitive advantage will lie.
Every meaningful advantage in marketing eventually becomes accessible to everyone. Mass media did. Digital did. Performance marketing did. Data did. AI is likely to follow a similar trajectory.
The speed at which this happens is only accelerating. According to the dentsu Digital Advertising Report 2026, digital is expected to account for nearly 70% of India's AdEx, fuelled by programmatic buying, AI-driven optimisation and platform automation. As these capabilities become the industry standard, technology stops being the differentiator. What brands build on top of that technology becomes far more important.
AI-enabled media is quickly becoming the new baseline. The real question won't be who has the best tools. It will be who uses them to build something people genuinely remember.
The real battle isn't against AI. It's against sameness.
The New Sequence of Brand Building
If an iconic brand were launched today, it may not begin with mass media. Increasingly, brands are beginning with communities, creators and early advocates using digital to learn, iterate and earn credibility before investing in scale.
Earlier, brands built communities after they became successful. Today, communities are often how they become successful. Products attract customers. Ecosystems encourage them to stay. Communities turn them into advocates. Advocacy creates something technology alone cannot manufacture: sustained human behaviour.
Retail media is another example which is getting significant traction as a core advertising channel. Buying visibility within an ecosystem is becoming easier than ever. Building genuine preference within that ecosystem remains much harder. AI can help brands get discovered. It can't make consumers care.
Brand Love vs. Algorithmic Visibility – A False Choice
We often treat brand love and algorithmic visibility as a trade‑off. I don’t believe that’s true.
Brands people genuinely care about generate conversations. Conversations create engagement. Engagement sends stronger signals to platforms. In that sense, algorithms don't replace brand building; they often reward it.
The implication is important. The future may not be about learning how to market to algorithms, but about building brands that people value enough for algorithms to amplify.
Which is why I don’t believe creativity becomes less important in an AI‑driven world. It may become more valuable. The part of marketing that’s getting commoditized isn’t creativity; it’s execution.
Execution Was Never the Hard Part
AI will automate execution at unprecedented scale. It will generate assets, optimise journeys and produce countless creative variations. But execution has never been marketing's hardest challenge. Originality has.
As AI makes competent execution abundant, distinction becomes scarce. The biggest risk isn't that AI replaces creativity. It's that it creates a sea of competent work where everything begins to look, sound and feel remarkably similar.
The Limits of Machine Originality – For Now
The prevailing view today is that breakthrough creativity will remain uniquely human. I agree - for now.
Where my own view differs slightly is that I don't think this limitation is permanent. As AI develops richer reasoning, broader context and deeper interaction with the world, our definition of originality itself may evolve. I don't believe that's imminent. But I also don't believe it's impossible. The important point is that, today, originality remains one of the few competitive advantages that cannot simply be automated.
Trust as the Next Competitive Advantage
Becoming AI-first isn't simply about deploying more tools or producing more content. Governance, privacy, intellectual property and transparency are no longer compliance discussions. They're becoming business decisions that shape trust.
Every organisation will eventually have access to powerful AI. Not every organisation will earn the trust to deploy it responsibly. That trust may become one of the defining competitive advantages of the next decade.
The Real Battle Is Against Sameness
AI will continue to democratise capability. It will make targeting smarter, personalisation richer and execution dramatically faster. But it won't democratise trust. It won't democratise communities. It won't democratise cultural relevance. It won't democratise bold thinking.
Algorithms don't decide what people care about. People do.
Algorithms don't create demand. They amplify it.
The brands that stand apart over the next decade won't necessarily be those with the smartest AI stack. They'll be the ones that use AI to amplify something genuinely distinctive - an idea, a community, a purpose or an experience that people choose to engage with.
Because in a world where capability is abundant, distinction is what endures.
