The advertising and media industry is no stranger to disruption, but few shifts have matched the speed and scale of AI’s impact. At a recent Cannes roundtable hosted by New Digital Age in partnership with Nano Interactive, we discussed the ways in which AI is transforming media planning.
Participants included Emma Withington, Chief Planning and Strategy Officer, Havas; James Shoreland, CEO, VCCP Media; Deborah Gbadamosi,Vice President of Inclusion, IAA UK; Natasha Wallace, Managing Director, Jellyfish; Erfan Djazmi, Chief Digital Officer, Mediahub Worldwide; Pius Hornstein, Global Head Digital Global Business Units, Sanofi; Ed Freed, Global Transformation Officer, Rapp; Niall Moody, Chief Revenue Officer, Nano Interactive; Ed Cox, Partner, Media, Data and Effectiveness, Beyond.
One of the first topics to emerge was the question of transparency in AI-driven systems. “That ‘black box’ narrative doesn’t really reflect where we are anymore,” said Emma Withington, Chief Planning and Strategy Officer, Havas. “AI is giving us better visibility into audience behaviours by connecting data in ways we simply couldn’t before.”
Pius Hornstein, Global Head Digital Global Business Units at Sanofi, agreed, describing how AI has already transformed how his organisation empowers its reps. “We provide them with AI-based recommendations on who to target, what message to deliver and how to deliver it,” he said. “Initially there was scepticism, but now they wouldn’t work without it.”
Ed Freed, Global Transformation Officer at Rapp, highlighted another layer of AI’s potential. “It’s not just about correlation anymore, but causation,” he explained.
“AI is starting to tell us why things happen, not just what happened. The problem is, most organisations aren’t yet able to plug in the kind of connected data required to get there.”
Withington emphasised how far things have moved from traditional approaches.
“We’ve gone from identifying individuals to using synthetic data to model behaviours. That changes everything about how we think about planning,” she said.
This evolution is not just about insight, but about reshaping roles and responsibilities within agencies. “The people we need now are multimodal strategists,” said Natasha Wallace, Managing Director, Jellyfish. “You can’t be a media planner who doesn’t understand formats or platforms anymore. The work is becoming fully integrated.”
For Gbadamosi, that integration comes with a chance to revalue strategic thinking. “Too often we still reward manual execution over critical thinking,” she said. “AI should let us reverse that and elevate the work that drives real value.”
Erfan Djazmi, Chief Digital Officer at Mediahub Worldwide, saw this as a cultural shift the industry needs to embrace. “We’ve built a generation of process professionals,” he said. “AI allows us to focus on ideas again, but we have to unlearn some old habits first.”
Still, there are growing concerns about the implications of giving too much control to platforms. “If Meta or Google can handle planning, creative and optimisation all in one, what happens to the agency’s role?” asked Ed Cox, Partner at Beyond. “We have to find new ways to demonstrate value beyond what an algorithm can deliver.”
James Shoreland, CEO at VCCP Media, warned that AI’s power to simplify might actually mask complexity. “We can’t forget that human behaviour is messy,” he said.
“AI is great at spotting patterns, but it can’t explain emotion or irrational decision-making. That’s where we still have an edge.”
Creativity, in particular, remains an area where humans still hold the upper hand. “AI can interpolate and extrapolate,” said Freed, “but it can’t have a hunch. It can’t make that imaginative leap that changes everything.”
That leap, Shoreland added, is vital in branding. “Most people don’t know why they love a brand — it’s emotional. If we rely on AI to make all our decisions, we risk flattening everything into sameness.”
Niall Moody, Chief Revenue Officer at Nano Interactive, argued that AI offers a way to bring strategy and creativity closer together. “We’re now part of the upstream planning conversation,” he said. “We’re using data to uncover unexpected audience behaviours that drive new thinking.”
Still, these tools are only as powerful as the teams who use them. Wallace noted, “The speed is incredible, but unless we bring people along with us, we’ll leave a lot of talent behind.”
Withington pointed to another challenge: access. “There is insight that demonstrates women are less likely to use AI and part of that is a feeling that it’s cheating. That shows we need to work on inclusion just as much as innovation.”
As the session drew to a close, the tone shifted to cautious optimism. “AI lets us move faster,” said Djazmi. “I’ve seen our teams build brands from scratch in an hour. It’s exciting to see that level of possibility.”
Cox agreed, adding, “We now have the tools to ask better questions. The value isn’t in the answers — it’s in knowing what to ask.”
Gbadamosi summed up the mood. “This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the start of something bigger, more collaborative and potentially more human — if we get it right.”
In part two of our roundtable coverage, we explore the challenges of AI ethics, regulation and the growing urgency for industry-wide accountability.
