While the applications of machine learning stretch far beyond the world of marketing, a swift glance at some of the companies heavily invested in the development of AI suggest that advancements in the world of advertising will be high on the list of priorities when key players sit round the table. Automation already has a huge part to play in media agencies, but it would be a game-changer should a truly intuitive, constantly improving algorithm be able to deliver weeks of planning work in a matter of seconds - and most critically, without any human interaction to 'read' the results.

The counter-argument to such a cybernetic utopia (or dystopia, depending on your point of view) is that AI would lack the creativity, innovation and risk-taking of a human being - so it's possible to imagine a 2 tier agency of the future where the true content-creators and taste-makers work in tandem with artificial intelligence and the engineers that keep AI on track to deliver a great strategy. Thinking about how that would affect job descriptions in the media agency world, we can see this as the natural completion of a trend that's already begun, namely the movement of individual roles to poles of technical or strategic excellence.