31/07/2026
During his recent interaction with Kanchan Srivastava, senior editor of exchange4media, our head maven, Nimesh Shah shared his thoughts on the observations of Publicis Groupe CEO, Mr Arthur Sadoun.
"I believe the larger point that Mr Sadoun was making was that agencies will need to always equip and train their teams on the latest set of tech, tools and consumer behaviour. AI investment is simply a manifestation of current times. The context is about providing value to the client, as always.
Most agencies that end up cutting their retainer or other fees do so because their clients can’t equate the value they are getting from them for the price they pay. Largely all clients would like their agency partners to be well aware of all the newest trends, consumer behaviours, tools and technology that is upcoming and recommend it appropriately to them. In the current context, AI tools have shown a propensity to deliver immensely, and so any agency that can offer those customised AI solutions for that specific client would surely be valued more. I reckon that they would even be able to charge more in that scenario.
In my opinion, clients don’t care about the agency’s cost structures. They are more concerned about how the agency is solving, or working with them to solve, their problem innovatively and impactfully. If AI tools help in the final outcome, they are a welcome addition, but they are to be viewed simply as ‘means to an end’. What will define successful agencies, as always, will be how clued in they are to the industry the client operates in, the consumer behaviour in those categories and how effectively they communicate the brand solution to those consumers.
Having said that, we are using AI tools to cut costs on content (art and copy) creation for basic brand tasks, experimenting with more creatives while running ads for higher returns. Earlier our clients would retain larger budgets for their main brand film of the year. Now they support us to produce AI-based films on brand themes which they earlier never thought of because of high production costs."
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