By Kimeko McCoy * June 9, 2025 *
Ivy Liu,
Meta’s plans for fully automating ads with AI by the year 2026 is not a surprise. However, it could make it more difficult to retain clients and win new business.
The social media company plans to allow brands to create and target ads with AI by next year. This will give marketers a lot of creative freedom. According to The Wall Street Journal.
Five of the executives Digiday spoke to for this article say that the AI hype cycle has continued for some time. Rachael DATZ, executive director of VML’s social media, said, “It is not new.” She added, “There are certain things that cannot be replaced or automated.”
This is the latest step in Meta’s AI generative initiatives. Last year, Meta launched AI ad tool that allows users to create AI-generated variations for images, headlines, and other text.
According to creatives, the strategy is in line with tech platforms such as Google, Snap, TikTok and Pinterest, which have all been moving towards AI-driven advertising products over the past two years amid the AI hype.
Jeff Bowerman is the executive creative director of DEPT. He said that, historically, platforms have been eroding the power of media and creative agencies.
The promise is that AI will make advertising faster and cheaper. This includes copywriting, content creation, ad variations, optimization, and other “grunt work” that junior creatives have long used as a testing ground. Automation is destroying the layer of work that agencies do not want to acknowledge. It has changed the face of the advertising industry. In other words, agencies must find new ways to impress clients, win new business, and stay ahead in the AI arms races.
At a time when marketing budgets are tightening and economic headwinds are increasing, AI could be a good efficiency play for all brands. Executives claim that Meta’s recent news has not yet caused alarm at creative agencies. AI is still viewed as a flawed tool that requires human oversight, say execs. Meta’s all in one offerings are geared towards smaller businesses who may not have been capable of affording an agency partner. In addition, more and more agencies are launching their own AI-powered tools to meet the needs of clients — and to compete against platforms themselves.
Nicole Stetter, creative director at Saylor, said, “It’s really just supercharging what we already make.” AI may promise efficiency but no one seems to be eager to answer the question of whether this means cutting jobs.
The agencies are positioning themselves to be the gatekeepers for the AI-powered platforms and brand marketers, offering high-level storytelling and strategy that AI cannot replicate — at least yet.
“Today, in the agency world a lot is attributed to how long it took for something,” said Matt Powell. Powell is CEO of Moroch, an independent full-service agency. Powell does not believe that the value of a product is diminished by AI.
Clients have a lot of curiosity, but are cautious about investing their intellectual property or ad dollars in the black box known as AI. Marketers are still unsure about how AI systems work and make decisions. They also don’t know how much control they have over AI tools. There’s also the risk of AI “slop”or low-quality content produced by AI tools with no human oversight. If AI is used without human oversight, it could lead to less differentiation in the creative of each brand.
‘That is what you end up with when you have a computer generalizing and putting out stuff from a device. Powell added that it becomes ad slop.
AI hasn’t been the first challenge that creatives have faced. It’s the latest in a long list of trends that creative agencies must adapt to. This includes everything from brands integrating their creative work in-house to TikTok, and the pivot towards short-form videos. Bowerman, from DEPT, said: “That’s frightening but there is no such thing as a career for life. We figured that out.”
Creative agencies may not be the only partners in the room, thanks to AI. But it doesn’t make creative agencies irrelevant or redundant to them. The job is changing as AI takes over production, leaving creatives with more time to focus on strategy and storytelling.
The agencies are at the forefront of proving that human work is worth it. The current pitch doesn’t say that AI will not replace us, but that it hasn’t happened yet.
Rachael Ditz, executive director of VML’s social department, said, “We always advise our clients and we should position ourselves as the first people to turn to when things like this happen.”
https://digiday.com/?p=580258
