The advertising industry has a producer problem. And AI has only made it worse.

By Sara Pethybridge (right) and Izzy Watts (left), co-founders of MettleLab

The first quarter of 2026 was not exactly favorable for the Australian advertising industry. Mass layoffs, shrinking margins, triple offers for $50,000 jobs, and a wave of AI-generated content that promised efficiency and delivered either mediocrity or a production nightmare with an attendant PR problem. Everyone talks about the tools. Nobody talks about the people who hold them.

The AI ​​slop trap

Let’s be clear that the industry keeps making mistakes. AI is not a button you push to make content cheaper and faster. Good AI-driven production still requires skilled employees. it simply requires others.

We see animators and texture artists with decades of experience being brought in to fix AI output that looks almost right but is fundamentally flawed. Skin texture. Real world physics. The way light falls on a surface. These are not problems that a junior can solve. They require…