The holding companies have been promising that artificial intelligence would transform their businesses for what feels like several fiscal years now, but Ralph Pardo, chief executive of Omnicom Media North America, says the tangible benefits are finally arriving — and with them, a compression of industry change that he believes will reshape the agency model more dramatically in the next three years than in any comparable period before.

Mr. Pardo, speaking in advance of the Association of National Advertisers' Advertising Financial Management Conference in Orlando this week, described what he called "a new alchemy of human and machine collaboration" that is freeing agency employees to focus on strategic work rather than analytical labor. (The word "alchemy" is doing considerable lifting in that sentence, but the sentiment is familiar to anyone who has sat through a holding company investor presentation since 2023.)

"Only a handful of companies have the combination of proprietary data, distribution, capital, and conviction to build this at enterprise scale," Mr. Pardo said, in remarks that will surprise no one who has followed Omnicom's recent merger announcement with Interpublic Group.

On the subject of undervalued media channels, Mr. Pardo made a case for audio — podcasts and streaming music services — which he described as "incredibly intimate" and capable of reaching consumers during commutes and workouts when other media cannot. The consumer behavior, he noted, has outpaced the marketing investment.

He also argued for breaking down organizational silos around influencer marketing, which he said creates impact across media, brand sentiment, and commerce but is too often planned in isolation. "Brands have embraced influencer as a valuable business channel," Mr. Pardo said. "Now it needs to be a more integrated part of the marketing mix."

On the perennially delicate subject of procurement, Mr. Pardo was diplomatic, calling procurement teams "a critical role in the speed and success of transformation efforts" and noting that the most productive agency partnerships occur when procurement, marketing, and finance are aligned around outcomes rather than inputs.

Whether the outcomes will arrive as quickly as the transformation rhetoric remains, as always, to be demonstrated in the next several earnings cycles.

Original story published in MediaPost: "Media, AI, Procurement: A Conversation With Omnicom's Ralph Pardo"