by Dana Lee on 14th Oct 2026 in Video Interviews

In this episode of A Coffee With... Si Goodall, founder of The Ninety-Niners, joins ExchangeWire's John Still over a flat white to explore AI's impact on agencies and people.

Si notes that significant industry shifts had already begun before the AI surge, with the agency model transitioning towards smaller, strategic teams and client in-housing; AI has simply supercharged this change. The conversation looks at how research and insight gathering can be scaled and accelerated with LLM-powered platforms, enabling the interrogation of vast ethnographic datasets.

While AI is an invaluable tool for specific tasks, it is not a substitute for craft. Human judgment, accountability, and taste remain central across creative, media, and strategy. Looking ahead, there may be a national talent gap as the graduate job pool shrinks, creating a shortage of junior-level executives entering the industry. Future talent needs will prioritise curiosity and adaptability over fixed skills as tools and workflows continue to evolve.

Benefits of a full-service agency

Si co-founded The Ninety-Niners with Ant Hopper in 2020. They position themselves as a lean, insight-led agency focused on delivering work that resonates with real people. Despite advice to specialise, the agency opted for a full-service, holistic model. This has enabled them to help CMOs navigate growing complexity, offering strategic partnership rather than a single-solution bias.

By integrating media into their offer, they are able to advise on spend holistically for better investment decisions, ensuring creative and media work in tandem. Their varied backgrounds (shopper, CRM/data, brand, activations) support a panoramic view, reducing the risk that every problem looks like a nail to a specialist’s hammer.

Marketing to humans in an AI world

The Ninety-Niners conducted a report on how consumers use AI to shortlist and choose products. The focus is on where brands show up in these journeys, requiring insight into AI-influenced paths to purchase. Addressing whether brands are ultimately marketing to people or agents, Si likens it to search optimisation: useful, relevant content that’s the right choice should ultimately surface best in AI-driven environments.

Working with Meet the 85%, in-person ethnography is complemented by an AI platform, Dose of Reality. By interrogating thousands of hours of video footage of real people talking about various topics, it can detect patterns and insights, such as how people use AI to book holidays. This speed of analysis blends scale with qualitative depth, supporting real-world understanding of consumer contexts and behaviours.

Human creativity & accountability

The Ninety-Niners also built a proprietary creative development/production tool to iterate concepts quickly. Traditional creative teams use it to generate versions of “what if” scenarios and refine for brand fit, leveraging speed while relying on human taste and brand stewardship. Value still comes from human-level decision-making, while AI handles generation and analysis to inform better choices.

Guarding against the "meat proxy" is essential – AI outputs must always be critically reviewed by humans to prevent errors and hallucinations from propagating downstream. Si compares AI to the microwave oven: initially presumed to replace cooking, it found its proper role. Likewise, AI will excel in appropriate tasks but won’t replace the craft and care that drive superior outcomes, especially where nuanced quality matters.

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