As part of our ongoing series, The AI 5, we ask five questions to uncover how AI is transforming the advertising and marketing landscape through the perspectives of industry leaders.
In this edition, we speak with Anthony Baker, Managing Director, Japan at R/GA.
Anthony shares how AI is redefining workflows, collaboration, and creativity within his teams, while also addressing the ethical considerations that come with its rapid adoption. He offers bold predictions about the role of AI agents in reshaping the consumer journey, insights on the evolving human-AI partnership, and practical advice for the next generation of talent entering the industry.
He also talks about his favorite tools, prompts that push his creativity, and how he envisions AI’s potential to create broader social impact throughout the world.
How is AI impacting your team’s workflows and processes?
AI is helping us unlock new possibilities for brand growth and creativity—from speeding up delivery in the short term, to reshaping how we work and deliver long-term value.
Across our workflows, we’re seeing AI take on three core roles:
- Assistant: Automating repetitive tasks, speeding up processes, and helping our teams work more efficiently across disciplines.
- Strategist: Using customised AI agents and proprietary tools to strengthen insight generation, stress-test strategies, and elevate thinking across brand, design, and tech.
- Co-creator: Leveraging GenAI in design, video, audio, and code to iterate faster and push the boundaries of early-stage creative work.
But our focus isn’t just on speed or scale—it’s on impact. We build custom AI solutions that empower deeper creativity and deliver lasting value for clients. Instead of starting from scratch each time, we develop reusable systems that are exclusive to each client and designed to evolve with their needs. It’s a smarter, more strategic application of AI that’s already transforming how we work.
In what ways has AI changed the collaboration dynamics within your team and with clients?
AI has brought our cross-discipline teams closer together, enabling faster iteration and deeper collaboration. Tools that surface insights and trends now empower non-strategy talent to engage more meaningfully in strategic conversations, breaking down traditional silos.
It’s also transforming production and execution. Platforms we use for clients like Moncler and Google enhance coordination and creative delivery, ensuring projects run smoothly from concept to completion.
Tools that surface insights and trends now empower non-strategy talent to engage more meaningfully in strategic conversations, breaking down traditional silos.
Meanwhile, our Storytelling Engine is reshaping collaboration across creative, tech, and strategy teams, integrating tools like ChatGPT, Eleven Labs, Flux, and Imposium, all trained on a client’s brand. This enables seamless, AI-assisted content creation and cross-discipline collaboration, as demonstrated in our recent ‘Abandoned Nights’ work for TaDa.
On a global level, our AI Products team builds scalable systems that local teams can adapt to client needs. This shift from one-off projects to reusable, product-driven solutions has made collaboration more fluid, strategic, and impactful, both internally and with clients.
What kind of future do you see for the human-AI partnership in the advertising industry? And what ethical considerations do we need to keep in mind?
I see AI as a powerful amplifier, not a replacement, of human creativity. It’s helping talent go deeper, move faster, and collaborate more effectively across disciplines. In my own work, it’s expanded how I research, ideate, and experiment—unlocking creative potential I wouldn’t reach alone.
There’s a line between inspiration and imitation, and it’s our job to uphold it.
But we can’t be passive observers. We need to actively shape how these tools fit into our workflows, where they add value, and how they’re used responsibly.
On ethics: the future of AI in creativity depends on intent and integrity. In markets like Japan, where copyrighted works can be used for AI training, the risk of misappropriating artistic identity is real. There’s a line between inspiration and imitation, and it’s our job to uphold it.
We take this seriously: choosing platforms with clear enterprise agreements, applying tools with strong guardrails, and ensuring human oversight at every step. The goal isn’t to mimic or replace, it’s to create something new, grounded in the same creative standards we’ve always held.
What is your boldest prediction about how AI will transform the industry in the next 5 years?
AI agents will upend the consumer journey. They’ll replace search engines, social platforms, and marketplaces as the primary gatekeepers between people and brands. Consumers are already bypassing traditional brand touchpoints for faster, more objective answers, but how these agents monetize will be the real tipping point. If trust is compromised by paid placements, the model breaks.
AI agents will upend the consumer journey. They’ll replace search engines, social platforms, and marketplaces as the primary gatekeepers between people and brands.
For talent, those who don’t build a working knowledge of AI tools will fall behind. The value will lie in knowing how to elevate, not replicate, your skills with AI.
And from a business perspective, AI will favour lean, digitally native companies that can move fast. We’ll see smaller players outperforming larger ones by automating more and doing better work with fewer resources, while legacy enterprises stay locked in expensive martech dreams of scale.
With the presence of AI rapidly expanding, what advice would you give to a student entering university with their sights set on a career similar to yours?
Focus on building skills that are hard to automate: critical thinking, creativity, communication skills, and a unique craft. Choose a path where AI can amplify your impact, not replace it. Stay curious, adapt quickly, and keep one foot in the arts—human insight and expression will only grow more valuable as machines do more of the rest.
Quick Hits:
What are your favorite AI tools for work or play?
Google Flow with VEO2+3, Runway, Stable Diffusion, Perpexity, Gemini and custom Gems, NotebookLM, ChatGPT & Claude, Moises.AI
What is a favorite or much-used prompt?
The best prompts are iterative, structured, and comprehensive. I use several tools to check and improve prompts. Image & Video Generative AI prompts are quite different from text-generation ones. I love casually playing with Runway video experimentation tools, Google FLOW Video GenAI editing, and Stable Diffusion for image exploration.
That said, one of my favorite ones is to ask ChatGPT to act as strategic intelligence analyst, award-winning creative director and cultural critic, or world-class executive coach. I use these types of prompts to evaluate the expected, and help me find the unexpected. Best prompts follow a clear structure like:
“Role to Take” → “Goal to Achieve” → “Things to Avoid” → “Format” → “General Context.”
If you could use AI for something it currently doesn’t do, what would it be?
Empower learning across every age, culture, and income level. Dramatically cut food and energy waste. Open up wealth opportunities more fairly. And even help prevent conflict, by giving people multiple perspectives on the information they consume and building true bias awareness.
