Hiranthi Harry Jayaweera.
Hiranthi (Harry) Jayaweera, Carat NSW managing director
Overhead projectors, Tipp-ex, best friends with the printer, an expert at binding presentations, negotiations happening on the phone that the whole floor could hear, the media crew who you spent 24/7 with…the conversations, so many conversations.
How the media agency world has changed.
Learning by osmosis was part of the training. In the past, expertise in media meant knowing your channels, negotiating your rates and building smart media plans.
The beauty of growing up in a mainly manual working environment was the ability to confidently spot and question anomalies – flawed data or biases. It may have meant hours, sometimes even days of analysing the data to create a plan, negotiate a buy or interpret the results, but it laid down the foundations of empowerment, agility and endurance upon which to build a career.
As AI becomes more adept at task execution, which could be classed as entry-level work, how will future experts become masters of their craft?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-AI. I’m all for automation and algorithms. I just wish it was seen as a part of the toolkit rather than the pure solution.
A few weeks ago, I was helping my 13-year-old with her math’s homework. It was challenging to explain without Xs, Ys and quadratic equations, so I asked ChatGPT to provide the solve appropriate for a 13-year-old.
It started to spit out its workings and the answer. Detailed and believable. However, the answer was different to mine. I questioned my workings a few times under the watchful eye of my teen. Eventually, out of frustration I wrote into ChatGPT “this is incorrect”. ChatGPT’s response was swift: “Sorry, you’re right, the answer is incorrect”.
The ability to question the system should never be underestimated.
It highlights the need for deliberate training structures that expose junior staff to why decisions are made alongside automated workflows. They need to feel confident and empowered to not just follow AI logic but to question the assumptions that went into the algorithm.
We’re also living in a world where we’re trying to achieve “perfection” straightaway.
“Anomalies” need to be swiftly eliminated to make way for efficiencies. I get it. Between perfection and the volume of information to hand it can feel daunting explore. However, “anomalies” sometimes provide a depth of understanding that cannot be taught from the constraints of a black box. A black box that is optimising to average. AI learns from explicit data but what about tacit knowledge? How do we preserve and value embodied experience, intuition, and craft? The human lens that allows us to interpret sentiment.
Media agencies will have to intentionally build new forms of apprenticeship – more mentorship, shadowing and slow work to allow our talent to mature. It’s our duty of care to our teams. Maybe our roles will also need to evolve to serve as “meta experts” who design, question and supervise expert systems.
Pioneering people is what it takes to navigate the evolving role of the media expert. We believe and commit to empowering our staff to navigate the digital overwhelm and infobesity so we can shorten the distance between people and brands.
Media agencies that treat AI as a shortcut will find themselves replaced by it. The real opportunity isn’t in chasing efficiency. It’s in reclaiming strategic imagination. Craft still wins, but only when it’s applied with intent, not nostalgia.
In a landscape where technology levels the playing field, it’s pioneering people, not platforms, who will shape what is next.