This week in AI: The agents arrive

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Jul 18, 2025

Welcome to the Friday edition of the newsletter, where we provide a digest of the week’s events in AI as they relate to the media and marketing world.

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AI coming to a head as agents make their debut

humAIn curator Cat McGinn writes:

AI in the media and marketing world is moving from experimentation to operationalisation, as generative AI tools are rolled into creative workflows and new experiences for audiences.

Unilever sketches AI-powered threat to production

Unilever has launched an AI-driven design unit, Sketch Pro, developed with IPG Studios. The tool aims to shift away from TV-first marketing for the global FMCG giant by delivering social-first content up to three times faster, leveraging advanced AI tools such as Google’s Veo 3. This initiative highlights the trend of brands using AI to streamline production and adapt content for digital platforms at unprecedented speed, and heralds an uncertain future for the production sector.

Mad Men in the machines

New research from Marketing Week, Kantar and Google found that over 50% of marketers now report using AI for delivering campaign creative, from generating multiple asset variations and personalising content to pre-launch testing creative. The adoption rate was slightly higher in B2C than in B2B sectors.

Let Google’s AI do the talking

Google announced a new AI-powered feature in Search to allow users to use agentic AI to make calls on their behalf. The tool makes calls to local businesses to gather pricing and availability. The search giant claims this will help users “get more done’ by eliminating the need to pick up the phone thermselves, and offers businesses more control over information shared with their customers. The function is only available in the US at present, and Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get enhanced access.

Take note: The Economist partners with Google AI

The Economist announced its first AI content deal. Users can now access the flagship The World Ahead annual report of expert analysis and predictions for the year via NotebookLM. Economist president Luke Bradley-Jones: “This public notebook will feature our forward-looking journalism, examining what we view to be the most important trends and events shaping this year.”

Copilot hits turbulence in the AI race

Bloomberg reported this week that Microsoft’s Copilot is significantly lagging behind its competitors, despite being the default tool for the majority of large organisations, with 79 million downloads compared to ChatGPT’s 900 million, according to new data from Sensor Tower. Despite Microsoft’s early entry into work-safe AI assistants and integration with the Office ecosystem, Copilot has struggled to gain traction while ChatGPT continues to dominate across both consumer and enterprise audiences.

ChatGPT gets an agent

OpenAI released a tool for its ChatGPT models that allows the AI to access a user’s personal data, manipulate a web browser, and connect to various APIs as an agent. OpenAI said the new agent mode brought together the abilities of ChatGPT, Operator and deep research to “do work for you”.

Mumbrella will be publishing a “how to” on ChatGPT agent mode as soon as possible. Our early look at the software (through a Pro subscription, the feature not yet being available in Australia on our standard “Plus” account) indicates it may be a big deal for the industry - for instance, with Hubspot API connections already available for anyone wanting to analyse the current state of their deals.

Good Friday on the Unmade Index

Heady days for the Unmade Index as it gets back to levels not seen since February 2024.

All major stocks aside from the activist-beleaguered Southern Cross Austereo (-3.28%) posted gains, with Nine up a cent (+0.59%), Domain also up a cent (+0.23%) and Ooh Media up 2.34%. The biggest gain was won by IVE Group, up almost 4% to $3.15.

News Corp also gained (+1.1%) but as you will remember, does not actually form part of the Unmade Index (if it did, its size would render everything else insignificant). Vinyl was steady, and Enero made good gains (+6.46%).