From chaos to control: building brands for the age of AI

October 14, 2026

11AM (ET) / 5PM (CET)

From chaos to control online webinar by Frontify

Summary

The way brands are built is changing. The way customers discover them is changing, too. How should marketing and brand leaders respond?

New research from WARC and Cannes Lions, in partnership with Frontify, explores how brand building is changing in the age of AI — and why the ambition for modern brands is shifting from consistency to coherence. As brands are shaped by more people, across more channels and touchpoints, static guidelines and rigid consistency are no longer enough.

At the same time, AI is changing how brands are created, discovered, and experienced. As AI increasingly sits between brands and their customers, staying recognizable, trusted, and understood — by both people and machines — becomes even more critical.

Join the host Thought Leadership Director, LIONS Advisory & WARC, alongside Julia Arenson, Director, IHAR In-house Agency Review, Oana Leonte, Founder & Brand Architect, unmtchd and Digge Zetterberg, CMO Frontify for a candid conversation about what this means in practice — how they are adapting their approach to brand building, where AI fits, and how they are creating the systems that allow their brands to move faster without losing what makes them distinctive.

Key takeaways

From consistency to coherence: How leading brands are creating flexibility while staying themselves unmistakably.
Making brands AI-ready: What changes when brands need to be understood and activated by both people and machines.
The new brand operating model: How principles, people, technology, governance, and measurement can turn brand coherence into greater speed, scale, and ultimately growth.

Key-learnings

Participants

Hosts

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Imaad Ahmed

Thought Leadership Director

LIONS Advisory and WARC

Imaad has over 20 years of marketing experience. He joined WARC in 2013 as Marketing Director and has since moved over to LIONS Advisory where he has helped the likes of LinkedIn, Edelman, Ogilvy and Spotify land their thought leadership in the industry. He has also trained teams at Pepsico, De Beers, Amazon and many others to create more impactful marketing. A regular speaker at major industry events and on marketing podcasts, Imaad has shared his insights at events such as Cannes Lions, IPA EffWorks and the Festival of Marketing across a range of effectiveness topics.

Guests

Julia Arenson

Director

IHAR (In-house Agency Review)

Julia is a Director at IHAR (In-house Agency Review), where she helps brands design, build, and transform in-house agency models at scale. With nearly 20 years of experience across advertising, creative operations, and production, she has worked with brands including Nespresso, Vodafone, Mars, Santander, and Specsavers. As part of the senior leadership team at Specsavers Creative, she helped transform a 40-person UK creative department into a full-service in-house agency operating across 12 markets. She is also the founder of Doing Things, the Creative Ops Community, was named one of Campaign’s 40 over 40, and joined BIMA’s brand council in 2021.

Oana Leonte

Founder & Brand Architect

Unmtchd

Oana Leonte is a brand strategist and IP architect, with 20+ years of experience inside some of the world's most iconic brand organizations — including Disney, Warner Bros, Nickelodeon, and PUMA. She is the founder of unmtchd., a brand strategy studio built on a single conviction: that meaning and IP make brands last, and impossible to copy. Her work centres on helping brands and founders identify the invisible thread at the core of what they are — and making it visible, ownable, and built to last. She has spoken at major conferences across Europe and hosts The Unmtchd Podcast, now in its third season with listeners across 60 countries. Oana is also the author of “The Architecture of Meaning - What Makes Great Brands Last and Impossible to Copy”.

Digge Zetterberg

Chief Marketing Officer

Frontify

Digge Zetterberg boasts 15 years of leadership experience in advertising and digital agencies across Berlin and Stockholm. Prior to her current role, she served as Frontify's Director of Content & Communication, where she worked closely with the executive team to elevate the brand's global presence.

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