In this op-ed, Josh Gurgiel, head of POLY, oOh!media, delves into how AI is contributing to growing discussions around work-life balance—if AI can make our work more efficient, can it help us prioritise the things that matter?
It’s no secret that I love a marketing conference. What’s not to love? Entertainment, schmoozing and a plethora of miniature snacks – it’s like my ninth birthday party all over again, but just if I was really into Ehrenberg-Bass as a nine-year-old.
My favourite on the annual calendar would have to be the Adelaide Advertising and Design Club ‘Talks’; spread across four Adelaide CBD venues to which the attendees walk between each session, it offers the perfect blend of diverse content, organic networking and miniature snacks. I have been fortunate to attend the AADC Talks three times, but something was evidently different at this year’s event.
Over the past two and a half years, there is one topic that has become entirely ubiquitous and omnipresent at literally any conference, literally anywhere. ‘Artificial Intelligence’. You simply cannot attend a keynote or breakout session without someone mentioning, dissecting, hypothesising and all-out deep diving into the current and future impacts of arguably the most profound technological advancement since the invention of electricity.
But at this year’s AADC Talks, there was a noticeable lack of these two words. They were, instead, replaced by two other words; words that were repeated over-and-over again, by multiple and varied speakers, all reiterating their critical importance in our modern commercial landscape.
Those two words were: “My Family”.
The notion of ‘balance’ – not just between ‘work’ and ‘life’, but as a fundamental concept underpinning our existential decision making – was hyper-present throughout the conference. Experts from a range of disciplines and backgrounds all recounted the shifting tide towards balance that is informing today’s workforce.
They spoke about the current rise of the ‘Indies’, the impending rise of the ‘Freelancers’, the disillusionment of the Hold-Cos and the desire for greater employee autonomy and flexibility that is driving these industry trends. It was abundantly clear that today’s workforce is beginning to reject the antiquated notion of ‘work hard, play hard’ in place for a more holistic definition of wellbeing and existence into which work is appropriately fit, as opposed to the other way around.
Despite – or rather, in spite of – growing cost of living pressures and impending economic downturn, our most valuable resource is the time we spend with our loved ones, for it our most finite.
But it was Sorin Luckins, founder of design agency Büro North, that highlighted the tension that is currently developing in tandem with this burgeoning industrial and broader societal attitude. He referenced the ‘more/less’ dichotomy that is currently taking hold of our – and many other – industries. He expanded on the notion that employees are increasingly demanding more balance, flexibility and even remuneration for less of their time – with many pushing for the broader adoption and entrenchment of a 4-day work week.
The tension exists when this self-serving mantra is juxtaposed against the shifting expectations of ‘the industry’; in a market fuelled by the pursuit of relentless returns and growth at all cost, that ‘cost’ is now the same precious resource being prioritised by the individual. Clients are demanding more from their agencies and media partners, yet with ever-shrinking turnaround times and budget expectations. Every brief now seems to demand a “big PRable activation idea that will literally break the internet”, yet is due ‘EOD’ and with budget ‘TBC’. Humans want to devote less of their precious time to working for companies, whilst companies are seeking to extract even more from every possible minute of engagement.
To navigate through this seemingly irreconcilable quandary, we must look to the ‘Robots’.
Much like legendary French-house duo, Daft Punk, famously cited in 2005 – clients are Human After All. Whilst the expectations of companies are being driven by increasing pace and profits, those ‘companies’ are made up of the same employees – the same humans – that are recalibrating their priorities towards life and loved ones.
It is at this juncture that we return to the two words that seemed so absent, yet still so quietly apparent, at this year’s AADC Talks – ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Whether we like it or not, AI is no longer a ‘nice to have’; it is not even a helpful efficiency tool. It is a fundamental necessity to the sustainability of our entire industry.
Our ability to produce more with less – less time, less people, lower rates and fewer resources – depends exclusively on our ability to circumvent major steps in the ideation, implementation and delivery processes. It not simply enough to find ways to expedite these processes, we must fundamentally flip them on their heads to service the market at its current and ever-increasing rate of demand. AI is the enabler of this revolutionary recalibration.
But where does that leave humans in the equation? Are we becoming glorified ticket-takers and tap-dancing machine-feeders, generating inputs and sharing outputs? Is the entire notion of ‘job satisfaction’ the collateral damage of automation and balance? Again, we come back to the words of the great French ‘Robots’.
No matter the technological advancement – from industrialisation to the internet – we have remained human, after all. We have invariably feared our own impending obsolescence yet have found ways to activate and exploit our unique human utility to not only safeguard our value, but extend it. The ‘more/less’ tension that underscores the accelerated proliferation of AI is giving rise to this same watershed moment for the current and future workforce; how will we add human value through our work whilst continuing to derive intrinsic value from that pursuit? I believe the answer lies in the antidote to the perceived danger.
The time saved by AI should not simply be redeployed to work less, but also towards the work that actually makes a difference. The work that only we as humans can do. In her AADC talk, Trea Murphy – Senior Manager, External Engagement & Partnerships at UNSW – stressed the importance of building strong and valued relationships between clients and their partners. She said that clients ‘don’t need to love their agencies, but they certainly need to like them.’
This notion is actually what underpins our desire for balance and for resetting the tired workplace tropes of the past – our prioritisation of our relationships over the pursuit of materialism or perceived status. If we are to safeguard and strengthen our novel human utility and satisfaction in the workplace, we must bring this same human-centric spirit to our work.
We must realign our focus away from the menial and towards the meaningful; accepting that the strength and depth of our internal and external relationships – the trust, the transparency, the genuine ‘like’ for one-another – will become a key driver and differentiator in an industry powered by AI-driven outputs. We must harness the human factor that is reshaping how (and why) we work to offset the ubiquity being embedded across our industry, amplifying the depth of our interactions to offer interpersonal insights unable to be extracted from an LLM.
By investing our time in the one thing that bonds us all we can exploit the power of AI whilst reshaping the value we offer and derive from our role in this ever-evolving equation.
That’s the dance, more or less.
