Brands Must Take Holistic Approach to AI: Flywheel’s Amie Owen
CANNES, France – Artificial intelligence may be capable of planning vacations, organizing inboxes and softening emails written in a moment of righteous irritation. Transforming a sprawling marketing organization is another matter.
Companies must prepare for AI across their operations, even if employees, clients and finance chiefs are not entirely comfortable with the cost or consequences, said Amie Owen, chief client officer of Flywheel and Omnicom Media.
“You have to be everywhere when it comes to AI because then you’re going to get left behind,” Owen said in a fireside discussion with Quentin George, partner at McKinsey & Co., at the Cannes Lions International of Creativity.
From fax machines to AI agents
Owen has watched commerce media evolve from an era when insertion orders were prepared in spreadsheets, written by hand and sent by fax. Global campaigns could be delayed by that most formidable of advertising technologies: an empty paper tray.
AI is helping agencies accelerate processes that once depended on manual work. Owen also uses the technology to plan trips, find recipe substitutions and adjust the tone of emails that might otherwise arrive with a little too much cayenne pepper.
“I’ve used it for asking how to rewrite an email because I would come across too harsh in email,” she said.
AI also helps her organize messages from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams into a daily list of priorities. Somewhere, a color-coded spreadsheet is quietly realizing that its best years may be behind it.
Teams are going further by creating AI agents modeled on executives and clients. These digital replicas review presentations and predict what particular people might want to see in quarterly business reviews.
The results can be unsettlingly accurate. They also raise the possibility that future conference panels could feature AI agents, leaving the humans free to enjoy Cannes without having to locate the meeting room.
Transformation is harder than experimentation
The larger challenge is aligning brands, agencies and media partners around AI. Many organizations embrace the technology in theory, Owen said, but retreat to familiar practices when decisions become difficult.
“It’s the behavior change and then the organizational change that is interesting to me,” she said.
Asked whether people are ready for that transformation, Owen offered a blunt assessment.
“I don’t think so, but the reality is, they have to be,” she said.
Companies need to educate employees, internal teams and clients about AI. That preparation may include automating processes, experimenting with agentic shopping and ensuring brands are ready to appear in AI-generated product recommendations.
The problem is that corporate enthusiasm often collides with corporate accounting. George said many chief financial officers are questioning why they should fund another technology overhaul after spending heavily on cloud computing without seeing all the promised productivity gains.
There is also anxiety about employment. Owen said AI will eliminate some jobs, but other roles will emerge as companies redesign how work gets done. Simply distributing an AI tool and telling everyone to use it does not qualify as organizational transformation, although it does satisfy the traditional corporate requirement of sending an upbeat email about innovation.
Companies may need to do two things at once
Executives face a difficult choice between concentrating their AI investments in a high-value business area and making the broader workforce comfortable with AI tools.
Owen argued that companies ultimately need both.
She pointed to one campaign in which an AI-enabled process saved about 600 hours. The company tested the approach before expanding it, giving executives a measurable result rather than another presentation filled with arrows, clouds and the word “synergy.”
At the same time, the usefulness of general-purpose AI tools varies by person and task. Owen described a client who loves Microsoft Copilot. Her own experience has been less rewarding.
“Every single time I tell it to write an email, it takes one word and then moves it back,” Owen said. “And then it’s like, ‘I completed your email.’”
Even artificial intelligence, it appears, has discovered how to look busy.
Product information becomes machine-readable marketing
As AI systems play a greater role in product discovery and purchasing, brands must make sure their online presence is accurate and complete.
“The biggest piece is being retail-ready,” Owen said.
That means updating paid and earned content while connecting media campaigns to product information. AI systems will scan websites and other sources before recommending products to shoppers.
“If you don’t have that updated, you will not be in the top three products that are recommended,” Owen said.
For marketers accustomed to fighting for the first page of search results or a prominent retail shelf, AI introduces another gatekeeper. This one reads everything, never sleeps and probably will not be impressed by a fruit basket.
Integration will separate the winners
Over the next two years, Owen expects successful commerce organizations to integrate brand marketing with commerce, improve how they use data and coordinate go-to-market strategies with retailers and commerce media networks.
“It’s a delicate balance, and it’s all about integration,” she said.
That agenda involves multiple systems, business functions and trading partners. George joked that he hoped someone had written it all down.
