What does the future look like when AI is a "datacentre of geniuses"?

Most five-year plans feel like a guessing game. But this one is different.

We start our financial year each April here at Topham Guerin, so we're currently thinking hard about the future as we do our annual planning: what we’ll look like, how we’ll work, what we’ll actually do.

And the honest answer is, I don’t know. Not because we lack a strategy. But because the tools are changing so fast that planning beyond a couple of years starts to feel a bit pointless.

In 2030, we might not be using any of the platforms or workflows we rely on today. That’s not a warning. It’s an opportunity.

I don’t believe AI will replace the creative and strategic work that agencies like ours do. But I do believe that AI will enable small, lean teams to deliver the kind of impact that once required whole departments. The work doesn’t vanish, the shape of the team just changes.

That’s a big deal for an agency like TG. And an even bigger one for our clients.

Because it means the barriers between ambition and execution keep getting lower. Want to build a brand from scratch, launch a movement, test a dozen campaign routes in 48 hours? You can. And you won’t need a skyscraper full of staff to do it.

But that’s just the near-term shift.

Zoom out a bit further, and you start to see what Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, calls the "country of geniuses in a datacenter". He predicts that powerful AI, smarter than Nobel Prize winners across most domains, could emerge by 2026 or 2027.

If he’s right, we’re not just getting better tools. We’re dealing with a new operating system for society. One where AI can tackle complex problems in biology, governance, and economics faster than most institutions.

In his essay Machines of Loving Grace, Amodei lays out a vision that’s both radical and grounded. Eradicating disease. Personalised education. Transparent governance. Accelerated economic development. Not in 100 years, but 10. Maybe even less!

And his company is putting that into practice. Anthropic’s recent submission to the U.S. government’s AI Action Plan outlines how to prepare: secure labs, expand energy infrastructure, stress-test national security systems, and modernise how we measure the economy.

We should take it seriously.

Because the next wave of AI will reshape how intelligence operates: who uses it, who benefits, and who gets left behind.

The question for creative and strategic agencies like TG isn’t whether AI will replace us. It’s how we stay relevant when the world gets smarter.

That’s what we’re thinking about. Not in 10-year plans or annual forecasts, but in experiments, hires, projects and habits that help us stay adaptive.

The future isn’t written yet. But it’s being coded, tested, and deployed right now.

And if we’re smart, we’ll do more than keep up. We’ll help shape it.