“For nearly 30 years, I've championed creativity as a driver of growth. AI hasn't changed that conviction. It's given us an entirely new opportunity to prove it.”

Laura Maness, founding board member at pioneering Causal AI and applied science company Alembic, is at the cutting edge of AI innovation. 

Laura, who has spent almost three decades leading creative businesses, is sharing her perspective on creativity and AI as part of The Blueprint’s Truth About Talent: AI interview series, designed to cut through the negative hype cycle surrounding artificial intelligence. From stints as CEO of Havas New York, to becoming the first female global CEO at Grey, Laura has built her career on breaking the mould. 

Having recently moved into the world of private equity-backed enterprise AI as an early investor and now Founding Board Member at pioneering Causal AI and applied science company Alembic, Laura understands both the challenges and unique creative opportunity that comes hand in hand with this landmark technology. 

“The greatest threat to incumbent agencies may no longer be losing a pitch. It may be discovering that the client has already decided who they trust to build their future.”

As a leader who is known for championing growth, she holds a unique lens on how AI will break and remake the industry. She believes that AI will not only kill the traditional agency remuneration structure, it will become the catalyst for a long-overdue reckoning with how the industry values creativity.

“For decades, our industry has championed creativity as a powerful driver of business growth while continuing to price much of that value through hours, staffing, and production costs. It’s a contradiction I’ve wrestled with throughout my career leading agency businesses,” she explains.

She believes that the advent of AI makes that model increasingly difficult to defend, which in turn opens the door to a fundamental  rethink of how agencies participate in the value they create.

“My experience in Causal AI has given me a new appreciation for how we can more rigorously quantify incremental business impact. And my work in M&A and enterprise value creation has reinforced a fundamental principle: value should reflect the economic advantage something creates, not merely what it costs to produce,” she explains. 

The rise of the CEO-led agency decision

Laura believes AI will fundamentally change how clients select their agency partners, and who makes those key buying decisions. She points to the fact that the stakes have moved beyond marketing execution to enterprise competitiveness.

“We’re already seeing more CEOs engage directly in conversations about AI and enterprise transformation. The question is no longer whether brands and agencies are using AI, but how intelligently they’re applying it to continuously improve, make better decisions, and grow faster,” she shares.

Laura predicts this shift will have a fundamental impact on the pitch process, bringing with it more urgency and a move towards CEOs as stakeholders. “As AI elevates marketing from a functional discipline to an enterprise growth capability, I expect we'll see CEOs becoming far more directly involved in choosing the creative and technology partners they trust to help shape their future,” she shares.

She believes the structure and shape of pitching will be completely transformed. “When competitive advantage is at stake, CEOs don’t necessarily have the luxury or appetite for lengthy pitches and procurement exercises,” she shares, continuing: “PepsiCo’s recent decision to shift its longstanding media relationship to Publicis, reportedly without a traditional competitive review, is a powerful illustration. Increasingly, these decisions aren’t simply about selecting an agency. They’re about choosing who they trust to help build the future of their business.”

It is a change that creative leaders simply cannot ignore. “The greatest threat to incumbent agencies may no longer be losing a pitch. It may be discovering that the client has already decided who they trust to build their future,” she warns. 

Closing the talent gap

The pace of AI innovation also brings with it challenges. Maness agrees in the rush to adopt AI, the industry has dropped the ball with DEI.

“At precisely the moment we're building technologies capable of expanding human potential, we're at risk of narrowing the diversity of human perspectives shaping them,” she explains.

Laura is a leader who has built her career on ensuring the next generation of talent has both a seat at the table and the opportunity to shape what is next. She shares: “I've spent my career believing that diversity isn't simply a moral imperative; it's a creative and commercial advantage. The best ideas emerge when different lived experiences, perspectives, and disciplines collide.”

It is a point of view, which means she is clear the industry should be doing more to upskill talent to unlock the genuine potential of AI. As she explains astutely: “We're teaching people how to use the tools faster than we're teaching them how to think differently.”

Fixating on utilising AI to solve today’s problems is akin to asking the past for a blueprint for the future. “There's a profound difference between using AI to accelerate yesterday's workflows and using it to imagine what's never been possible before,” she adds.

"Marketing's greatest opportunity isn't earning a bigger seat at the table. It's helping the entire room make better decisions."

Embracing the AI growth agenda

Laura has exceptional clarity on the role of AI in driving the growth agenda. In essence she believes AI will enable leaders to make better decisions, backed by more measurable data.

“Ultimately, AI should not become an excuse to commoditise creativity. It should become the catalyst for finally valuing creativity according to the growth it unlocks,” she shares.

It also provides the tools to bridge the gap between brand and boardroom. As she explains: “Marketers talk about engagement, brand equity, and campaign effectiveness. Boards talk about revenue, margin, enterprise value, and capital allocation. The opportunity is to connect those conversations through decision science.”

This unlock repositions the role of both brand and agency in driving growth. The perennial issue of marketing being a cost-centre is solved when businesses unlock the role of marketing as a growth engine. 

As Laura shares, “Marketing's greatest opportunity isn't earning a bigger seat at the table. It's helping the entire room make better decisions.”

The AI leadership imperative 

As a creative leader thriving in the AI era Maness brings a nuanced lens to building a culture where creative instincts and technological discipline can both thrive. “The competitive advantage isn't having the perfect talent mix. It's building a culture that can continuously reinvent itself,” she explains. 

Having the curiosity necessary to embrace the growth that comes hand in hand with reinvention is the red-thread that has guided Laura’s own career.

“After nearly 30 years in advertising, I stepped into enterprise AI and found myself surrounded by engineers, data scientists, physicists, and technologists. It was equal parts humbling and exhilarating. I had to become a student again. And that experience reinforced something I've always believed. Curiosity is a leadership superpower,” she says.

So while industry thought leadership sits in the shallows of designing better prompts, Laura’s creative courage is driven by the depth that comes with embracing big picture goals: creative fluency, scientific curiosity, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

She believes that better intelligence demands better leadership. “The future belongs to curious, courageous, humble leaders who develop people and make more informed decisions,” she shares. 

Far from being a distraction, humanity is the ultimate multiplier. As Laura explains, “Technology can expand what's possible, but imagination, empathy, diversity, and human connection determine what's worth pursuing.”