Digitas CEO warns marketers against overpromising on AI
Amy Lanzi said AI can improve agency work, but broad claims of automation risk repeating mistakes from programmatic advertising.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
Digitas North America CEO Amy Lanzi warned that advertising companies are making risky promises about artificial intelligence as brands look for faster growth and cheaper production. Speaking with Nilay Patel on The Verge’s Decoder podcast at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, Lanzi said AI is useful inside agencies but should not be sold as a cure for the industry’s problems.
Lanzi said pitch meetings now include offers tied to free AI tools, free platforms and unusually aggressive commercial terms. She said those deals can damage an industry that still depends on people, judgment and collaboration.
The comments came as Cannes centered heavily on AI and creators, according to The Verge. Publicis, Digitas’ parent company, released a pre-festival video called “The Wrong Promises” that mocked claims being made about AI in advertising, including performance guarantees tied to awards.
AI compared with programmatic hype
Lanzi compared today’s AI pitch cycle with the earlier rise of programmatic advertising. She said programmatic was also sold as a way to automate much of the ad business, but it still required people who understood brands, markets and partnerships.
She said AI is following a similar pattern, with agencies, technology companies and platforms offering sweeping automation claims. In her view, the pressure is not only coming from agencies but also from large digital platforms that can tell brands they will deliver business outcomes at scale.
Meta was a recurring point of discussion in the Decoder interview. Patel referred to Mark Zuckerberg’s stated direction for Meta’s ad tools, in which marketers could pay the platform to generate creative, find audiences and pursue business results with less work handled by outside firms.
Lanzi did not dismiss AI as useless. She said Digitas AI began as a way to help employees build tools and agents for routine work, freeing them to spend more time on higher-value tasks. She said younger staffers had used those tools to solve practical workflow problems that could later help address client business needs.
Marketing roles are changing
Lanzi also described recent changes at Digitas, including the addition of a chief intelligence officer, a chief systems officer and a chief transformation officer. She said the intelligence role grew out of data and analytics, while the systems role replaced a more traditional operating function.
According to Lanzi, clients increasingly want marketing systems rather than stand-alone campaigns. She said the chief transformation officer role reflects pressure on chief marketing officers to become chief growth officers, with more responsibility for commercial results and business capabilities.
Lanzi said the old version of the CMO job is fading. She argued that marketing leaders now need to understand data layers, technology stacks, consumer relationships, creative work and creator partnerships if they want to drive growth.
Creative remains contested
The interview also covered the phrase “creative is the new targeting,” which Patel said has been used by Meta and other platforms. Lanzi rejected the framing, saying creative should not be reduced to targeting because it depends on emotion, context and brand meaning.
She said brands do not need endless content, even as AI makes it easier to generate more ad variations. Lanzi said marketers need to learn how audiences respond and avoid overexposing people to the same messages.
Lanzi said brands should work across platforms such as Pinterest, Meta products, Amazon and Walmart Connect because consumers use each service differently. She also noted that Publicis’ planned acquisition of LiveRamp had been announced but was not yet completed at the time of the interview.
The discussion also touched on creators, whom The Verge said were openly describing themselves as marketers at Cannes. Lanzi said major creators who launch products can become opportunities for agencies because those businesses eventually need operational scale and stronger systems.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.