As AI creative moves upstream, one production firm is pitching brands a model built on that trend
By Kimeko McCoy • March 13, 2026 •
Ivy Liu
The traditional campaign production model is becoming obsolete as the incessant need for short-form content grows and as companies look to generative AI to fill the gaps.
Marketers have latched onto promises that AI technology will cut down on production time, cut costs and help scale operations. Every agency, production company and holdco has an AI story to meet demand. Seemingly, the next phase of maturation is less about hawking AI tools and more about moving processes upstream using AI tools in order to make good on those promises.
Earlier this week, production company Ritual launched Ritual Labs, an AI-powered creative technology venture that allows brands to pre-visualize campaigns before committing production dollars. Ritual, housed within Summit House venture studio, has done work for brands like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Spotify and Starbucks.
“If a brand comes to us and they want to do things, we go into production in the upstream process to mitigate a lot of costs — obviously, de-risk down the line things that brands do not want anymore,” said Matt Pfeffer, executive producer and partner at Ritual.
Promised cost savings
Ritual Labs claims to help brands test ideas earlier and make rough versions of concepts before committing production budgets. The added service can be kept on retainer after campaign launch to understand performance and iterate on a campaign. As opposed to the traditional 60 to 90 day brief to delivery window, the AI-backed venture targets to cut that time in half.
Pfeffer did not outline specific costs, but said Ritual Labs is its own exclusive service that can be kept on retainer.
A few clients in the tourism, CPG, food and beverage and health industries, which Pfeffer declined to specify, have been piloting the offering since January. Pfeffer projects a 30 to 50% cost savings for clients in the pilot program, but did not offer specific dollar figures.
The AI-powered production company’s added service is “governed by humans,” according to Pfeffer. “For us, the way we’re looking at the toolings here is we still need the creative of humans. You need that point of view, you need that expertise,” he said.
Humans are still tasked with the creative vision in terms of giving specific direction to the AI tool, he added.
AI sets a new standard
AI has democratized the creative process, fueling the in-house trend and pushing creative partners to offer more strategic value. Unilever, for example, built an in-house studio to make assets for paid social, programmatic display inventory and e-commerce usage across brands.
“For us, it’s already replacing or augmenting many of the intermediary tools we used to rely on like comps, storyboards, rip-o-matics, animatics etc.,” said Mick Sutter, chief creative officer of WHITE64 creative agency, in an emailed statement to Digiday. The creative shop has been using AI to create proof-of-concepts and more for clients.
Ryan Bouton, vp of growth at PawCo pet food brand, said as much. The idea that platforms offer mock results to test creative before a brand has to commit budget is an interesting proposition, but brands still aren’t ready to hand over the reins to AI creative just yet.
“The issue right now is the trust level, in terms of: it still needs that human strategic touch…I’m not confident in that creative review and those results,” Bouton told Digiday.
