When everyone can create, taste becomes advertising’s last moat

New Delhi: AI has levelled the playing field in advertising. Everyone plans faster, churns out content at scale, and optimises in real time. Traditional capability no longer separates agencies!  Speed and volume are table stakes. What actually matters is judgment: the choices agencies make about what to say, what to reject, and where to take a stand when data nudges everything towards sameness.

AI altered the fundamentals of advertising

AI fundamentally altered the pace of advertising. “AI has fundamentally compressed time. Planning cycles that once took weeks now happen in hours,” said Hemant Shringy, Chief Creative Officer & Managing Partner, Wondrlab. At the same time, creation shifted from linear production to continuous iteration, where ideas were generated, tested, and adapted in a constant process.

This acceleration embedded AI deeply across the workflow. Manish Solanki, COO and Co-founder, TheSmallBigIdea, said, “It’s embedded across planning, creation, personalisation, and measurement, enabling smarter media decisions, real-time optimisation, and measurable performance gains across the entire campaign lifecycle.”

From a technology perspective, the impact was structural. “AI has standardised the basic layer of advertising,” said Bipeen Nadgauda, Co-founder & Head of Technology, AGENCY09. “Everyone can now plan faster, generate more options, and measure performance in real time.”

Yet speed also introduced risk. Shringy warned that velocity could distort priorities. “The danger is mistaking speed and efficiency for effectiveness,” he said, adding that instant measurability tempted brands to optimise for immediate performance rather than long-term resonance.

The roles AI disrupted first

As AI absorbed repetitive tasks, execution-heavy roles came under pressure. “The most at risk are roles built around execution without interpretation,” said Shringy. “If your value comes purely from formatting, resizing, adapting, or replicating, AI will outperform you.”

“AI is an incredible accelerator. Whether it accelerates insight or just noise depends entirely on the humans using it,” he added.

Solanki observed that this shift was most visible at the entry level. “AI's ability to handle repetitive, foundational tasks has prompted many organisations to reconsider traditional junior role structures,” he said, describing the disruption as a paradox rather than a pure threat.

Nadgauda framed the change as a recalibration of value. “Roles built purely on execution are already shrinking,” he said. “Anything that depends on repetitive production, formatting, or simple optimisation is being absorbed by AI.”

Across perspectives, one conclusion stood out. Craft without context no longer commanded a premium. The value had moved decisively towards judgment and problem-solving.

Human judgment: the last competitive advantage

As AI became ubiquitous, human judgment increasingly defined what stood out. “Human judgment is evident in the questions we ask before we even begin to look for answers,” said Shringy. “AI can tell you what’s trending. Humans decide what’s worth saying.”

Solanki highlighted the importance of curation in an AI-saturated environment. “Human curation serves as the filter determining whether AI enhances or diminishes work quality,” he said, noting growing consumer awareness of AI-generated content and reluctance towards it.

Nadgauda reinforced that differentiation began before execution. “Human judgment still defines what is worth creating in the first place,” he said, adding that taste determined whether work felt alive or mechanical.

Beyond aesthetics, judgment extended to ethics and consequence. “AI can simulate emotion. Humans understand consequences,” Shringy said, arguing that restraint, discomfort and long-term thinking remained uniquely human strengths.

How agencies should price creativity now

As output became easier to produce, leaders argued that agencies needed to clarify what they sold. “If agencies sell outputs, AI will commoditise them,” said Shringy. “If agencies sell thinking, meaning, and direction, their value actually increases.”

He stressed that creativity was often mispriced because it was hidden inside execution. “Creativity isn’t the artifact; it’s the intent, the framing, and the courage to choose one path over a hundred AI-generated options,” he said.

“You don’t pay for a painting; you pay for the painter’s eye. The same applies here,” Shringy added.

Nadgauda called for a structural shift in pricing models. “Agencies need to shift pricing away from hours and toward the value of decisions,” he said, arguing that work shaping a brand’s voice deserved a premium because AI could not originate it.

Solanki pointed out that agencies using AI to scale human creativity rather than replace it were better positioned to defend this premium.

Guardrails against sameness

While AI enabled unprecedented content volume, leaders warned of creative convergence. “Optimisation is not the same as originality,” said Shringy. “If you optimise only for what already works, you will inevitably reproduce the past.”

Solanki described a widening problem across the industry. “The industry faces a real crisis: if inputs aren't differentiated, there's a risk of a high degree of sameness, messages from different brands looking and feeling similar or indistinguishable.  Throughout 2025, generative AI's ease of use enabled unprecedented volumes of mediocre content,” he said, with many brands struggling to establish distinct identities.

“The future belongs to agencies that use AI to scale human creativity, not replace it,” he added.

Nadgauda argued that human-led intervention was essential. “The first guardrail is human-led curation, so teams do not settle for the statistical average,” he said, adding that originality depended on protecting exploratory thinking and risk-taking.

As AI continued to push advertising towards speed and averages, the creative premium did not disappear. It narrowed. When everyone could create, leaders agreed, taste became the last moat.