AI Will Make Agencies Feel Human Again: Carat’s Carrie Drinkwater

Why It Matters

If agencies can operationalize AI-driven cultural signals and predictive analytics, they can deliver more effective, timely marketing that boosts brand performance and revenue—creating a competitive edge for firms that move fastest. This shift redefines agencies as strategic brand partners rather than just media buyers.

Summary

Carat chief Carrie Drinkwater said the agency is prioritizing AI and tech to capture cultural insights and make them media-actionable, using proprietary studies and ‘agentic’ tools to identify the right cultural moments for each brand. She argued AI is shifting agencies from reactive measurement to predictive planning—letting teams anticipate momentum, optimize media mixes and respond in real time. Carat is pursuing a mix of build, buy and partner strategies tailored to client KPIs rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. The technology also frees analysts from manual tasks, enabling younger planners to focus on strategy and brand-building rather than taxonomy and data entry.

Original Description

LAS VEGAS – If technology used to be about pipes, dashboards and apologies for latency, Carrie Drinkwater wants it to be about culture.

Speaking with David Kaplan at CES 2026, the chief investment officer of Dentsu-owned Carat, said the agency’s biggest technology investment isn’t another black box, but a clearer read on cultural momentum.

“The biggest technology investment that we’re focusing on is how we can harness and capture culture,” Drinkwater said.

Culture is not a universal preset, she said, and what works for one brand can miss badly for another. The goal is to use AI data and tools to make culture media actionable and to spot where momentum is building before the hockey stick shows up on a slide.

From reactive reports to predictive moves

At CES, every year has a theme, and this year that theme is AI, Drinkwater said before moving it out of buzzword jail. The real shift is not automation for its own sake, but foresight.

“It goes from being reactive to being predictive,” she said. Old media mix models explained what already happened and then everyone reacted. Now agencies can anticipate what will happen and respond faster, which she believes “really enables us to be better marketers.”

For advertisers, this means fewer postmortems and more preemptive moves that feel oddly like good instincts backed by math.

Build buy partner repeat

Asked how Carat navigates the sprawl of ad tech platforms, Drinkwater offered the most honest answer of CES.

“Yes, yes and yes,” she said. “We have to build, we have to buy and we have to partner.”

There is no single stack that saves every client she added since needs vary by KPI and competitive set. The strategy is to choose what works for each brand and what helps future-proof outcomes rather than chase the shiniest demo.

AI kills the busywork and frees the thinking

Where technology is clearly improving outcomes is in eliminating the grind.

“It’s completely eliminating” hours spent on analytics inputting and tactical work, Drinkwater said.

Data that once took months to mine now appears in seconds, which allows teams to respond and change dynamically. That matters for the next generation too. Too much time spent on taxonomies and dashboards crowds out strategy and brand thinking, she said.

The fix is a return to communications planning with data and tech supporting ideas rather than replacing them.

Faster, smarter, more human agencies

Looking ahead, Drinkwater said the agencies that win will respond quicker, analyze data quicker and predict better. That speed does not turn agencies into machines. It turns them into partners.

“It will allow us to be marketers, not just media companies,” she said.