“The least valuable bucket is solving problems with finite solutions. It's a Sudoku puzzle: it's either right or it's wrong. Getting the right ad with the right copy in the right medium at the right time is table stakes, but that is so much of the agency revenue model, and it's also the easiest to automate and check. So that whole revenue stream is sooner or later, we don't know when, going to evaporate.”
Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast · Agency Business · November 2026
Context
Asked how AI is changing thinking in agencies, David Meikle sorts agency work into problems with finite, limited and unlimited solutions. Only the last, which needs lateral thinking, is far from being automated.
Transcript
…the underdog advantage can help with that, because it puts the strategic thinking and the business problem front and center. Whereas far too much time, energy, and money has been focused on the delivery rather than actually figuring out what it is that you're meant to be doing in the first place.
Talk to me a bit more about that, David. Your observations currently of how that thinking is being sort of outsourced to AI and the critical thinking muscle.
The way that I've described it, and the way that Thames and I discussed it is that there are largely two, maybe three buckets of work within any agency, right? So the least value bucket is solving problems with finite solutions, which is organizational, for which there's a right answer. It's a Sudoku puzzle. It's either right or it's wrong. And getting the right ad with the right copy in the right medium at the right time against the right audience is table stakes. But that is so much of agency revenue model that it's also problematic because it's also the easiest to automate and check. So in our new age, that whole revenue stream there is sooner or later, we don't know when, going to evaporate. Then you've got problems with limited possible solutions, which is the next stage that's going to be under threat. And that is where there are two or three different answers and they need to be evaluated. So the determination of what those might be can become automated. And then the judgment of those will slowly become automated. And again, the role for humans will be depleted. And again, the revenues will erode. But then there's problems with unlimited possible solutions. Problems with…
I'll give you an example, Hanoi. I think that's already happening. I mean, there are some agreements. I mean, there's a wonderful video that were years ago, published by Sarah Carter, and that's been at How Motor Platt. One of the things they say is go furry. So if you just put a furry icon, you…
And when they become kind of petty, then you're undifferentiated. First of all, the two furry brands will do that. But then when the 100th furry brand comes along, it's not that special anymore. And the same comes with, you know, you can't just have a fluent device. You've got to have a fluent…
Okay, I want to pick up on something you just said, David, which my ears pricked up. Intuition. Now, as veterans in the industry, myself included, who started in the early 90s, a lot happens through osmosis and observation and experience and multiple different case studies and looking at different.…
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