Agency creativity has entered an era of unprecedented access. From physical references and 3D models to digital tools, limitless online inspiration and now AI, the ability to find, visualise and generate ideas has never been easier. As that access becomes increasingly democratised, however, the real competitive advantage is shifting. It is no longer simply about who can generate the most ideas, but who has the judgement to identify what is relevant, meaningful and executable.
For Devinder Sablok, Founder of Allied Media Projects (AMP), this transformation is redefining the role of agencies in experiential. With clients now able to arrive with research, references and AI-generated concepts of their own, agencies have to bring more than creativity to the table. They need curation, experience, empathy, strategic thinking and the ability to turn possibilities into experiences that work in the real world.
In this conversation, Devinder examines how the value of agencies is evolving in the age of AI, why human judgement remains critical, how client relationships are changing, and what will distinguish the agencies that remain indispensable from those that become replaceable.
1. You have seen the agency world move from physical references and 3D models to digital tools, infinite online inspiration and now AI. At what point did you realise that access to ideas was becoming less valuable than the ability to judge between them?
I think the realisation happened in phases, and I don’t see it only through the lens of the agency or events business. It is part of a much larger shift in how humanity accesses knowledge.
There was a time when information itself commanded value. You respected a doctor because they possessed medical knowledge, an engineer because they understood engineering, a designer because they had access to tools, references and techniques that most people did not. Knowledge and access created the advantage.
Today, someone sitting almost anywhere in the world with a smartphone can access information, references and tools to understand, visualise or create almost anything, from a chair to a car to a rocket. And now with AI, even creation and documentation are becoming increasingly democratised.
Whatever you can imagine, there is probably already a visual reference, an interpretation, a precedent or an experience somewhere in the world that you can access within seconds.
That is where the shift becomes interesting.
Creators are many. Curators are few.
A client today can generate 300 ideas with three prompts. They don’t necessarily need an agency simply to give them more ideas. The value of the agency, or perhaps more accurately, the think tank, is in being able to distinguish between those ideas: what is useful and what is noise, what is relevant to this brand and audience, what fits the culture, what will work in the real world, and what should never leave the presentation.
To understand where we are going, you also have to understand where we have come from. Earlier, personal exposure itself created differentiation. Today, we are all consuming many of the same references, trends and cultural cues. Something exciting happens somewhere in the world and very quickly it becomes a trend, then a format, and sometimes within a single event season you begin seeing versions of it everywhere.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that. The difference lies in the judgement.
A good curator understands the situation and asks: what should this make people think? What should it make them feel? What should it make them do? And ultimately, what does it need to deliver?
That judgement, increasingly, is where the real value lies.
2. If clients can now arrive with references, research, concepts and even AI-generated ideas, what do you believe an agency should be bringing to the table that the client cannot easily create or find themselves?
It doesn’t alarm me at all. In fact, if you know your business and you know why you are charging an agency fee, an informed client can actually make the process better.
That confidence has to begin with the agency itself. If you enter the room knowing why the client has come to a specialist, and you are equally clear about what makes you the specialist, it changes the entire dynamic of the conversation. You are no longer threatened by references, preconceived thoughts or AI-generated ideas. You can engage with them objectively.
Also, this is not really new.
Anyone who is paying for a creative service has always had an opinion. That is true whether you are an architect, an interior designer, a chef, a fashion designer or an event agency. The difference today is simply that clients have far more tools to articulate what they like.
Sometimes that is actually a blessing.
If a client walks in with strong visual references, I may be able to understand their aesthetic language in fifteen minutes instead of spending two meetings trying to discover it. That can dramatically accelerate the process. We can say, “Great, I understand what you are responding to. Now let’s build from here.”
Where the agency earns its value is in what happens next.
You need enough awareness, conviction and experience to explain why one reference may work and another may not, how different ideas can be married into one coherent experience, what is realistically executable, and most importantly, what will feel seamless on show day.
