A new renaissance of creativity
The question facing creative agencies today isn’t whether technology will change our industry but whether creativity will remain central to shaping what comes next. From a South African perspective, this question carries particular weight.
12 Feb 2026
Michel van Rijmenant, Chimera Creative, CEO and creative director says the question facing creative agencies today isn’t whether technology will change our industry but whether creativity will remain central to shaping what comes next (Image supplied)
Ours is a market defined by complexity: multiple languages, layered identities, economic disparities and deeply rooted cultural nuance.
In such an environment, creativity has never been a “nice-to-have”. It’s the connective tissue that allows brands to communicate with relevance, empathy and authenticity.
Exhilarating and unsettling
We are living through one of the most consequential moments in the history of creativity. This sentence, or variations of it, may be overused, cliché even, but there really is no other way to describe the great technological evolution that is taking place before our eyes in real time.
Never before has the total archive of human knowledge, culture and imagination been both accessible and actively generative.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can now write, design, analyse, predict and optimise at scale. For the media and marketing industry, this is exhilarating and… unsettling.
Context is everything
AI’s algorithms can surface patterns, but they can’t decode context. And context is everything.
Creative agencies have always been translators, turning insight into meaning, data into narrative and strategy into stories that move people.
So while creatives haven’t changed (much), what has changed is the velocity of output.
Platforms evolve faster than organisational structures and consumer behaviour now shifts in months, not years.
Skills that were cutting-edge yesterday are table stakes today.
In this reality, creativity cannot be static. It must be continuously learned, sharpened and reimagined. Most often, this happens through data and technology.
From mere information to impact
Yet, data and technology are framed as threats to creative intuition.
In practice, the opposite is true. Data has never, and will never, replace creativity. Instead, it reveals how audiences behave, what they respond to and where attention flows.
On its own, data is inert, requiring interpretation, judgement and imagination to become valuable. Paired with creativity, it moves from mere information to impact.
AI has accelerated this dynamic dramatically.
AI systems now assist in everything from audience segmentation and media optimisation to content generation and performance forecasting.
Used well, they free creative teams from repetitive tasks and expand the range of what’s possible. Used poorly, they flatten ideas into sameness.
Good tool, bad tool?
So what differentiates a good tool from a bad one? For starters, it’s not the tool; it’s the thinking behind it.
Agency leaders have a responsibility to ensure that AI becomes an amplifier of human creativity.
Rather than substituting exceptional human capabilities, such as cultural understanding, ethical reasoning and emotional intelligence, with machines that are exceptional at pattern recognition and scale, leaders should find areas where the two can intersect.
This may prove difficult at first as it requires a fundamental shift in how agencies operate.
Where continuous learning of systems and processes were an afterthought, they now need to become embedded in daily practice.
Teams need to understand not only how new tools work, but how they shape behaviour, bias outcomes and influence culture.
Creative leadership today is as much about asking the right questions as it is about producing the right answers.
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Shared learning
It also requires collective intelligence, both within a singular agency and within the larger industry landscape.
The pace of change demands collaboration through shared learning, shared standards and shared experimentation.
South Africa
In South Africa, this collaborative mindset is especially important.
The opportunity is not simply to adopt global trends, but to adapt them intelligently to local realities.
AI trained on global datasets doesn’t inherently understand township culture, regional humour or the socio-political weight of representation.
That understanding comes from lived experience and creative sensitivity.
What clients expect
There is also a deeper human dimension to this moment. As automation increases, the value of distinctly human skills rises.
Creativity, critical thinking, empathy and ethical judgement can’t be automated in any meaningful way.
They don’t develop by accident, either. They are cultivated through exposure, education and ongoing learning.
For clients, this also changes what they should expect from agencies.
The future isn’t about more content, faster. It’s about better thinking, more insightfully applied.
Brands will increasingly seek partners who can navigate complexity, challenge assumptions and connect technology to human truth. That’s not a commodity skill; it is a creative one.
A new renaissance
We are, in many ways, at the start of a new renaissance.
A renaissance where creative intelligence is augmented by machines, not diminished by them.
A renaissance where access to knowledge is universal, but meaning is scarce.
The agencies that will thrive are those that commit to learning relentlessly, thinking critically and leading creatively.
About Michel van Rijmenant
CEO and creative director at Chimera Creative
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