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​Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping agency talent, forcing leaders to rethink where automation creates value. The winners will be the companies that reinvest AI-driven efficiencies into stronger judgment, creativity, and long-term capability.

AI is moving deeper into the machinery of marketing services, reshaping how agencies connect data, creative, media, and commerce for clients. Tim Ringel (pictured below), global CEO of Meet The People, says the result is a broader, more strategic conversation—one that pushes leaders to rethink speed, oversight, and talent.

For CEOs, his message is clear: Automation only creates value when leaders reinvest the gains. The companies that use AI to build judgment, creativity, and future-ready teams will be better positioned for what comes next.

In the following interview, Ringel shares how AI is changing the role of CEOs, why creative judgment matters more as automation accelerates, and where leaders should resist the pressure to treat AI purely as a cost-cutting tool.

Q. Marketing lives on short cycles already. With AI surfacing options in real time, where do you feel comfortable moving faster—and where do you deliberately slow decisions down, even when the tools say you could go now?

Everything that ultimately goes to market must be triple checked. That’s not new but even more so true with AI playing a role in the creative, commerce, and media process. The roles of our team members change due to the speed of AI. Think about it in a way where the autopilot in a plan might make the right decision, but the pilot will still double-check it and make sure there is no error. We will see more of these examples in our work for sure.

 

Q. For the leaders inside your agencies, what skills are becoming more important because of AI, not less? What are you hiring and promoting for now that you weren’t five years ago? How will that look different in five years?

Well, we generally try to attract talent that wants to evolve with our business and our industry, so I believe we are set up well to face the opportunity ahead. We demand our people be open minded while technology changes and try to help educate everyone on the tools that are approved, safe to use on client work, and adopted across our groups and agencies.

It’s tricky to say what will be needed or happen in five years. My belief is that the role of our teams will be a lot of “architectural” work for our clients, bringing strategy, special knowledge, and execution together in a highly-enabled technology environment. Creative thinking will have a big renaissance from my perspective as AI can only feed off of what it eats. Real creativity and out of the box thinking will hopefully be reserved for the human mind for many years to come.

 

Q. What do you think future CEOs need to be great at that you didn’t have to worry about as much earlier in your career?

Being CEO of an agency group like Meet The People has little to do with understanding every nuance of the day-to-day for our currently 800 people. It’s all about understanding where clients, the industry, technology, trends, and—most importantly— the business goes at large. Luckily, my belief is that this will not change, even in five or 10 years from now.

I always advise job starters to think about their potential career as a generalist who has drawn experience from going deep into a couple of trades/topics. Becoming a generalist in business will allow you to run a company, no matter what challenges and opportunities technology or an industry throws at you. The main skill five years from now will be to navigate what the future will mean to the business then, just like it does today in 2026.

 

Q. How have AI and performance data changed the kind of pressure you get from clients and investors—and what does that tell you about how stakeholders will judge CEOs in 2031 more broadly?

Generally, not only related to AI, but to the post-COVID change in the operating model of businesses, there is a lot of pressure on cost across client profit and loss statements (P&Ls) and agencies.

The main reason is a misunderstanding that technology and automation immediately means saving money. That’s a huge mistake from my point of view as any money saved though automation should be reinvested into advancing the business towards market leading- and cutting-edge technology itself. I understand everyone wants to create shareholder value but long-term shareholder value doesn’t come from cost-cutting through AI—it comes from reinvesting it into the future of the business.

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This article originally appeared on Chief Executive.net and was republished on AssociationsNow.com. Reprinted with permission. Copyright ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership (June 2026), Washington, D.C.

C.J. Prince is a regular contributor to Chief Executive and other business publications. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, SmartMoney, Entrepreneur, Success, BusinessWeek, Working Mother, and others.