'Agentic with a small a': CMOs are adopting AI more slowly than it's evolving

"Something counterintuitive is happening in advertising: AI is moving fast. Marketers are not. That mismatch - speed in the systems, drag in the humans - has quietly become one of the defining patterns of the year so far. For most marketers, AI still sits closer to an assistant on probation than an operator with authority. "That's the client preference at the moment," said Wesley ter Haar, co-founder and chief AI officer at S4 Capital."

"At the holdco, that presence shows up in workflow. Humans still anchor about 85% of the process. Teams initiate the brief, guide the models through execution and make the final calls. Even in areas where automation is more accepted - trend spotting, competitive monitoring and anomaly detection - the system flags, the human acts. And the caution isn't confined to large language models or flashy generative tools. It bubbles up just as clearly in decisions about agentic workflows, predictive bidding systems and advanced optimization engines."

""We want to be seen to be using it responsibly, and in doing so, thinking more about how it advises what we do, as opposed to executing on our behalf," said Diageo's head of culture, entertainment, media and digital Mike Cheetham at a Tesco event last month. "We will get to a point where we start to think about how AI could execute on our behalf.""

AI capability is advancing rapidly across advertising while human adoption and delegation remain cautious. Human teams continue to initiate briefs, guide models through execution and make final decisions, anchoring about 85% of workflows. AI mainly supports insight generation, creative refinement, trend spotting, competitive monitoring and anomaly detection rather than autonomous decision-making. Caution extends beyond generative models to agentic workflows, predictive bidding and advanced optimization. Major brands center AI as an augmentation tool that informs and accelerates work while preserving human oversight, with consideration for responsible use and potential future shifts toward more autonomous execution.

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