Is Publicis’ new AdageAI acquisition Minority Report for ads?

Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun is very happy to tell us that people come first in his ever-expanding AI-driven empire, and he’s still hiring them so that’s fair enough. But the Groupe’s latest acquisition – content intelligence company AdageAI – might still worry a few Publicis folk.

Apparently the Israel-based tech outfit “takes the guesswork out of creative performance” by delivering creative content measurement and predictive performance insights. It measures creative assets including video, images, text and gifs and overall performance by breaking down creative and linking it to performance signals, extracting repeatable and predictive patterns. Which sounds suspiciously like a Netflix programmers’ algorithm.

There’s presumably some role for humans in all this, just as there is when you tell ChatGPT to do something and off it goes. But it does sound somewhat diminished.

Sadoun (above) says: “In the AI era, brands don’t simply need more content. They need to know what works, and crucially, why, in order to immediately scale their creative messaging across audiences, markets and platforms. With the acquisition of AdgeAI, we are bridging the gap between instinct and proven performance, transforming creative performance measurement from a retrospective report into a forward-looking capability that anticipates and delivers real business outcomes.”

Sounds rather like Minority Report for ads.