Ariba Jahan is the head of transformation at the marketing agency Anomaly. She joined Marketing Brew this week at our event, Tactical Martech: The Future of AI, Attribution, and Privacy.
We had Ariba tell us a little bit about how she is using AI, and what her thoughts are on the tech’s possibilities.
How are you and your teams using AI today? At Anomaly, we think about AI as a force multiplier. The question isn’t just “Can we use AI?” but “How can it enhance our work? How can it help us work smarter?”
We started with the basics—using AI to strengthen our everyday workflows, from writing clearer emails to capturing and synthesizing brainstorming sessions. But we’re also exploring much more. In the past year, Anomaly trained major brands like Don Julio, Johnnie Walker, and Rimowa on tackling business challenges with generative AI, whether they’re nurturing existing customer relationships or researching new audiences, and we’ve rolled out this training across our global offices. We also use generative AI to create visual concepts from initial thinking to refine over conversations and GPT Deep Research to compile research and trends.
We’re using Notebook LM to create interactive knowledge bases—whether it’s sharing information about a brand we’ve been working with or our internal processes—helping new team members get up to speed quickly. Recently, our emerging tech team integrated AI agents that can pilot TikTok accounts and run synthetic focus groups, giving us deeper, more nuanced consumer insights for our brands.
What’s the best real-life application of AI you’ve seen in marketing? Netflix’s recommendation engine remains the gold standard in predictive AI. Its differentiation of recommendations between my profile, my shared profile with my husband, and my son’s profile shows how AI can be both powerful and personal, balancing familiarity with discovery.
For creative production, tools like Adobe Firefly, OpenAI’s Sora, and Google Veo are reshaping what’s possible. The ability to generate hyper-realistic videos from text or seamlessly fill in missing footage is fundamentally changing our creative approach.
What’s really exciting is that these tools are freeing up creatives from tedious tasks and endless adaptations, letting them focus on what they do best—strategy and big creative thinking. It’s not about replacing creativity—it’s about giving creative talent more space to shine.
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There are plenty of proposed use cases for AI. Which applications are most promising to you? Which ones are least promising? AI agents excite me most right now, and they were also the talk of CES. Beyond our internal use, we’re seeing them transform customer service, handle independent trading in fintech, and even triage patient care in healthcare. Imagine an AI agent that not only provides real-time campaign insights but can actively optimize targeting, ad spend, and creative content without human intervention. What else can happen without human intervention? What else would we want to happen without human intervention?
Something that’s least promising to me is AI in mental healthcare. I don’t think I’m ready to have a complex therapy session with AI yet, knowing its own limitations with reasoning and nuanced contexts and emotional understanding.
What role do you think the advertising industry can or should play in evaluating AI risks, ethics, and regulations? The advertising industry has a crucial role to play in AI ethics. Here’s why: We’re at this unique intersection of ad tech, content creation, and marketing technology, which gives us a real perspective on how AI touches every part of the ecosystem. We’re past those early days of AI experiments—now we’re focused on using this technology in ways that actually make creative work better.
Our influence goes deeper than that: Advertising dollars fuel AI technology and shape its adoption. What we choose to support and create has ripple effects across the entire ecosystem. This means we can drive accountability—both from the tech companies building these systems and the brands creating AI experiences.
It brings up big questions about transparency: What parts of AI should be visible to users? What should stay behind the scenes? Sometimes good design isn’t about making everything smooth and seamless—sometimes we need those moments that make people stop and think about the technology they’re using.
The advertising industry has always shaped how people think about and interact with technology. Now we have the responsibility to show what thoughtful, ethical AI engagement looks like—setting standards not just for what we create, but for how our entire industry approaches AI.
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