Challenging the traditional "us vs. them" mindset

Context

• The industry narrative has pitted external production agencies against rising in-house teams in a zero-sum turf war
• At a time when demand for personalised, high-volume content is insatiable, true innovation lies in breaking down divisions

Reset

Generative AI has quietly inverted the economics of creative work. Producing an asset is now nearly free, which means the bottleneck has moved downstream to everything that happens after creation: reviewing, approving, versioning, localising, tracking rights, and simply finding the right file six months later. Australian and APAC creative teams are discovering that ten times the output creates ten times the chaos, and that traditional ops models built for scarcity buckle under abundance.

Learning from Losing with AI

Context

AI is moving quickly from experimentation to expectation inside creative and marketing teams. But behind the headlines, many of the most useful lessons are coming not from flawless success stories, but from the pilots that stalled, the tools that under-delivered, the workflows that proved harder to automate than expected, and the moments where human judgement remained essential.

This Panel 

Creative Operations in a Changing Workplace

Happening Now: 

• In-house creative teams are under more pressure than ever
• Offshoring is eroding headcount
• AI is reshaping what's possible
• The push to democratise content creation is straining brand governance like never before

Response

The Risk

Everyone's daring to be different with new tools, AI, and endless optimisation. But chase that too hard, and you build systems with more admin, more upkeep, and more stress than they remove. Risking losing the humans meant to use them, along the way. 

How We’ve Kept It Simple

The journey of building The Corner Shop, 7-Eleven Australia's in-house creative agency, from the ground up - and the unglamorous discipline of intentionally staying simple, when the world’s your oyster. 

When More Creative Creates Less Impact

AI and new creative technologies are making it possible for brands to create, test, adapt, and scale content faster and at lower cost than ever before. But as the market fills with competent, endlessly optimised, and increasingly forgettable content, brands face a new threat: invisibility through mediocrity.

How Backing Difference Built In-House Agency of the Year