In this episode, we sit down with Funs Jacobs — Next-Gen Brand Architect and author of The Creative Renaissance — to explore what it means to build brands in the age of AI.

Funs argues that the iconic brands of the future will be built by creatives, run by agents, and fueled by culture. We unpack what that actually means: from why human taste is the last true unfair advantage in a world of AI, to how AI agents are finally freeing creatives from the operational work they never wanted to do in the first place.

We also dig into:

• Why blindly asking ChatGPT to make your creative decisions is already making you a slave to the machine
• The shift from "operators running brands" back to "creatives at the helm" — and why AI makes this possible now
• What Meta's Andromeda means for advertising, and why media buying as we know it is over
• The tension between online authenticity and the algorithm's hunger for extremes
• Why the answer to almost everything right now is simply: be more human

Funs draws on lessons from Apple, Gucci, Supreme, Rick Rubin, and Walt Disney to make the case that this moment — chaotic as it is — is genuinely the best time in history to be a creative.

Read the full essay at https://funsjacobs.substack.com/p/the-creative-renaissance