Robots are getting smarter, and, if you listen to high-ranking digital execs at Coca-Cola and other major brands, they're coming for your advertising jobs. No one knows that better than the tech geeks at Team One's newly launched AI Lab, who are vowing to stay ahead of the machine-learning curve by surrounding themselves with all things futuristic in a stylish nook of the agency's cavernous Playa Vista, Calif., headquarters. The lab, a scaled-down re-creation of a smart home designed to look like a midcentury modern crash pad, is outfitted with Google Home, Amazon Echo, Philips Hue and a trunk full of cognitive toys. "It's a dedicated space to experiment and brainstorm," said Alastair Green, executive creative director, digital, who launched the agency's tricked-out, gadget-heavy VR Lab onsite last year. "We want to spark ideas and create better work with AI. And to answer the brands' question: 'What's the business case for it?'"

Coca-Cola is ditching flesh and blood creatives in favour of software algorithms in an experiment to see whether AI bots have what it takes to beat their human masters. Mariano Bosaz, Coca-Cola's global senior digital director, is spearheading the move as part of wider efforts to push the bounds of technology to see what they are capable of. In an interview with Adweek at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Bosaz said: "Content creation is something that we have been doing for a very long time--we brief creative agencies and then they come up with stories that they audio visualize and then we have 30 seconds or maybe longer. In content, what I want to start experimenting with is automated narratives." This experimentation will explore how AI can be applied to everything from choosing music, updating social media and even writing scripts although even Bosaz concedes that removing humans from the equation entirely remains a'long-term vision'.

BARCELONA, SPAIN--Coca-Cola is one of the most beloved brands in the world and is known for creating some of the best work in the advertising industry. But can an AI bot replace a creative? Mariano Bosaz, the brand's global senior digital director, wants to find out. Speaking to Adweek at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, Bosaz said that he's partly in Barcelona this week to get a better feel for how brands can use artificial intelligence because he's interested in swapping in robots for humans that crank out ads. "Content creation is something that we have been doing for a very long time--we brief creative agencies and then they come up with stories that they audio visualize and then we have 30 seconds or maybe longer," Bosaz said. "In content, what I want to start experimenting with is automated narratives."

BARCELONA, SPAIN--Coca-Cola is one of the most beloved brands in the world and is known for creating some of the best work in the advertising industry. But can an AI bot replace a creative? Mariano Bosaz, the brand's global senior digital director, wants to find out. Speaking to Adweek at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, Bosaz said that he's partly in Barcelona this week to get a better feel for how brands can use artificial intelligence because he's interested in swapping in robots for humans that crank out ads. "Content creation is something that we have been doing for a very long time--we brief creative agencies and then they come up with stories that they audio visualize and then we have 30 seconds or maybe longer," Bosaz said. "In content, what I want to start experimenting with is automated narratives."