MEET THE PEOPLE
AI ASSISTANTS
We all know the familiar tale: everyone in advertising and marketing thinks AI will steal their job. Perhaps this is a justifiable concern – Anthropic’ s CEO, Dario Amodei told Axios:“ AI could wipe out half of all entry-level whitecollar jobs.”
But the data isn’ t supporting this, at least not yet. In fact, much of the data we have suggests AI in advertising is becoming integrated into core workflows, with positive results. According to Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe, 85 % of companies already use AI-based tools for marketing. And as for those deep compounding fears about job security, data from the Advertising Association shows only 10 % feel their job function will be fully taken over by AI.
We spoke to Tim Ringel, Founder and CEO of Meet The People( MTP), who launched the global marketing and advertising services holding company in 2021. Since then, it’ s completed 12 acquisitions and grown to more than 850 employees across the US and Canada, serving clients including Google, IBM and Moët Hennessy.
MEET THE PEOPLE
HEADQUARTERS: NEW YORK, US NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 750 +
The biggest misconception There are many misconceptions about advertising. Like the idea that everyone drinks all day, smokes innumerable cigarettes and is a serial philanderer, as popularised by Mad Men. This is false. Probably. But what’ s the biggest misconception about AI in advertising?
“ The idea that AI represents an existential threat to agencies,” Tim says.“ That view captures what’ s happening at the largest legacy holding companies. But it misses almost everything happening at the independents building for what comes next.”
Tim explains that AI does break the traditional agency business model:“ Time-and-materials pricing collapses when software can produce work that used to take a team of humans a week. That reality is genuinely scary if you run a business with billions in overhead commitment and hundreds of thousands of employees.”
But it looks very different if you’ re an agile mid-market group that can move to outcome-based pricing, capture the automation gains as margin and use AI to unify client data that used to sit in silos, Tim explains.“ Same technology, opposite consequences depending on the operating model underneath it.”
Between human creativity and AI With AI adoption in advertising up, the line between what humans create and where AI steps in is blurred.
“ Two patterns are emerging,” Tim says.“ Some brands want highly differentiated, human-led creative precisely because
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