In this episode of The In-House Club, Kasper sits down with Dave Laing, former head of Scotiabank’s in-house agency Lighthouse. Dave helped grow Lighthouse from a mixed group of ~30 creatives to a nearly 100-person in-house agency inside a 90,000-employee bank – with design, motion, production, ops and AI all under one roof.

This conversation isn’t about “AI will replace us”.
It’s about how AI changes who we need in-house and what those people actually do.

We talk about:

• The end of classic roles?
  Why Dave thinks the copywriter and art director labels are on the way out – and why schools should start training generalist creative directors from day one: people who can think, write, visualise and curate AI output.

• The rise of the campaign designer
  A new kind of in-house role that takes the core idea and designs how it lives across all channels and formats – from out-of-home to six-second bumpers – before it goes into pure production.

• AI as creative amplifier, not magic wand
  Mockups, versions, localisations and “things we never had budget for before” vs. the danger of calling platform-optimised Franken-ads “the best creative”.

• Internal vs. external AI
  How agencies currently have more freedom with tools – and why in-house might win long-term with secure, brand-trained agents that actually know the business, the tone and the ecosystem.

• Fixing briefs instead of complaining about them
  Using AI for debriefing, better intake and structured briefing – and why you still need strategists and planners to put human insight, timing and cultural nuance into the system.

• Tone-of-voice models and brand AI
  How small companies and big brands can use custom GPTs and ToV tools so non-copywriters can still write on-brand decks, emails and product pages.

• Sea of sameness vs. human fingerprints
  Why brands risk all looking the same if nobody owns story, taste and culture – and why imperfections, tactile work and real-world experiences might become the new luxury.

If you’re leading or working in an in-house team and trying to work out how AI reshapes your org, your roles and your value, this episode will give you a vocabulary – and a few warnings.

Guest
Dave Laing – former Head of Creative & Content / Lighthouse, Scotiabank