Pakistan’s communications industry is at a turning point.
chatter matter
Pakistan’s communications industry is at a turning point. Artificial intelligence is changing how brands build visibility, creators are reshaping the way audiences engage with content and traditional agency-client relationships are being reconsidered. These shifts formed the backdrop for ‘PREDAXIS: Minus the Gatekeep’, the inaugural industry conference hosted by the Pakistan Public Relations, Event Management, Digital and Activations Association in Karachi.
Bringing together professionals from advertising, public relations, digital media, events, business and academia, the conference focused less on defining where the industry stands and more on where it is headed.
Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy opened the event with a keynote on influence, purpose and the power of individuals to create change. “The greatest transformations I have witnessed have never begun with money or technology or power. They began with one person refusing to accept that the world had to remain exactly as it began,” she said.
That idea of change carried through the day, particularly in conversations around artificial intelligence. Rather than treating AI simply as a technological development, speakers examined how it is changing the value of human judgement, creativity and credibility.
Imtisal Abbasi, Managing Partner at IAL Saatchi & Saatchi, summed up the shift with three observations: ‘Technology doesn’t destroy value. It relocates it.’ ‘AI changes the question.’ And, ‘Discernment becomes the new competitive advantage.’
The impact is already being felt across the communications ecosystem. Discussions around reputation explored how brands can maintain trust as AI accelerates the production and circulation of information, while conversations around creators examined the growing importance of authenticity and transparency. Rizwan Ahmed, Founder and Chief Storyteller at Viral Edge, called for “greater government recognition and transparency around the growing creators’ industry.”
Yet for all the focus on technology, one of the strongest threads running through the conference was decidedly human: trust.
The agency-client relationship came under scrutiny during discussions about pitching, briefs and expectations. Agencies spoke about the resources invested in pitches and the frustration that can arise when briefs change or ideas are replicated. Frieha Altaf, CEO of Catwalk, noted, “We don’t get paid for the pitch, so we put all resources into the planning phase ourselves. Often, the client comes back asking for changes or changes the brief itself, which builds frustration.”
From the client perspective, the emphasis was equally on clarity and partnership. Madiha Saeed of Unilever noted, “Before the pitch comes the brief. The brand needs to be clear of what they really want. And when I say brief, I mean, the best briefs are delivered in person.”
The same principle extended beyond business relationships. A discussion on human-centred leadership examined the qualities technology cannot replicate, with Qamar Abbas of PAS observing, “The biggest strength of being a human is our emotions, which make us extremely powerful. A machine cannot do that. But unfortunately, even us humans are not being as empathetic as we should be.”
The final conversations looked beyond individual companies towards a more connected industry. As AI transforms jobs, business models and creative processes, speakers argued that collaboration between established organisations, startups and the government will become increasingly important.
Dr Adil Haider captured that shift succinctly, “In the future, it will not be a company vs another company. It will be an ecosystem vs another ecosystem”.
Jehan Ara, Founder and CEO of Katalyst Labs, also offered a reminder of what Pakistan already has to work with, “Pakistan has incredible talent.”
That may ultimately have been the conference’s central message. Technology will continue to change the way the industry operates, but its future will depend just as much on judgement, trust, empathy and the willingness to work across traditional boundaries.
- You! desk
