A new perspective on process
Jarrod Martin, CEO of Acxiom and chief transformation officer of Omnicom Media, acknowledged that figuring out the best way to leverage agentic automation may require some trial and error.
“We think about traditional automation being very prescriptive about the steps we take in the hope that we get the outcome that we want,” Martin explained. “And an agent is where we’re being very prescriptive about the outcome we want, and hoping that they can go through the right steps to get to that outcome.”
However, he added, there can be wide variation in the means and methods the agent uses to reach that outcome. “Some of those may be very efficient, and some of those may be very inefficient,” Martin said.
Introducing agentic AI into your process with forethought and planning can make for a smoother transition, explained Steve Ellis, chief operating officer of Paramount Advertising.
“It is very helpful if you have your process documented as it exists today, and that your data is in great shape,” Ellis shared. “Those things make all of this go much, much faster, but also end up much, much better.”
Finding the right combination of AI tools is important as well. Because organizations have different structures and performance marketing goals, there is no one-size-fits-all single platform.
“There are different roles that so many of these agents are playing, and so you’re seeing naturally in the marketplace so many of these partners actually come together and launch something unique that hasn’t existed in the past,” said Ami Palan, CEO of Accenture Song Americas. “It’s very unique to the architecture of the particular client and what they’re trying to accomplish, so very outcome-focused, and that oftentimes means multiple ecosystems.”
Groshong pointed out that with agentic AI, everyone is learning at the same time. “This collaborative effort across an ecosystem is how we actually get to ground truth about what something is doing,” he said.