Because ultimately, it is not about whose idea is better. It is not a competition between the client and the agency over who is more creative. Ideas are only the starting point.
The specialist’s responsibility is to understand the larger experience and sometimes gently say, “This is a great thought, but trust the person who does this every day to tell you how it needs to evolve in order to work.”
Once both sides are aligned on the outcome, what we want the audience to experience, feel and take away, the relationship becomes far more collaborative.
It is not one versus another. It is one with another.
3. Curation can sound like simply choosing from existing ideas, but great experiential work often comes from connecting seemingly unrelated worlds. How do you develop the judgement to know which references, cultural cues or technologies can create something genuinely relevant rather than simply adding novelty?
I don’t think there is a completely authentic answer to this other than: you don’t always know.
It is a little like sport. A great player can prepare, train, study conditions and have a loose plan, but they still do not know exactly what innings they are going to play until they are in it.
Creativity works similarly.
You can create a framework, but if you are genuinely committed to the process, one decision often leads to the next. There are obviously things that govern that judgement, the brand, the audience, the emotion, the venue, the scale, the flow, the objective and the cultural context. All of those become filters.
But curation itself gets sharpened over time. It is where experience, instinct, taste and empathy begin to work together.
A large part of it is also understanding the client. Not every client wants the same definition of “creative.” Some will back a bold idea and say, “Let’s do something that has never been done before.” Others may want something simple, elegant, effective and completely dependable.
Neither is wrong.
That is where client servicing, client understanding and client empathy become critical. Can you quickly see the experience through their lens? Can you understand what their version of a big event, a great event or a creative event actually means?
For me, that is often more important than chasing novelty.
You can borrow from sport, entertainment, architecture, gaming, culture, technology or almost anywhere else. But the connection has to earn its place. If technology or a cultural cue is only being added because it looks current or cool, audiences can sense that very quickly.
Technology can enable and amplify enormously, but the art of creation still begins when people understand one another well enough to build towards the same feeling and the same outcome.
And when that happens, the next step usually reveals itself.
4. AI can dramatically accelerate ideation and execution, but experiential work ultimately has to make people feel something in the real world. Where do you think human judgement, taste and experience become most valuable in the creative process today?
I think we are already beginning to see a certain kind of AI lethargy set in.
People are starting to look at things and say, “Oh, this is AI too,” or “AI did this as well.” Which is natural. There are levels to everything, and once a tool becomes widely available, simply using the tool is no longer impressive.
AI is extremely useful. It can help you get your feet off the ground faster, accelerate ideation, clear repetitive tasks, visualise possibilities and declutter your plate so that you can spend more time on the larger creative and strategic questions.
But it is still one piece of the puzzle.
Human judgement, taste and experience become even more important because technology can produce possibilities, but it does not automatically know which possibility is right for this particular brand, audience, room, temperament or moment.
That becomes even more evident in experiential because increasingly we are creating phygital experiences, part physical, part digital. The technology may enable the interaction, amplify the spectacle or make the experience more intelligent, but the final experience is still being consumed by a human being in a real environment.
That requires sensitivity to behaviour, mood, culture, timing, space and emotion. Those are not abstract variables. They change from audience to audience and situation to situation.
So I don’t see AI replacing the human creative process anytime soon. I see it becoming a very powerful extension of it.
The technology can accelerate the journey. The human still has to decide where we are going.
5. Clients are also under greater pressure to justify marketing investments, while experiential is increasingly expected to deliver engagement, relevance and business outcomes. Has this changed what clients value from an agency, and what does it take to turn a good idea into work that earns long-term trust?
When I speak to brands entering India, one thing I tell them is that almost everything they have heard about the opportunity here is true.
India has scale, appetite and extraordinary range. With a market this large, there is space for almost every kind of brand, every kind of experience and every kind of expectation.
You will find clients for whom lowest cost wins and visibility is enough. And you will find clients so discerning about quality that even a small compromise in execution is unacceptable.
