The Ideas Factory: Creativity is the real competitive edge in AI

Wes Maynard, Managing Director at The MTM Agency – an IDHL company, introduces us to ‘the creative technologist’, the next stage of creativity in the AI landscape. This balanced blend of human-driven ingenuity and technical fluency bridges true performance as agentic tools evolve. 

Attention brands and creative leaders. We must master AI use, not just use it ‘well’. While agencies should adopt agentic workflows, the real differentiator remains – powerful ideas that make every product and service meaningful. 

Take a look. 

The creative technologist is a bridge, not a destination

My interest in code began thirty-two years ago. I then transitioned to design, then brand, digital, and finally strategy.

This progression felt natural then, but I didn’t realize I embodied an urgent reality for every creative professional in 2025.

The technical skills I gained early became my competitive edge. Not by design, but because the industry shifted beneath us.

The developing skills gap for creative talent

When I interview creatives now, I seek something different than five years ago.

Previously, top creatives had strong design history foundations and followed trends. They read design blogs, attended exhibitions, and stayed updated through curiosity.

That's no longer sufficient.

Now I want to hear about their process, including AI integration. I ask how they anticipate change and stay current. The strongest candidates discuss agentic AI and building their own workflows.

Here’s what I observe: senior creatives at the peak understand this. Recent graduates do too.

The mid-level group is vulnerable.

The next generation comes equipped with tools and expectations to adapt. If you're mid-level with ten years of conventional experience, you must prove its relevance.

At MTM, our approach is human-centric. We want creatives meeting clients face-to-face. Experience with client expectations remains valuable. The blend of tech-savvy juniors and client-experienced seniors creates strength.

But only if seniors absorb technical skills instead of delegating.

Using AI tools poorly versus using them well

When speaking with new client partners, I hear a consistent trend. Agencies aren't refusing AI tools - they’re using them poorly.

Output quality is declining across the market.

Using AI poorly looks like: logging into Midjourney, giving a full prompt, generating creative output. Done. Ship it.

The alternative: creating an agentic production line of many agents, each focused on a single task or result. When you can select which LLM to use at each stage, you get something powerful.

This shifts creative artworkers and designers into art directors.

The difference is stark. Amazon's agentic AI tool cuts ad production from weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to hours at no extra cost. This is not incremental—it’s a fundamental change.

But building multi-agent workflows requires understanding systems, logic, and process architecture. This isn’t traditional creative thinking. Creatives are becoming system designers.

I realized this working hands-on with tools to build solutions for clients, which forced me to grasp what's out there and the best production methods.

The holding company platform race

Larger agency groups are redefining themselves as platform companies, developing operating systems to automate production, media, and optimization.

Stagwell created The Machine. Omnicom developed Omni. Havas offers Converged.AI.

These are current, not future, initiatives. Stagwell invests $20 million quarterly in AI integration. The Machine promises 15% cost savings and will fully roll out by early 2026. At CES 2026, the vision united: agencies as AI-agent managed ecosystems using proprietary data, compliance, and end-to-end marketing execution.

These agents deliver speed, scale, and predictability. They generate thousands of creative variations and optimize media in real time but come with trade-offs. Outputs can be efficient yet formulaic. 

Brands partner with agencies like IDHL and MTM to add originality to AI outputs by doing the hard thinking. Production is central. Then follows strategic campaign execution. 

The key often overlooked: currently, only the packaging differs. Everyone accesses the same LLMs and agentic AI frameworks.

The competitive edge isn’t technical skills alone; it’s how you apply them strategically.

Why the creative part still matters

You might think I'm arguing for "strategic-technologist" or "systems-thinking creative" as the more accurate job description.

I'm not.

We can't lose the creative part of this role. Embracing cultural influences from society plays a huge part in design. Without a human, that's not going to happen with LLMs. Everything they're trained on exists in the past.

We need creative humans thinking about what's coming and how they can shape that creatively. 

I stand by the term creative-technologist. At least until AI in creative tooling becomes commonplace in the future. That's ultimately where it will end up. The playing field will level once again.

These processes fast-track the visualisation of ideas. But you still need to have the ideas at the start. After being fed with insight, research, and understanding, that's still very much for humans to drive.

The idea is what matters. Making things matter.

What separates good from great when tools become accessible

When AI tools become common and easy to use, what separates a great creative from an average one?

If everyone has the same accessible AI tools, what becomes the new scarcity?

The answer brings us full circle: the idea. The ability to make things matter.

Research shows that humans aren't being displaced, they're being elevated. The focus shifts from task execution to designing the systems that execute tasks. Skills like creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence remain vital.

So why are we pushing creatives through this technical challenge now?

Because the tools aren't intuitive yet. We're in a transition phase. The creative-technologist exists because of this gap.

There’s a risk of over-rotating toward system designers and agentic workflow builders instead of boosting creative thinking. I think about this balance constantly.

The answer is that these technical processes serve the idea, not replace it. Speed to output is the clearest sign AI is here to stay. Production timelines are cut by 80%. That efficiency makes room for more thinking, not less.

Amara's law and what comes next

I'm a big believer in Amara's law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run."

AI usage will change, then change again before revealing its full effect on the creative industries.

I'm certain there will be "another thing" soon. The creative-technologist role is temporary. It's a bridge, not an end point.

Five years from now, when tools have become intuitive, we'll look back at this messy middle stage. We might miss parts. We'll definitely carry forward lessons learned.

What’s certain is speed to output proves AI’s staying power. Efficiency gains are undeniable. 79% of marketers name increased efficiency as the top AI benefit. 83.82% report higher productivity since adoption.

But efficiency was never the ultimate goal. The goal is making things matter.

What this means for your team

If you're hiring creatives now, you face a choice.

You can wait for tools to get easier. You can hope traditional creative talent adapts when forced. You can assume holding companies will solve this problem for everyone.

Or you can recognise we're in a transition phase that rewards early adopters.

The UK creative industries face a £400 billion AI skills gap. Research shows by 2035, about 10 million workers will be in roles where AI is part of their responsibilities. Too many freelancers and small employers use tech without training, causing quality control issues.

Agencies that see this moment for what it is will gain a competitive edge.

At MTM, we're building teams where technically fluent juniors work alongside client-savvy seniors. We're investing in agentic workflows and multi-agent systems. We're doing the hard work of thinking while using AI to speed production.

We treat the creative-technologist as a bridge to cross, not a destination to reach.

Because on the other side, when tools become intuitive and widespread, the field levels again. And what matters most will still be the quality of the idea and the ability to make things matter.

The creatives who survive this transition won't be those with the best tech skills, but those who used tech to protect and boost their creative thinking.

That's the balance worth fighting for.

Take the next step with IDHL Labs 

IDHL Labs unites experts like Wes from across IDHL, MTM, Fostr, and Vervaunt to design, test, and scale AI. Our connected suite of tools boosts our technical fluency with creative minds behind it to improve outcomes that matter most. Get in touch to learn more about our applied AI.