I left the PROI AI Americas Summit feeling two things at once: genuinely energized and a little unsettled. Not because the conversations were discouraging, but because the pace of what’s happening became very real, very fast. Even for those of us who think we’re paying attention.
I’ve been leading rbb’s AI Taskforce for a while now. I follow the news, test the tools, and push our team to think differently about how we work. But sitting in a room with communications leaders from across the Americas for two straight days, away from client deadlines and the daily fire drill, has a way of sharpening the picture. Here’s what I actually took away.
The tools are here. The culture isn’t.
This theme was present in nearly every session. The usefulness of AI was not in question; the real challenge is adoption, which is more complex than many acknowledge.
Driving real change needs continuous effort, internal advocates, and leadership that sets the example. There are no shortcuts. The most successful agencies were not those with the latest technology, but those that focused on cultural transformation. Progress came from integrating AI into performance reviews, fostering peer-to-peer learning, and appointing department champions who made adoption relevant.
That’s why we built our Taskforce when we did. Not to get ahead of a trend, but because we knew the cultural shift takes time and we weren’t willing to start the clock when the technology forced our hand.
The agencies winning at AI are building for it, not simply buying for it.
One conversation that remained with me was about structure. The shops doing the most interesting things aren’t simply investing in tools; they’re investing in the people and roles that make those tools actually work. Dedicated AI leads. People with the bandwidth to build, test, and implement without splitting their focus.
AI isn’t replacing your agency. It’s exposing which ones add real value.
Here’s the thing that’s keeping me up at night in a good way. Clients are experimenting. They’re generating content, running their own prompts, testing what they can do without us. And some of it is fine. Some of it is not.
The risk isn’t that AI makes agencies irrelevant. The risk is that agencies let clients mistake output for strategy. It isn’t. The point is the thinking behind the output: the story that ties everything together, the judgment that knows when the AI got it wrong, the human review that catches the mistake before it goes live and becomes a crisis. These things do go wrong, sometimes in ways that are embarrassing, costly, and completely preventable.
An agency’s value today is not in speed, but in clear thinking, building effective systems for clients, and providing strategic counsel that technology cannot replace.
GEO is rewriting the rules, and your agency should be driving that conversation.
Search is evolving, and many clients have not yet adapted. AI-powered search engines index and display content differently from traditional SEO, impacting earned media, thought leadership, and social content strategies.
Notably, the outlets and content types that succeed in this new environment are often not the ones clients prioritize. Tier-one placements no longer guarantee AI visibility as they once did with Google rankings. Trade media, social content, and video are performing unexpectedly well. Agencies that understand these shifts have a distinct advantage in business development.
Silos will sink you.
Most of the challenges discussed, from adoption to measurement and future-proofing, stemmed from a common issue: a lack of communication between teams.
When PR, social, content, digital, and creative teams operate independently, significant strategic value is lost. A unified narrative across all channels is essential, and achieving this coherence demands intentional effort.
At rbb, our teams align on strategy from the start and work toward shared outcomes across all channels and disciplines. In an AI-driven environment, this integration is critical.
What I’m bringing back to rbb
I didn’t return from New York with a list of tools to purchase, though the group covered plenty, and the volume was a bit overwhelming. Instead, I am more convinced that adoption is primarily a leadership challenge, and agencies investing in real infrastructure are outpacing those focused only on subscriptions.
Technology will continue to evolve. Our responsibility is to guide clients through these shifts, which is the aspect we can control. This became clearer than ever during the summit.