The industry is over-optimized for speed and under-invested in judgment. We have built faster systems for weaker decisions.
This pursuit of efficiency has created an illusion. More content, faster, does not automatically equal more impact. The market doesn’t need more filler; it needs Creativity With Teeth: ideas that stop people, stick in memory, spread through culture, and sell through measurable business outcomes.
CMOs face pressure to produce at scale. Agencies respond by optimizing pipelines, leveraging AI for asset generation, and promising faster turnarounds. But speed is only useful when the thinking underneath it is strong. Otherwise, we are just building faster systems for weaker decisions. This leads to neutral, forgettable creative that requires exponentially more media spend to make an impact. Safe work is often the most expensive mistake.
The real currency in today’s fragmented landscape is attentive seconds, not impressions alone. Earned attention should come before paid amplification. Distinctive, emotional work creates disproportionate business growth.
AI’s role in creative should be to improve judgment, not replace it. It should enhance workflow, speed insight, and spot patterns faster. Systems like AI-powered cultural intelligence platforms — Cultural Current is one — can identify emerging tensions and conversations that inform sharper strategy. They help brands move at the speed of culture, reducing wasted media spend by focusing on signals that matter. AI-assisted creative analysis helps evaluate attention and response potential before assets are deployed, ensuring measurable creative quality. It’s about making sharper bets, not just more assets.
Creativity is not decoration. It is business leverage. Filler work cannot move numbers. Great creative must move people emotionally and drive business outcomes. Strong brands create emotional readiness, not just awareness. The work needs to connect to search lift, attention, share of search, brand predisposition, sales, and ROAS.
The industry keeps debating in-housing versus agency, or which AI tool is a game changer. These are often misframed questions. The real challenge is a competence recession. The future belongs to agencies that lead with strategic courage, commercial clarity, and demonstrate superior judgment, not just faster production lines.
About the Author
Paulo Salomão is the Founder & CEO of King Ursa, an independent Canadian creative agency. He writes on culture, challenger brand strategy, AI in advertising, and the gap between creative effort and commercial outcome.
Connect with Paulo on LinkedIn.
