From the rise of agency-owned AI platforms to the resilience of unbiased businesses and the rising significance of human creativity, a number of clear tendencies emerged, Johanna McDowell tells Glenda Nevill.
After six days, 22 company visits and conversations throughout Toronto and New York, AdvertForum 2026 revealed an business shifting quickly into a brand new period. According to Johanna McDowell, CEO of the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company, synthetic intelligence dominated discussions, but it surely was removed from the one story.
McDowell highlighted 5 key learnings from her journeys to AdvertForum in Toronto and New York.
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AI has moved past experimentation
The most vital shift was the maturity of AI adoption amongst international company teams.
Meetings with businesses together with WPP Creative, Dentsu, Monks and Critical Mass confirmed that AI is now not a future ambition however an operational actuality.
“They’re not just talking about it,” McDowell stated. “They’ve done it. And the investments they’ve made are huge.”
The main networks have constructed proprietary AI infrastructure, integrating knowledge, know-how and automation into techniques that help marketing campaign planning, content material creation, buyer expertise and media optimisation. Case research demonstrated that many businesses are already deploying these instruments at scale.
“We saw some very interesting case studies relating to this infrastructure,” stated McDowell. “It’s showing us what the future is going to look like.”
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Agencies are forward of their purchasers
While businesses have embraced AI aggressively, many entrepreneurs are nonetheless working by means of governance, privateness and implementation challenges.
“The agencies are definitely ahead of the curve,” McDowell noticed.
Many of the options introduced might be customised for particular person purchasers, however adoption stays uneven. Financial providers manufacturers, specifically, are shifting cautiously due to regulatory necessities and knowledge considerations.
This creates a brand new rigidity for businesses. Having invested closely in AI capabilities, they now want purchasers to catch up as a way to realise returns on these investments.
“The clients can either use it or not, depending on their budgets and depending on where they are in terms of their own AI infrastructure,” she stated.
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Creativity stays the last word differentiator
Despite the business’s AI obsession, the strongest consensus throughout each cities was that know-how alone is not going to create aggressive benefit.
“The differentiator is going to be creativity,” stated McDowell. “It’s not going to be the technology.”
Agency leaders repeatedly emphasised that whereas AI can enhance effectivity and automate duties, it can’t change human understanding of tradition, emotion, belief and judgement.
McDowell pointed to conclusions drawn by AdvertForum founder Hervé de Clerck after the New York conferences: “The agencies navigating this moment best are not choosing between AI and creativity. They are using AI to do more of what only humans can do.”
Rather than changing artistic expertise, AI seems to be elevating its significance.
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Independent businesses proceed to thrive
One of the surprises from AdvertForum Toronto was the power of Canada’s unbiased company sector.
While the main holding corporations stay influential, most of the businesses visited had been established independents with robust shopper relationships and spectacular artistic credentials.
“It was interesting to meet the independents,” McDowell stated. “These are not necessarily new independent start-ups. They are well-established agencies with serious clients and long-term commitments.”
Many have no real interest in being acquired and see independence as central to their tradition and artistic output.
The Canadian market additionally demonstrated how smaller budgets can drive innovation. Compared with their US counterparts, Canadian businesses typically function with fewer assets and have developed a popularity for delivering extremely artistic work effectively.
“The way they see themselves is that their budgets are small,” McDowell stated. “As a result, they’re clever with how they spend their money.”
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Local relevance issues greater than ever
The distinction between Toronto and New York highlighted one other vital pattern: profitable businesses have gotten more and more formed by native tradition and context.
Canada’s bilingual market requires businesses to navigate each English- and French-speaking audiences, whereas Toronto’s multicultural inhabitants creates a uniquely various communications setting.
For McDowell, Canada’s openness and worldwide outlook stood in stark distinction to the size and confidence of the American market.
Yet each markets demonstrated the identical underlying actuality: know-how could also be international, however efficient communication stays deeply human and culturally particular.
What it means for South Africa
The encouraging takeaway for South Africa is that native businesses aren’t falling behind.
“South Africa is not behind the curve at all,” McDowell stated, pointing to latest international pitches the place businesses introduced AI-enabled options akin to these seen internationally.
The greater problem could also be serving to purchasers navigate adoption whereas sustaining the creativity and human perception that drive efficient model constructing.
If AdvertForum 2026 revealed something, it’s that the longer term belongs neither to know-how nor creativity alone. The successful businesses will probably be people who mix superior AI capabilities with the distinctly human abilities that machines can’t replicate.
As McDowell concluded: “The differentiator is still going to be creativity.”