AI is no longer in the experimentation phase: it is key infrastructure. That generates a tension between optimism about AI’s capabilities on the one hand, and fear of job/skills displacement, ethical and environmental concerns on the other.
When speakers from agencies, platforms and publishers convened in London on 21st May, they did so because of a growing sense of urgency around AI adoption in advertising.
That understanding underscored the IAB UK’s AI Growth summit, with sessions homing in on core themes of trust, transparency and accountability, and more specifically – human creativity versus automation, and the shift from attention to intent.
Is the human just in the loop – or completing it?
- In her philosophical keynote, Ogilvy’s Amelia Torode spoke of 2026 as a time of overwhelming information but limited wisdom. Her stance was this: the instant answers we get from AI deliver speed, but risk removing the value of the learning journey. Human judgment becomes more valuable in the AI era, because we need it to make sense of this period of accelerated and profound change.
- Arguing that travel advertising is one of AI’s biggest opportunities, Tripadvisor’s Rachel Vardon also spoke to the essential role of human input. With the company well-placed in terms of consumer trust and data, the possibilities that AI offers are extensive: conversational travel assistants, AI-generated travel videos, and enhanced content discovery. But she also stressed that direct human contributions – reviews and lived experiences – remain an essential part of the overall advertising puzzle.
- Most AI today is predictive pattern recognition, stated Tom Goodwin. That makes it transformative for the likes of coding, research, planning, and market analysis. But as we’ve all heard, AI “hallucinates”. It does not truly understand information. Nor does it generate original ideas. That means AI-generated advertising risks becoming generic and formulaic, and therefore once again, humans have a central role to play. Over-focusing on using AI for production efficiency can end up automating mediocrity; the human touch enables much-needed emotional storytelling and brand-building.
From search to conversation – and from attention to intent
- Conversational discovery is replacing keyword search, and AI assistants are becoming the gatekeepers to consumer decisions. In fact, nearly 60% of consumers are ready for AI agents to replace traditional websites for tasks like shopping and travel plans. So said Microsoft AI’s Tracey Pilon, whose central argument was that brand visibility therefore increasingly depends on being understood and trusted by AI systems.
- Captify’s Sam Coates and Emma Welch also explained that search marketing is evolving from reactive to predictive, with LLMs becoming the new search ‘front door.’ What we share or express to a chatbot might vary from what we discuss with one another. This allows for earlier insight and an alternative perspective into consumer interest, and advertising is becoming more intent-driven as a result.
- Nano Interactive‘s showcase of their innovative agentic media planner, NanoQ, brought these concepts to life. The tool is centred on the core idea that consumer intent is communicated across multiple behavioural signals, before a purchase decision is made. Analysing sentiment and contextual relevance in line with a brand brief, it builds audience segments and exports campaigns directly into ad platforms. The AI works as an intelligence layer, with human oversight, while remaining both explainable and transparent.
The era of AI as an operating system
AI is becoming embedded across every layer of advertising, and the message throughout the day was this: the future belongs to organisations that a) consciously combine automation and machine learning with human creativity, and b) understand how AI can allow advertisers much earlier access into the consumer journey.
And what’s the objective that unites them? To enable operational efficacy and speed, and in parallel maintain transparency and trust.
The event also raised another key consideration: that the biggest shift may not be automation itself, but the rise of AI-mediated consumer decision-making. After all, AI is no longer a future trend for advertisers to monitor. It is rapidly developing into the operating system of modern marketing.