A panel hosted by The Drum’s Steve Antoniewicz at Web Summit Qatar featured two government leaders weighing in on the most controversial AI debates.
Creative leaders join The Drum’s Steve Antoniewicz for a candid discussion on the state of AI at Web Summit Qatar (Web Summit)
Like other conferences in recent years (and probably all conferences in the future), there was no shortage of on-stage discussions about AI at Web Summit Qatar.
The session titles, including “AI as a multiplier, not a replacement,” the evolution from “experimenting with AI” to “living in AI,” and “Is the AI bubble about to burst?” collectively describe where the tech and media industries currently sit in the AI hype cycle. (Incidentally, the on-stage panelists’ answers to the latter were two “no’s” and one “maybe,” but not everyone agrees.)
In other words, it’s a complex situation, and it’s difficult for marketing departments and agencies to answer the basic but inevitable question: “What should we actually do with AI in 2026?”
The Drum’s Steve Antoniewicz spoke with two senior government leaders at last week’s Web Summit Qatar to get to the bottom of this and other practical questions about AI adoption. Mai Salama, founding partner of creativity event platform Creative Industry Summit, and Max Ottignon, co-founder of branding agency Ragged Edge, joined Antoniewicz on stage to chart the course for the creative industries through the disruptive power of AI and bust some myths in the process.
change is the new normal
In the world of creativity and technology, “change is the only absolute,” says Salama. “Things change and evolve, so we have to work on evolving with these machines.”
Perhaps that’s easier said than done, as the industry is seriously grappling with how to evolve AI into an unknown future. That future is uncertain because the upper limits of machine learning and pattern recognition technology’s capabilities remain unclear, and co-evolution is being renegotiated daily. “My job is to say, ‘AI will never happen,'” Ottignon said.
No matter how good technology becomes, he says, there’s still no reason to think it can replace true human creativity. “Algorithms tend to flatten culture. Algorithms tend to reduce everything to an average. Typically when we’re scrolling through our feed, reading a news article, whatever it is…we get something mediocre and average because it’s been curated by an algorithm. Our job as creative people is to rise above that and create something different, something that’s challenging.”
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Is AI still achieving great results?
Chatbots and generative algorithms are rapidly impressing millions of users by producing words, images, and even music in a fraction of the time that human creators could, and the results can now be seen in finished advertisements and other cultural artifacts. But were any of these achievements good (or great)?
So, at least according to this panel, the answer is no. “Honestly, I’ve seen a lot of great work that I can’t say is AI, and I’ve seen bad work, but no, there’s nothing that I wish I had done. There’s nothing more authentic than a real, authentic campaign,” Salama said.
Ottignon agreed, saying, “There are a lot of creators out there who are using AI very intentionally to do things that couldn’t be done without it. They’ve pretty much accepted the limitations of the technology…but they’ve embraced the differences that are there, rather than just trying to replace what you can already do.”
“‘Interesting’ is the right word,” Salama added.
Are your clients demanding AI?
We’ve heard a lot about the vaunted efficiency savings of the AI revolution, including early signs of net job losses across the industry, but are clients demanding rapid and thorough deployment of AI at the forefront of their day-to-day client-agency relationships?
Not so, Otignon said. “Our clients don’t really want what you think they want.” For agencies at the higher end of the market, he found that the opposite is actually true. “People come to us looking for high-cost things with quality and uniqueness, so it’s interesting how little we are asked about the use of AI. Perhaps this could change, but at the moment our clients view it mostly negatively, because they believe that the tools they have at the moment are not good enough.”
Still, there’s no hiding the fact that many agency employees are rapidly adopting all kinds of AI tools, especially in production environments, Salama said. “We’re seeing openness, but not everyone has really embraced it. I think that’s very refreshing. They want to use the tools. They want to know more about the tools, they want to understand the tools, but they want to use them carefully to avoid being authentic and relevant. A big part of the winning work is that it’s relevant to where it’s coming from and who it’s talking to. Being 100% AI rather than human-generated makes it a little bit foreign.”
Is AI disrupting the industry’s talent pipeline?
A particular concern with the rollout of generation engines and LLMs is that the work of young creators will be automated and the supply of talent to the industry will be constrained. But Otignon’s experience is quite the opposite. “In fact, it’s the juniors, the younger people, who come in with native understanding, and their understanding is much higher.” [AI tools] Because they don’t have this inertia at all.
How do you protect your intellectual property in the world of AI?
“That’s not true,” Salama said. “Once it’s out there, it’s there.”
Can agencies continue to be optimistic?
With layoffs, major reorganizations, and technology concerns like those mentioned above, there’s every reason for agencies to be less optimistic than they were before. But for Otignon, pessimism misunderstands the job requirements for creative people.
“It’s easy and understandable to be cynical about being scared and nervous about the future, but our job now as creative people is to be optimistic, embrace change, be proactive, have that true growth mindset, I think it’s about having fun. Don’t see these things as a threat to our work. Maybe someday they will. But right now, creativity comes from just enjoying the new freedom of expression that we have.”
