A brand can become more fluent in AI while becoming less fluent in people. For advertising and marketing teams, the risk is assuming better tools automatically produce work that matters to the people they want to reach.
Watch the conversation
In this episode of The Lead Creative, recorded at the 2026 Nedbank IMC Conference, Tahaab Rais, Group Chief Strategy Officer of Publicis Groupe MENAT, explores the psychological shift behind technological change.
His challenge applies to audiences and creative teams alike. Brands need to understand how people change as technology develops. Leaders also need to recognise how AI affects the confidence of strategists and writers who may question their value when a tool performs part of their work.
Rais brings that thinking into brand usefulness through his four E’s framework. Brands can demonstrate value by educating, empowering, enriching or entertaining people. When budgets are stretched, that contribution gives people a clearer reason to choose a brand.
Cultural relevance requires similar attention. Universal needs such as belonging and success take different forms within communities. Understanding their passions gives brands a stronger foundation for creative work than treating everyone as a single audience.
Five key insights for your marketing strategy
- Study how AI changes people’s expectations and confidence alongside its effect on your marketing workflow.
- Choose a clear role for your brand using education, empowerment, enrichment or entertainment.
- Build ideas around the passions and tensions of the communities you want to serve.
- Plan the channels as part of the creative idea so the work reaches people in a relevant context.
- Help your team understand how their judgement contributes when AI accelerates parts of the process.
Watch the full conversation for a practical look at how marketing can use AI while keeping pace with the people changing alongside it.
Recorded at the Nedbank IMC Conference during The Lead Creative’s second year of conversations with marketing leaders at the conference.
Sponsored by award-winning digital agency Rogerwilco.
Filmed and edited by production partners, Soweto Media. Hosted by Mongezi Mtati.
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