General Motors is taking a torque wrench to traditional marketing, putting AI squarely under the hood of its creative operations. After pulling marketing strategy, data, and insights in-house last year, the automaker developed Metropolis—a proprietary AI content engine trained solely on GM’s brand guidelines and vehicle specs. Built in collaboration with Monks and powered by its Flow engine, Metropolis lets teams generate brand-safe images and videos on demand. We’re talking whole campaigns crafted in days, not weeks, with double-digit cost savings and enough localization to satisfy Denver and Monaco in the same swipe.
Despite glowing performance metrics—early campaigns using AI-generated backgrounds reportedly faring “as well and better” than human-developed content—GM is keen to keep its creative partners in the loop. Agencies like 72andSunny and Anomaly are still responsible for the overarching ideas, while AI lends muscle on the production side. Metropolis enables high-res content to be created in seconds, and a beta launch is now rolling out internally. One upcoming Chevy commercial is expected to be end-to-end AI—from insights and scripting to synthetic casting and editing.
The rise of AI is also forcing some tough rewiring across the industry. Compensation models are shifting toward output-based pricing, and junior roles face increasing automation. Monks’ parent company, S4 Capital, admitted that roughly 65% of agency work is now automatable, which may be great for clients but less so for the hiring ladder. As GM pushes forward, it’s become clear that the human touch still matters—you just need to train it to prompt like a marketer and think like a machine.