Owen suggested dividing the work across the two-year period. The schedule may require some creative arithmetic, but the message was clear: brands cannot wait for AI transformation to become simple, comfortable or inexpensive before they begin.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Axonet and Uber Advertising. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
CANNES, France – Artificial intelligence may be capable of planning vacations, organizing inboxes and softening emails written in a moment of righteous irritation. Transforming a sprawling marketing organization is another matter.
Companies must prepare for AI across their operations, even if employees, clients and finance chiefs are not entirely comfortable with the cost or consequences, said Amie Owen, chief client officer of Flywheel and Omnicom Media.
“You have to be everywhere when it comes to AI because then you’re going to get left behind,” Owen said in a fireside discussion with Quentin George, partner at McKinsey & Co., at the Cannes Lions International of Creativity.
From fax machines to AI agents
Owen has watched commerce media evolve from an era when insertion orders were prepared in spreadsheets, written by hand and sent by fax. Global campaigns could be delayed by that most formidable of advertising technologies: an empty paper tray.
AI is helping agencies accelerate processes that once depended on manual work. Owen also uses the technology to plan trips, find recipe substitutions and adjust the tone of emails that might otherwise arrive with a little too much cayenne pepper.
“I’ve used it for asking how to rewrite an email because I would come across too harsh in email,” she said.
AI also helps her organize messages from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams into a daily list of priorities. Somewhere, a color-coded spreadsheet is quietly realizing that its best years may be behind it.
Teams are going further by creating AI agents modeled on executives and clients. These digital replicas review presentations and predict what particular people might want to see in quarterly business reviews.
The results can be unsettlingly accurate. They also raise the possibility that future conference panels could feature AI agents, leaving the humans free to enjoy Cannes without having to locate the meeting room.
Transformation is harder than experimentation
The larger challenge is aligning brands, agencies and media partners around AI. Many organizations embrace the technology in theory, Owen said, but retreat to familiar practices when decisions become difficult.
“It’s the behavior change and then the organizational change that is interesting to me,” she said.
Asked whether people are ready for that transformation, Owen offered a blunt assessment.
“I don’t think so, but the reality is, they have to be,” she said.
Companies need to educate employees, internal teams and clients about AI. That preparation may include automating processes, experimenting with agentic shopping and ensuring brands are ready to appear in AI-generated product recommendations.
The problem is that corporate enthusiasm often collides with corporate accounting. George said many chief financial officers are questioning why they should fund another technology overhaul after spending heavily on cloud computing without seeing all the promised productivity gains.
There is also anxiety about employment. Owen said AI will eliminate some jobs, but other roles will emerge as companies redesign how work gets done. Simply distributing an AI tool and telling everyone to use it does not qualify as organizational transformation, although it does satisfy the traditional corporate requirement of sending an upbeat email about innovation.
Companies may need to do two things at once
Executives face a difficult choice between concentrating their AI investments in a high-value business area and making the broader workforce comfortable with AI tools.
Owen argued that companies ultimately need both.
She pointed to one campaign in which an AI-enabled process saved about 600 hours. The company tested the approach before expanding it, giving executives a measurable result rather than another presentation filled with arrows, clouds and the word “synergy.”
At the same time, the usefulness of general-purpose AI tools varies by person and task. Owen described a client who loves Microsoft Copilot. Her own experience has been less rewarding.
“Every single time I tell it to write an email, it takes one word and then moves it back,” Owen said. “And then it’s like, ‘I completed your email.’”
Even artificial intelligence, it appears, has discovered how to look busy.
Product information becomes machine-readable marketing
As AI systems play a greater role in product discovery and purchasing, brands must make sure their online presence is accurate and complete.
“The biggest piece is being retail-ready,” Owen said.
That means updating paid and earned content while connecting media campaigns to product information. AI systems will scan websites and other sources before recommending products to shoppers.
“If you don’t have that updated, you will not be in the top three products that are recommended,” Owen said.
For marketers accustomed to fighting for the first page of search results or a prominent retail shelf, AI introduces another gatekeeper. This one reads everything, never sleeps and probably will not be impressed by a fruit basket.
Integration will separate the winners
Over the next two years, Owen expects successful commerce organizations to integrate brand marketing with commerce, improve how they use data and coordinate go-to-market strategies with retailers and commerce media networks.
“It’s a delicate balance, and it’s all about integration,” she said.
That agenda involves multiple systems, business functions and trading partners. George joked that he hoped someone had written it all down.
Owen suggested dividing the work across the two-year period. The schedule may require some creative arithmetic, but the message was clear: brands cannot wait for AI transformation to become simple, comfortable or inexpensive before they begin.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Axonet and Uber Advertising. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
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