Adland is urgently pivoting for AI. We will have to do the same for climate

This year alone, WPP is spending $318m on AI. Publicis has committed €300m over three years. Havas, €400m over four. Between them, over €1bn is flowing into AI transformation in just four years. The message is clear: AI is existential, and the industry is responding with existential urgency.

In contrast, agencies have rolled back on climate commitments, or at best have quietened down.

Both are existential threats. 

Both are massive opportunities. But the industry is only choosing to invest in one of them.

Why the imbalance?

It’s not hard to see why AI has captured imaginations. The threat is immediate and visceral: Meta’s “infinite creation model” promises full campaign automation from a single image and budget.

AI even forces the question: Will my agency even exist in five years?

AI promises efficiency, competitiveness, and the chance to redefine creative roles entirely. People become multiskilled overnight with new tools.

Climate, meanwhile, feels abstract, distant and political. Something for the sustainability team to manage while the rest of us get on with our proper work.

Climate is a market-reshaping force that will redefine every product and service, every client brief, every consumer behaviour, and every business model we touch.

PwC’s 28th Annual Global CEO Survey tells the story: one-third of CEOs say climate-friendly investments made over the last five years have increased revenue. The same proportion who report GenAI has boosted profitability. CEOs see both as strategic imperatives. So why doesn’t the industry?

The AI x climate paradox

Here’s the paradox: our obsession with AI is exacerbating our climate emergency. 

Not just because data centres increase energy and water usage, though they do, but because of what AI is fundamentally being used for in our industry.

AI is the latest technology, like radio, TV, cinema, and digital before it, deployed to get more people to buy more stuff. More precise targeting. More timely nudges. More consumption. More emissions. The better we get at our jobs using AI, the more damage to human and planetary health we cause. Unless we ask a fundamentally different question.

The current mindset used to address AI is a familiar one. The destination is the same: “How do I take advantage of AI to advance my current business goals? Driving growth and driving consumption for my clients?”

But climate change demands something different entirely: “How can I transform my business, and my clients’ businesses, to promote a vision of a Good Life that citizens want, that works within planetary boundaries?”

That’s not a technology challenge. That’s a fundamental reimagining of what our industry is for.

What leadership actually looks like

The good news? Some agencies have already started asking this second, more transformational question. And they’re treating it with the strategic rigour it deserves.

Our new report, Beyond the Chaos, Ahead of the Curve, developed with 30 industry leaders from Amplify, Elvis, Ebiquty, Iris, M&C Saatchi, and others, documents what climate leadership in advertising actually looks like.

Working with the global Serviced Emissions framework, developed by climate heavyweights Oxford Net Zero and the UN-backed Race to Zero, agencies now have a blueprint for climate transition that applies beyond advertising. The framework helps all professional services that represent 11% of the global economy – from law to consulting to communications - measure and manage the downstream impact of their work, turning influence into accountability. Over the past year, we’ve been stress-testing its principles with leading agencies, showing what it looks like in practice when creative influence becomes a lever for real-world change.

Amplify is screening potential clients to understand portfolio impact before signing contracts, reflecting a focus on conscious decision-making across all operations. Elvis calculated its Advertised Emissions (the greenhouse gas emissions generated from the uplift in sales it generates), and found it was 34 times higher than emissions linked to operations, helping understand where climate risk within the business really lies.

We must think about business holistically because climate increasingly affects crop yields. Coffee. Oranges. Cocoa. Wheat. Potatoes. As impacts intensify, your coffee client, your chocolate client, and your orange juice client may not have enough product to warrant advertising.

That’s a present-day business risk to your bottom line.

Time to get ahead of the curve

Our report, Beyond the Chaos, Ahead of the Curve, offers a roadmap for businesses within advertising and media, ready to apply the same speed and ambition to climate transition as they have to AI transformation. It shows how to map your client portfolio, measure the impact of your work, and see more clearly where risk and opportunity lies in the years ahead.

This is about understanding what the business of the future looks like. One that’s resilient, strategic, and positioned to thrive as markets inevitably shift.

The report launches today, ahead of the UN climate conference, COP30. Join us for the global launch webinar on November 19, 12:30-13:30 GMT, where we’ll walk through the framework and share what climate leadership in advertising really looks like in practice.

The climate transition will reshape markets more profoundly than digital, programmatic, and AI combined. It will redefine consumer priorities, regulatory landscapes, and what products can even exist.

It’s time our investments reflected the scale of what’s truly at stake, because the tipping point isn’t a question of if. It’s: who will be positioned to thrive when it arrives.

Jonathan Wise is co-founder of Purpose Disruptors. The full report, ‘Beyond the Chaos, Ahead of the Curve,’ will launch on November 6, ahead of COP30. Join Purpose Disruptors webinar on November 19 to understand how to derisk in uncertain times.

Get in touch with Jonathan on LinkedIn

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