So for me, the bigger question is not simply whether clients are under pressure to justify spends. Of course they are. The more important question is: have you identified, with laser-sharp clarity, who your client is and how you are genuinely valuable to them?
That applies equally to agencies.
You have to understand what your strengths are, what kind of client those strengths serve best, and whether you can build a model and a relationship that allows you to serve that client over a long period of time.
It is far more valuable to build enduring relationships than to keep entering the market every morning looking for another transaction.
At AMP, for example, we have gradually understood the kind of organisations we work particularly well with. Across most of the sectors we operate in, many of our clients are category leaders. Leadership brands generally need three things from an agency: speed, innovation and commercial competitiveness.
They need a partner that can run at their pace, challenge the obvious and still never lose sight of execution.
That combination has become part of our identity. But the same model will not necessarily be right for every client, and that is perfectly fine.
There is an old project-management principle that explains this quite simply: fast, good and cheap. Usually you can optimise strongly for two, but rarely all three at the same time. If you want something extremely fast and extremely good, it may not be the cheapest. If it needs to be good and inexpensive, you may need more time.
Understanding those trade-offs, and having an honest alignment with the client around them, is a large part of building trust.
So yes, engagement, relevance and business outcomes matter enormously. But long-term trust comes from something even more fundamental: knowing what kind of agency you are, knowing which clients you can create disproportionate value for, and then delivering against that promise consistently.
Otherwise, you are carrying one ticket and trying to board every train in the market.
6. If information, technology and even idea generation continue to become more democratised, where do you see the agency’s value moving next? What will distinguish the agencies that remain indispensable from those that become replaceable?
If you are genuinely good at what you do, I believe there will always be an ecosystem for you.
Look at restaurants. There are more restaurants today than anyone can possibly keep track of, yet new ones continue to open and the good ones continue to thrive. The difference is that the ones that last usually know very clearly what they are, whom they are serving and what experience they want to own.
I think agencies are moving in a similar direction.
Idea generation is becoming democratised, and the traditional large-agency model may become less dominant as more specialised subcultures emerge.
We have already seen this happen in music. Electronic music is no longer one large homogeneous category; it has fragmented into very specific sounds, communities and audiences. I see something similar happening across the brand and agency ecosystem.
One agency may become exceptional at one kind of work, another may own a completely different space. So the ability to identify who you are, and just as importantly, who you are not, is going to become increasingly critical.
Once you establish that, the need for great service will never disappear.
You can have a brilliant chef at home and still choose to go to a great restaurant because there is a particular joy in experiencing somebody else’s craft. Our business is no different.
Ultimately, we are in the business of hugs and smiles. We create moments that people experience together. And when the stakes are high, brands will still want trusted people around them.
For me, servicing is where that distinction becomes clearest.
On show day, most competent agencies can deliver the event. The real litmus test is everything that happens from the day the brief arrives until the final day.
Did you make the client’s life easier? Did you anticipate problems? Did you give them confidence? Did you protect their time and reputation?
For most brand managers, events may only form one part of their overall KRA. But handled badly, that one event can suddenly consume 80% of their time and put 100% of their reputation at risk.
That is why trusted partners will always have value.
So I don’t think agencies disappear because information, technology or ideas become easier to access. Agencies become replaceable when they stop being distinctive, dependable or useful.
The responsibility therefore remains with us to keep refining ourselves, our craft and our point of view.
There will never be a shortage of opinions about what somebody else should be doing better. The people who remain relevant will be the ones who keep doing the work.
As access to ideas, technology and AI becomes increasingly democratised, Devinder Sablok believes agencies must differentiate themselves through judgement, service, trust and a clear point of view. The value is no longer simply in generating ideas, but in knowing which ones matter and how to make them work.
For an experiential industry built on human connection, technology may change the tools, but distinctive thinking, dependable execution and the ability to create meaningful experiences will continue to define the agencies that remain indispensable.
