Artificial general intelligence is the latest big thing to come out of Silicon Valley threatening to make us all redundant. But David Coupland, co-founder and strategy director of Born, B&T’s Emerging Agency of the Year argues that what happens in our grey matter matters more than ever.
It’s a funny thing, being a parent. There are things you expect, and that you can kind of plan for in your mind: nappies, bathtime, routine. To a certain degree you can even kind of plan for the more profound elements of it. You can kind of plan what it will be to feel love for that person.
But as time goes on, you reach the event horizon of your ability to kind of plan what being a parent will be. They grow beyond your planning imagination, and you begin to realise the total responsibility of being a parent goes beyond survival and care. All of a sudden your role expands to helping this person make sense of the world they live in. To understand its rules. To grasp its wonders and its challenges. To help them realise that they exist as part of something bigger and more complex.
And so each day, you read them stories.
And I have been blown away by the level of invention and imagination children’s authors use to communicate complex ideas about our world; about society, gender, individual empowerment, family, friendship, giving, sharing, boundaries, problem solving. It’s incredible. And reading to a one year-old reminds you that storytelling is foundational to the human experience.
It is an intrinsic part of what it means to be human.
And this isn’t just poetic sentiment – it’s an evolutionary fact. Our species’ unique ability to create and believe in shared narratives is what enabled us to build everything from small hunting bands to vast civilisations. Through stories, we created the common ground that makes cooperation possible, the shared values that bind communities together, the collective purpose that drives us forward.
This understanding – that storytelling isn’t just communication, but the foundation of human cooperation – is what drove us to start Born in the first place. Because in today’s world, as traditional institutions that once shaped our collective narratives begin to fragment, brands have emerged as powerful storytellers. Not by choice, but by necessity. Just as children’s authors weave complex social lessons into simple tales, brands today have the responsibility to find ways to tell stories that help people make sense of an increasingly complex world.
And so, I’m here imploring agencies to remember the humanity of storytelling with the rise of artificial generalised intelligence (AGI) in 2025. Because, there is no question that with the rise of AGI in 2025, the art and science of storytelling stands at a crossroads. And the future of our industry hangs on what we do next.
AGI is a transformative tool, capable of generating content at an unimaginable scale, analysing data with unparalleled precision, and automating insights that would take days, weeks, even months to uncover. It can craft strategies tailored to individual preferences, predict trends, and deliver hyper-personalised experiences.
And I’m really excited about it.
But AGI is not human. It lacks emotional depth, cultural nuance, and the ability to push boundaries with bold creativity. It still isn’t real. AGI can mimic, refine, and optimise, but it cannot replicate the kind of stories that resonate on a profoundly human level; the kind of stories and imagination that lead to its invention in the first place.
And so, this year for the first time ever brands must become custodians of narrative integrity on an entirely new level, ensuring their stories remain grounded, ethical, and deeply human—even when co-written by algorithms, even in this age of (what I’m calling) “synthetic narratives”. Agencies: please, please, please resist the urge to abdicate your standards and imagination to AGI.
And to do this, agencies must evolve their thinking and relationship with AI. We need to shift from being content creators to becoming guardians of meaningful narrative.
Be confident adland, now cowed. The rise of AGI doesn’t diminish our role – it elevates it. While machines can help us tell stories more efficiently, great storytelling remains uniquely, totally and only human. Only we have the ability to understand nuance, to connect emotionally and to imagine beyond the boundaries of existing data.
At Born, we see this moment as an opportunity to double down on what matters most. AGI will increasingly handle the tasks that machines do best – processing vast amounts of data, identifying patterns, generating variations. And this frees us to focus on what humans do best: creating stories with depth of mind not machine, creating stories that are culturally resonant, and taking the imaginative leaps that machines can never replicate.
After all, isn’t that why we do this in the first place?
Think back to those children’s authors. They don’t just write stories – they create frameworks that help young minds process our complex reality. When Spot the Dog explores his world, he’s teaching children about curiosity and courage. When the Gruffalo’s mouse outwits its predators, it’s showing children how to face their fears. These stories work because their creators deeply understa
d both their audience and the truth of our humanity.
We’re entering an era where the volume of content will be unprecedented, and where meaningful narrative becomes more precious than ever. The brands that will thrive aren’t those that simply adapt to technological change, but those that understand how to blend technological capability with human reality to create stories that remain real, rather than just seem real.
Just as I help my daughter make sense of her world through stories each night, brands must find ways to tell stories that help people understand their place in an increasingly complex world. And it’s our job to make sure that happens truthfully.
And while the tools we use to tell stories may evolve, the fundamental human need for narrative storytelling remains ever constant. Stories aren’t just how we communicate – they’re how we understand, how we connect, how we move forward together.
In the age of AGI, this truth becomes more vital, not less.
