This week’s Mirren Live conference was a bit of a watershed moment for me. I was a Mirren client in the past, attended the conference, and benefited from their training, education and guidance related to all things agency business development and client services.
Over two days, we all drank from the proverbial firehose, learning from experts at agencies like Razorfish, Accenture Song, BarkleyOKRP, GUT, Droga5, Silverside, Magnolia, Parakeeto, Havas, and many, many others.
I don’t have a ChatGPT chip embedded in my brain, but this week I’m kinda wishing I did. It was a two-day conference, but I took in so many great sessions and had so many incredible conversations that I wish I had an LLM recording the whole thing so I can get a succinct summary. Ambient AI, anyone?
So, lacking a brain-embedded LLM or always-listening AI, I’ve tried to capture some of the big takeaways for me from this week’s Mirren Live, including a couple notes on my own session.
I took the stage Wednesday afternoon and started with a question: “When AI can do almost everything better and faster, what will clients pay for?”
As we heard throughout the conference, AI isn’t just being used for mundane tasks that save agencies time, it’s being used in transformational ways that would have seemed impossible even a year ago (see the Razorfish and Accenture Song summaries for examples). And with the addition of agents that can act autonomously and independently, the potential speed, scale, and efficiency of AI-augmented agency work is breathtaking.
So, while humans (obviously) continue to play a critical role in agency work and relationships, that role needs to evolve – quickly. Clients may be lagging in AI adoption, but they’re progressing fast, as are their expectations for how agencies use AI – and how they will benefit from that use.
In my work, I see both clients and agencies living in the “urgency gap” with AI. They know they need to start adopting it, but there are so many other priorities and challenges that it’s hard to devote the time and energy needed to get started, much less envision a different future.
Takeaway: Agencies need to start looking closely at what they offer, how they charge for it, how they use AI to support/augment their work, and how they interact with clients. I think they need to begin to shift their models to focus more on strategic and creative activities – not the tasks that AI is best at, like ad production, creative versioning, and even creation of synthetic personas to help drive decision-making.
Brian shared a compelling vision of AI not as a threat, but as a collaborator. He talked about AI as a new kind of “muse” — one that helps creative teams iterate faster, test bolder ideas, and even come up with concepts they wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Think less “replacing creatives,” more “removing creative friction.” It was an optimistic, energizing start to the event.
Takeaway: Agencies that treat AI as a creative partner — rather than a production shortcut — will unlock entirely new forms of storytelling.
This was a heavyweight panel packed with insight. The common thread: AI is supercharging everything from personalization to operations. Jarrod Bull talked about using AI to free up human talent for deeper, more strategic work. Christian Pierre shared how GUT is integrating AI into ideation and persona-building to spark better creative. And Rupal Parekh made a compelling case for reinvesting AI-driven time savings into higher-quality thinking.
But the most fascinating — and polarizing — segment came from Robert Wrubel of Silverside, who pulled back the curtain on Coca-Cola’s 2024 holiday campaign. Silverside was one of three partners tasked with recreating the classic “Holidays Are Coming” ad using generative AI. The result: more than 100 versions, localized by market, generated at unprecedented speed.
The campaign drew a fair share of criticism — some called the ads “soulless,” “uninspiring,” and lacking the emotional magic of the original. But here’s the kicker: they were among the best-performing Coca-Cola ads in history.
Takeaway: AI doesn’t have to “feel” like a robot to be effective. It can deliver incredible results at scale — as long as human creativity still sets the vision.
One of the most compelling parts of the Mirren conference was Human vs. AI: Battle for the Best Pitch Strategy Brief, a live session that pitted human creatives vs. AI-augmented human creatives to determine which produced a more compelling and actionable brief for a fictional ad campaign.
The winner? Both. Through conversation and flash voting by in-person and virtual attendees, Brent found us evenly split on which brief was better, so he declared a tie. But as he said, “My mind is blown that it’s even close. I was expecting the human-created brief to be a hands-down winner.”
Takeaway: Working together, AI + human collaborators can produce high-quality, strategic, creative briefs that can lead to compelling creative work that stands out.
Adam outlined how Accenture Song is embedding AI into every layer of their operations — from content creation and media to client experience and internal collaboration. It’s not just about efficiency. It’s about building new kinds of value. He pushed agencies to rethink their tech stacks, workflows, and talent mix. One of his lines stuck with me: “If AI is saving you 30% of your time, are you using that time to create 30% more impact?”
Takeaway: It’s time to stop seeing AI as a tool and start seeing it as part of your agency’s operating system.
Anthony made the case for turning agency services into productized, repeatable systems — especially as AI commoditizes creative execution. His view: the future lies in packaged expertise, not open-ended retainers. The agencies that grow will be the ones that define a niche, build a scalable system, and layer AI in to deliver faster, better outcomes.
Takeaway: Your agency doesn’t need to be everything to everyone. It needs to solve one big problem for a well-defined market, really well, in a way only you can.
Brian brought it home with a framework for agencies to build more scalable, profitable models — from pricing based on outcomes (not hours) to diversifying revenue streams through productized services. He also emphasized that AI makes this shift not only possible, but urgent.
Takeaway: AI is forcing agencies to clarify their value — and re-architect their businesses to deliver it with more precision and profit.
Brent closed the show by challenging leaders to stop waiting for stability and start building predictability. AI isn’t going away. Client demands aren’t slowing down. If you want to grow, you need better systems, bolder positioning, and a team that’s empowered to experiment. His final challenge: “Are you building the agency of the future, or protecting the agency of the past?”
Takeaway: Leadership today is about clarity, confidence, and a willingness to move before everything feels certain.
Some of the best moments happened in the hallways. I spent much of the two days attending and reflecting on sessions with Jason Rosenbaum, Adam Kurzawa, Shawn Gross, and Marcel Petitpas, all agency veterans who are – along with the rest of us – trying to forge the path forward through rapid change and significant uncertainty.
It was conversations with them – and many others – that left me pondering the question I asked the audience for my talk: “When AI can do almost everything better and faster, what will clients pay for?” Because at the end of the day, that’s the real question agencies need to answer.
The future’s here, people. Tomorrow can’t wait.