Zuckerberg vs. Creativity: Why AI Can’t Win in Advertising

Last week, The Verge published a piece detailing Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious vision for the future of Meta’s advertising platform: one fuelled almost entirely by generative AI. In his words, Meta aims to make advertising “as simple as describing what you want.” The plan? Allow businesses to generate entire campaigns, including strategy, creative, and audience targeting, just by typing a few prompts into Meta’s AI tools.

Now, let’s be clear: as someone who runs a digital agency, I have a stake in this debate. But I also have three decades of experience across creative industries, and here’s my view, AI might change how we work, but it won’t replace why we work. And it certainly won’t replace the human mind that knows how to break the rules just enough to spark real results.

The Promise, and Pitfall, of AI-Created Ads

AI excels at identifying patterns. It sifts through vast amounts of data and zeros in on what has worked. But that’s the problem: AI is only as innovative as the dataset it’s trained on. It doesn’t invent the future, it reconfigures the past. It knows what has worked, not what could.

And in advertising, some of the most successful ideas don’t come from repeating patterns. They come from unexpected angles, irreverent insights, and tapping into the irrational side of human decision-making. That’s not something a machine can replicate, because the best creative doesn’t come from a pattern, it breaks one.

A Viral Reality Check: The “Ugly Ads” Phenomenon

A TikTok video circulating recently gave me the perfect proof point. In it, a strategist shares how some of the highest-performing Meta ads she runs aren’t slick, polished, or professional. They're downright ugly. Handwritten notes on receipts. A coffee cup with a scrawl on it. Ads that are raw, messy, human.

Why do these “ugly ads” work? Because they feel real. They bypass our filters and feel like something from a friend, not a brand. No AI tool, no matter how advanced, would choose this approach. It breaks the rules. It’s counterintuitive. It’s successful because it doesn’t fit the brief.

And that’s the catch: AI is bound by briefs. Humans can rewrite them.

Why Agencies Still Matter

Zuckerberg may imagine a future where brands input a prompt, and the machine spits out a finished campaign. But here’s what that misses:

• Strategy is context.

  AI doesn’t sit in meetings. It doesn’t understand boardroom pressure, brand nuance, or cultural timing. A human strategist can.
  
  

• Creative is risk.

  AI optimises for what’s statistically safe. But great campaigns often come from taking leaps that don’t make sense, until they do.
  
  

• Differentiation matters.

  If everyone uses the same AI tools, everyone’s ads will start to look the same. Homogenised creative leads to advertising fatigue.

At Pure, we use AI, extensively. But we use it as a tool to augment our thinking, not to replace it. We use it to prototype ideas, research faster, and generate content options at scale. But the strategic direction? The creative breakthrough? That’s still human territory.

A Note on the Unknowns

Now, let me contradict myself for a moment.

While I firmly believe AI won’t replace creativity as we know it, I’m not blind to the pace at which this technology is evolving. The last two years alone have shown staggering leaps in generative AI, and if we one day see AI systems that become truly sentient, capable of self-awareness, context sensitivity, even nuanced personality, then yes, perhaps we’ll start to see something that begins to replicate that human creative spark.

But we’re not there. And we’re not even close.

And beyond the technical limitations, we need to ask: is Meta, or more specifically, Mark Zuckerberg. really the one to lead us into that future?

Let’s be honest: Zuckerberg has had more misses than hits in the realm of digital futurism. Anyone remember the Metaverse push? Horizon Worlds? The VR headset era that was supposed to redefine everything? These weren’t small bets, they were sweeping visions that failed to gain the traction he promised.

So when Zuckerberg tells us that Meta is going to reinvent advertising through AI, forgive me for being sceptical. And if you’ve spent any time working inside the Meta Ads interface (I’ve been navigating it for over a decade), you’ll know it’s still riddled with UX contradictions, inconsistent reporting, and automation features that often feel half-baked.

This isn’t a platform that’s about to replace agency strategy. It’s a platform that still struggles to explain why your lead costs just doubled overnight.

The Future Is Hybrid, and That’s Where Agencies Win

We’re entering a world where efficiency will be automated, but effectiveness still belongs to those who understand people. Agencies who blend AI with emotional intelligence, pattern recognition with creative risk, and data with instinct, those are the ones who will thrive.

And yes, before you say it, the hero image for this article was created using AI. I understand the irony. But it reinforces the point, not undermines it. I didn’t just click a button. I had the idea, I directed the execution, I iterated, refined, and made the final call on what represented the essence of this piece. The machine didn’t create, it assisted. That is the future of creative advertising.

AI won’t replace agencies. But agencies who refuse to adapt to AI might just replace themselves.

So yes, Mark, we see your vision. But it’s not the end of the agency. It's a new beginning for agencies that know how to harness machines without becoming one.