According to some who should know, it's happening right now. If you
don't believe me, listen to Laura Desmond, David Kenny, Bill Koenigsberg and Matt Seiler, because they are the media legends who spoke about the past-, present and not-too-distant future of the
business at MediaPost's Outfront Forum earlier this week.
The discussion covered a wide range of important issues -- from compensation to talent to, not surprisingly, AI -- but all in all, the
consensus seemed to be that there has never been a better time to be in the media services industry, despite concerns by some that agentic technology may dislocate many of the human endeavors that
have historically made up the practice.
You should watch the video, but something that occurred to me at the very end of the discussion was that a quarter century-old idea posited by David
Kenny back when he was still running Digitas -- what he described as an "advertising as a service" model -- may finally be coming to fruition, thanks to advances in generative AI.
Specifically, a new generation of chatbot ads being created by Laura Desmond's Smartly in partnership with OpenAI's ChatGPT: ads that can chat directly with consumers to help them get what they
ultimately want.
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