Category: AI
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What comes after LLMs?
Last week I wrote about the fundamental differences in the way that large language models and humans learn, and I noted that many of these differences speak to some integral limitations of text-based language models. This is particularly true when thinking about where AI may go from here and the potential of LLMs to form the basis…
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The differences between how LLMs and humans learn
I’m not a technical AI expert but I have tried hard to learn more about how LLMs work, mostly so that I can better understand the role that AI can play, its potential and its (current) limitations, and how humans can best work with AI in a 1 + 1 = 3 kind of way.…
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AI Transformation and ROI: Bottom-up trap, top-down fantasy
Last week I was asked to take part in a Cambridge Judge Business School panel on AI transformation. It was a pretty wide ranging discussion but there was a useful lens on this given by the latest McKinsey State of AI 2025 report which had just come out. There were some interesting findings about enterprise adoption of…
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The Future of Agencies in the Age of AI
Last week I spoke at the Google Partner Summit in Dublin about managing agency change in the era of AI, and then moderated a panel of exceptional agency leaders including Pats McDonald, Christina Lemieux, and Liam Wade. In my talk I spoke about the need to combine optimisation and efficiency focused efforts with transformational thinking to reinvent processes, workflows and…
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Systems and Empathy
Way back in 2017 (crikey) I wrote a report for the IPA on the Future of Agencies. One of the key frameworks that I used described how agencies could succeed in the future by focusing on combining systems (which I defined as data, technology, efficiency, delivery at scale) and empathy (human insight, creativity, relational connection). Given…
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The Future of Strategists and Planners
The latest WARC Future of Strategy report is just out and makes for interesting reading. 80% of strategists think the discipline is at a crossroads. Agency jobs in decline, and yet client demand for strategy skills needed more than ever in a volatile world. There also seems to be a split on whether AI will erode the…
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The Future of Strategy in the Age of AI
A couple of weeks ago I ran a session with a large agency strategy team focusing on integrating AI throughout the planning workflow. It reminded me of how much I love working with strategists – naturally curious and open people. Towards the end of the session we had an interesting discussion around where this is…
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Think-prompt-think
In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight and robbed them with his face uncovered. When police arrested him hours later using surveillance footage, Wheeler was genuinely shocked. He’d rubbed lemon juice on his face (the same substance used in invisible ink) believing that it would make him invisible to cameras.…
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AI, creativity, and lived cultural philosophies
When I gave a talk to a group of creatives and production agency leaders earlier this year I tried to articulate the reasons why AI would, for a while at least, struggle to capture the indefinable essence of a human-generated work of high creativity. Dr Rebecca Marks (in her wonderful article on art in the age…
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How AI supercharges strategy and planning
I ran a session with a leadership team last week in which we were working through how AI could be a true partner throughout the strategy development and deployment process. One of the issues in discussing this subject is the sheer breadth of application. Similarly to the innovation process, there’s just so many ways in…