LLMs and the agents built upon them are truly amazing. They can handle a wide variety of tasks for you, ranging from writing a creative copy variant for an ad to helping you summarise a long competitor analysis.
However, with this article, we want to give a quick heads-up on what these agents are capable of and what they are not.
The truth is that LLM-based agents cannot do everything. What they currently lack is the deep, domain-specific expertise required to execute highly specialised marketing tasks accurately and consistently. This is because we need to make a clear distinction between Generative AI and Predictive AI.
LLM-based agents are great at generative tasks. Things like creating text, brainstorming, and summarizing. But they are not good at predictive tasks, which require analysing data to make accurate forecasts or calculations. For example, if you ask an agent for the optimal budget distribution for a campaign, you will likely receive a generalised response. Rather than relying on precise optimisation calculations (which is what Predictive AI does), this answer is based on patterns from the text the agent was trained on (which is what Generative AI does). Furthermore, if you ask the same question multiple times, you will notice the recommendations begin to vary. What you want though, is a mathematically proven, optimal budget scenario that is the same, no matter how often you ask.
Fortunately, there are ways to overcome this challenge, and we are actively working on them. As the WPP Media Product & Innovation team, we are developing solutions that combine an LLM with a field-specific model or distinct skill sets, depending on the complexity of the task. For example, imagine an LLM agent with access to a dedicated campaign analysis model that can provide you with the most valuable performance insights.
Building these solutions takes time and effort. Therefore, it is up to all of us to manage expectations, both towards our clients as within our organisation. We must be clear on what it takes to create a marketing expert agent that delivers accurate, high-quality and consistent output on topics like budget distribution or campaign analysis.
The tricky part is that an LLM will always answer your question, and often in a very convincing way. Today, the real question we must ask is no longer, “Can I get an answer?” but rather, “How good is this answer?” And is it truly up to the high standards of service we want to deliver as WPP?
Of course, this technology is evolving rapidly, and nobody knows what will be possible in a year or two. For now, LLMs are not marketing experts. This means that the agents we build that rely solely on these language models, have limited capabilities in our industry, and we should view them as such. We remain the marketing experts and our agents are here to support us.
Want to learn more? Contact our Innovation Development team.
