AI Edge Archive: When the Agency Becomes the Platform: AI Rewrites Advertising
Inside the AI-fueled unbundling of the traditional agency model, and the rise of tools replacing teams.
✏️ Editor’s Note / Intro Spark
This month, I had the chance to spend a day inside Pereira O’Dell’s San Francisco office, and let me tell you, it felt like peeking into the future of advertising. Their new AI arm, Silverside AI, is not just a side experiment. It’s woven into how they think, pitch, and build. And during an investor panel, Anne Dwane of Village Global summed up the vibe perfectly: “AI is more like fire, sparking things everywhere.”
And advertising? It’s definitely being lit up.
We’re witnessing the unbundling of the traditional ad agency. What used to be one-stop-shop monoliths are splintering into nimble, specialized AI-first studios and tools. WPP just launched Open Pro to serve small brands that don’t need a full-service agency. And new companies like The Brief, Superside, and Omneky are productizing what agencies once personalized.
In 2023, I called this out as the next evolution of the agency model, a world where video edits go to Viralcuts, YouTube growth to HeyFriends, design to Bitesized, and branding to OffMenu. Read the original essay. That vision is here, and it’s only getting sharper.
⚙️ Tool of the Week: Superside – Scalable Creative-as-a-Service
What it does: Superside offers always-on design services powered by AI workflows and a distributed creative team.
Who it’s for: Marketing and creative leads at fast-scaling brands who need high-volume, high-quality design without building an in-house team.
Use case: Streamline campaign production by submitting creative briefs through a central dashboard and getting back pitch-ready designs in hours, not weeks.
💬 AI in Action: Reimagining Strategy
Case Study: Brand Building with The Brief
I recently tested The Brief, a tool that promises to generate creative strategy in seconds. The goal? See if AI could help a lean team build a brand platform from scratch.
Input: Audience segments, brand tone, campaign goals
Output: Taglines, positioning, creative hooks, sample scripts
Results:
Generated 8 unique brand directions in under 10 minutes
Provided usable starting points for client workshop
Sparked a fresh creative path the client hadn’t considered
Think of it as your strategist-in-a-box. It doesn’t replace brand thinking, but it gets you to iteration much faster.
🔍 Trend Watch: Modular Creative Services
WPP Open Pro & the New Creative Stack
Last week, WPP launched Open Pro, a scaled-down version of its AI platform WPP Open, targeting small businesses who don’t require the high-touch service of a traditional advertising agency. Clients can automate the entire marketing process from ideation to execution with the help of AI agents.
Add this to the growing roster of AI-first creative ecosystems:
The Brief – strategy and copy in seconds
Superside – on-demand design teams powered by AI workflows
Omneky – ad creative that iterates on data
Marketingblocks.ai – full-stack marketing content creation
For freelancers, creators, and brand leads, the agency is no longer a building. It’s a stack.
🧩 Edge Tip / Prompt Lab
Try this prompt:
You are a senior brand strategist. Based on the following description, generate a positioning statement, three campaign taglines, and a one-paragraph brand story. The brand is [insert company description, tone, target audience]. Keep the output short, creative, and presentation-ready.Automation Pair this with a form (Tally or Typeform) and use Zapier or Make to push responses to GPT-4 and return a formatted Google Doc.
💭 Final Thought
If agencies were once castles, today’s creative businesses are toolkits. And that’s a good thing. Because when the structure becomes flexible, tools are more accessible and ideas get sharper.
What tool or platform are you testing this month? Hit reply or forward this issue to a friend reinventing their workflow. Let’s continue to build smarter, together.