Ep 5: The Augmented Agency – Global Best Practice in the Age of AI
On Thursday 27 August, the IAB SA Insights Series 2026 returns with Episode 5: The Augmented Agency – Global Best Practice in the Age of AI. This event is hosted by the IAB SA Agency Council.
Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from experimentation into the infrastructure of agency work. Across global markets, agencies are using AI to support research, strategy, creative development, content production, media planning, optimisation and measurement.
The central challenge is no longer whether agencies should adopt AI. It is how the industry should move from artificial automation to human augmentation.
When AI started changing the agency model, every market had to figure it out for themselves. Some moved early. Some moved fast. Some learned the hard way.
Australia and the UK are among the markets furthest along the journey. Their agencies have already been through the first wave of AI adoption. They have operationalised tools, rebuilt workflows, rethought skills and confronted the uncomfortable questions about what AI actually does to client relationships, to creative value and to the people doing the work.
South African agencies are navigating the same transition. The difference is that we don’t have to navigate it blind.
This episode of the IAB SA Insights Series will close that gap when the IAB SA Agency Council hosts a global panel that brings together two of the most authoritative voices on agency transformation in the digital industry:
✨ Gai Le Roy
CEO, IAB Australia
✨ James Chandler
Chief Strategy Officer, IAB UK
Between them, they will unpack what is actually happening inside agencies in two of the world’s most advanced digital markets. Not the AI tools story. The transformation story. How agencies are redesigning their operating models, their talent strategies, their governance frameworks and their value proposition to clients.
They will also be honest about where implementation is going wrong: the mistakes agencies are making, the gaps between AI’s promise and reality on the ground, and what a genuinely augmented agency looks like in practice.
The central question of the session is one every South African agency leader should be sitting with right now:
What can South African agencies learn from markets that have moved faster and further on this journey?
Whether you lead, work in, buy from, or are building an agency, this session will give you a clearer view of where the industry is heading and what you need to do to be ready.
The IAB South Africa Insights Webinar Series is brought to you in partnership with
Ornico, Everlytic and Special Effects Media South Africa.
📅 Date: Thursday, 27 August 2026
🕚 Time: 11 AM
📍 Platform: Zoom Livestream
Registration is free
REGISTER NOW