If the Algorithm is in Charge, What Happens to Creativity?

In the world of digital and paid social, things are changing faster than we’ve ever seen before.

We’re in a new age of social and digital where everyone is involved. The barriers to entry are lower than ever, bringing more saturation, more competition and more noise.

In the background, the most significant advertising platform, Meta, is rallying forward with its AI-led ‘Andromeda’ engine, steadily removing manual targeting controls and moving towards a fully automated approach, where the end goal is a brand simply providing a product image, website link and budget, leaving campaign fates in the hands of the robots, whether that be for creative generation, audience selection and optimisation.

For smaller businesses, this level of automation is groundbreaking. It gives them access to tools and efficiencies that previously required large teams and substantial budgets. But for established brands - those who have carefully refined their audience targeting, brand hooks and social messaging over time - this shift is bringing serious questions and concerns. The levers that were once controllable are disappearing, driving a shift where the perceived solution is no longer to serve people, but to satisfy the algorithm.

This begs the question: if AI is controlling our ads, do our ads need to become AI? 

At 11 London, we believe it’s not about changing the narrative entirely, but rather adapting it.

As the algorithm increasingly prioritises AI-led optimisation, your ad becomes more integral than ever before. If targeting is automated, the ad is the targeting. The algorithm decides who sees your ad based on how people respond to it. That means your messaging, visuals and hooks are no longer just brand assets but instead key drivers of performance.

Another layer to this is that ad fatigue now sets in faster. With AI rapidly testing and scaling combinations, ads are burning out quicker than ever. To sustain performance, brands need frequent refreshes and continuous testing. But more creative doesn’t automatically mean better creative. Better creative comes from sharper insight and strategy, not just faster production.

One thing that needs to be remembered is that knowing your audience is now one of the strongest advantages. Social listening and sentiment are key to tapping into what people are talking about right now. What makes them tick? That’s where the biggest opportunities come from: reacting to conversations that are already happening.

As AI-generated content becomes more common, audiences truly notice. Feeds are being filled with similar-looking visuals, generic hooks and tones of voice. While automation drives efficiency, there’s a growing call for people-focused, human-led content. Content built on emotion, brand personality and genuine connection. Brands need a face. A feeling. Something recognisable and real. Influencer and creator-led content is shifting from nice-to-have to non-negotiable. AI can optimise, but it can’t replace cultural understanding, brand nuances or emotional intelligence. For brands operating in health and humanity in particular, where trust, credibility and lived experience sit at the centre of the message, this matters even more. Performance without empathy simply doesn’t work.

We’re changing our approach to social advertising, and we believe the industry should be. The brands that will win aren’t the ones resisting automation; they’re the ones learning how to work with it by feeding the algorithm strategically and protecting what makes them distinct. 

Creative, strategy and industry expertise will always sit at the heart of our work. We’re currently piloting a creative automation approach designed to help brands scale variation intelligently, using audience insight to guide creative testing and iteration without sacrificing brand integrity.

This isn’t a choice between AI and creativity. It’s about making them work together.