As generative AI transforms marketing, South African women are helping redefine how creative work gets made for global
South African women are helping shape how generative AI is changing creative work for global brands, spanning business leadership, creative optimisation, operations, talent, motion design and copywriting.
As Gen AI moves from experimentation into everyday creative workflows, women’s roles reflect a wider industry shift: AI is changing not only how ideas are developed and content is produced, but also the skills, teams, and leadership needed to deliver at scale.
McKinsey reports that 71% of organisations regularly used generative AI in at least one business function in 2025, with marketing and sales among the most common applications.
AI-First Is About More Than Technology
Brandtech+ is part of The Brandtech Group, a global marketing technology group helping brands do their marketing better, faster and cheaper using technology. Central to its Gen AI capability is Pencil, its generative AI marketing platform, which has already created more than one million ads across 5,000 brands.
Being Gen AI-first requires businesses to rethink workflows, skills and creative processes, using AI to accelerate production while retaining the human judgement that makes work strategically and culturally relevant.
Gen AI Business Lead, Vicky Moodley, has helped develop a Gen AI Centre of Excellence, upskilling global teams on Pencil and embedding AI into campaign development.
“The biggest change isn’t simply that AI allows us to work faster,” says Moodley. “It is forcing us to rethink how the entire creative process works. Used properly, AI removes friction and gives talented people more space for judgement, problem-solving and creativity.”
“Creative talent has always evolved with technology, and AI is the next shift,” says Alison Stansfield-Franks, Global Head of Creative Optimisation. “What we can’t do is confuse faster production with better creativity. Taste, judgement, curiosity and the ability to recognise a genuinely strong idea remain deeply human.”
“We’re increasingly looking for mindset alongside experience,” says Mumtaj Mohamed, HR Lead in South Africa. “AI is changing roles quickly, so businesses have a responsibility to give people the training and confidence to develop new capabilities. You cannot be AI-first without investing in your people first.”
From Experimentation To Execution
“The real test of AI isn’t the demo, but it’s whether you can make it work every day across teams, markets and client requirements,” says Candice Siege, Chief Operating Officer. “The organisations that win will be those that operationalise the technology, not simply experiment with it.”
At the creative coalface, Tasmin le Roux, Gen AI Senior Motion Graphics Designer, combines AI technologies with motion design and visual storytelling. She has also completed specialist AI filmmaking training, exploring how emerging tools can expand what creatives are capable of producing.
“AI has expanded the creative playground enormously, but generating something is only the beginning,” explains le Roux. “The craft lies in directing, refining and knowing why one execution is right and another isn’t.”
For Yolisa Mjamba, Gen AI Senior Copywriter, AI is transforming language while making human understanding of audience, culture and tone increasingly important.
“AI can give you hundreds of lines in seconds, but that doesn’t mean any of them deserve to become the line,” Mjamba says. “The writer still needs to bring judgement, cultural understanding and a point of view.”
A South African Opportunity
“Gen AI also has the potential to change the geography of global creative work,” according to Estelle van Heerden, Global Automation and AI Integration Lead at Brandtech+. “As production becomes more distributed and scalable, proximity to traditional advertising centres matters less, creating an opportunity for South Africa to become not simply a production destination, but a source of specialist AI-enabled creative capability.”
As Brandtech+ continues to expand its South African operation, it is actively recruiting hundreds of roles to fill creative, technology, account management and project management talent to work on major global brands from South Africa.
These women make it clear: the future of AI will not be shaped only by technologists. It will be shaped by the people deciding how AI is used, how talent develops around it, how creative standards are protected and what ultimately reaches consumers. At Brandtech+, South African women are already helping make those decisions on a global stage.
“The ambition is not simply to grow a team, but to build the next generation of AI-first creative talent here, giving South Africans the opportunity to develop international careers without having to leave the country,” concludes van Heerden. “For those ready to combine their craft with new technology, the message is simple: the future of global creative work is being built now, and there is a place for South African talent in it.”
