Specsavers x MG OMD: How AI has impacted the partnership
Specsavers’ Ian Maybank and MG OMD’s Aaron Watkins discuss navigating AI-driven disruption across search, planning and performance
Specsavers x MG OMD: How AI has impacted the partnership
Specsavers’ Ian Maybank and MG OMD’s Aaron Watkins discuss navigating AI-driven disruption across search, planning and performance
MG OMD has been the media planning and buying agency for Specsavers for a whopping 14 years. It does not take a pair of new glasses to see that over this time the media landscape has fragmented and changed drastically.
Nothing has been quite as clear as the disruption AI has brought to the ways in which audiences lay their eyes on advertising. Search, in particular, has undergone a seismic shift. 68% of Google searches in the US ended without a click in the first four months of 2026, according to SparkToro. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) and experimentation with advertising on AI platforms have also moved rapidly up the agenda, forcing agencies and brands to rethink how they plan, optimise and measure media.
For MG OMD and Specsavers, however, AI is not changing the fundamentals of their long-standing relationship. Instead, it is changing what happens within it: how teams use data, where insights come from, who needs to be involved in decisions and how quickly they can act.
We spoke to Ian Maybank, Head of Connections Planning, Media, and Insights at Specsavers, and Aaron Watkins, Head of Paid Search Solutions and Strategy at MG OMD, about how AI is reshaping their approach to search, planning and performance, and how, amongst all the technological change, human judgement is valued as part of the partnership.
The MG OMD side
AI is becoming embedded across search, planning and optimisation. From your perspective, how has it changed the day-to-day relationship between MG OMD and Specsavers?
Aaron Watkins
Head of Paid Search Solutions and Strategy, MG OMD
We're incredibly proud of the relationship MG OMD has built with Specsavers over the past 14 years. I've had the pleasure of working with Specsavers for four of those years, in which we've successfully navigated every major shift in media and technology, from mobile to AI.
What hasn't changed is that great agency-client relationships are built on people, trust and shared ambition.
AI is transforming how we work, enabling faster access to insights, smarter optimisation and more informed decision-making. But rather than replacing the human element, it's strengthening it.
By reducing complexity and accelerating analysis, AI gives us more time to focus on what really matters: strategy, innovation and delivering growth together. The technology may have changed, but the strength of the partnership has only grown.
What does Specsavers now expect from your team around media planning, performance and insight that it perhaps didn't before AI became part of everyday working?
AI hasn't really changed what Specsavers expects from us, it's just changed how we get there.
What AI gives us is more time to focus on deeper analysis, sharper insights and better strategic thinking. Across PPC, for example, it helps us process search, audience and performance signals at a scale that would have taken us far longer in the past.
Less time gathering information, more time spotting opportunities and making better decisions.
As we get better at using these tools responsibly, and the technology continues to improve, we'll be able to unlock even more value from increasingly complex datasets. That's exciting, but ultimately AI is just the enabler. The real value still comes from the people, expertise and relationships that drive our partnership with Specsavers.
Have your expectations of clients changed as well? What do you now need from clients to get the best out of AI?
Our expectations of clients haven't really changed. AI is another tool in the toolkit, not a replacement for the partnership, trust and collaboration that have always driven great work.
If anything, it reinforces the importance of working closely together. The better we understand a client's business, objectives and data, the more value we can create. Specsavers and MG OMD have already seen the benefit of that through initiatives like our Live Appointment Feed, which uses real-time data to help optimise media investment.
Where we are adapting to the fast-paced changes is through the better utilisation of data, and how we can unlock advantage. Omnicom uses AI to power the Omni Intelligence Platform and Axiom Real ID Identity Solution to enable that better utilisation and smarter strategic thinking, planning and optimisation. This is a shift in our ways of working with clients like Specsavers, because it’s moving into a position of how we can use these AI solutions to make smarter decisions and unlock new opportunities, powered by the business intelligence Specsavers provide.
Has AI changed who makes decisions, or how decisions are made, between agency and client? Can you give an example?
AI hasn't changed who makes the decisions, but it is changing who needs to be involved in them.
A great example is Generative Search, or what we call Unified Search. Historically, search was largely a conversation between paid and organic teams. Today, AI-generated results are influenced by much wider factors, from content and PR through to ecommerce, social, legal and web experience.
That's a positive shift because it encourages greater collaboration across teams in agencies but also in client organisations. What we're learning with Specsavers is the importance of having the right people in the room, the right measurement frameworks in place, and a shared understanding of success.
This is enabling a different type of conversation than we were having 18 months ago. We would have been talking about the implications of zero-click search and what we can do but focused more on the traditional search ecosystem approach. Now, that conversation is shifting, supported by our better understanding of this changing landscape, and tools such as Omnicom GEO and other tools in market to help us shape the right strategies, the right levers and even what we should be focusing our energy on.
As someone who's worked in search for over 13 years, it feels like one of the biggest shifts since mobile-first transformed how we built digital experiences.
The decisions are still human, but AI is changing the inputs, the pace and the number of teams involved in reaching them.
What's the biggest lesson you've learned about building an agency-client partnership in the age of AI?
The biggest lesson is that great partnerships are still built by people, aided by technology. AI can help us work faster, uncover better insights and remove some of the more manual parts of the job, but it doesn't replace trust, collaboration or relationships.
The best work MG OMD and Specsavers have delivered together, whether that's through brilliant campaigns or tech solutions like Live Appointment Feed, has happened because people came together to solve problems, challenge thinking and find opportunities.
AI is a powerful enabler, but it doesn't pick up the phone, share a perspective, build trust or navigate a challenge. As the technology continues to evolve, the human side of partnership will become even more important.
The lesson for me is simple: the tools will keep changing, but great relationships will always be what makes the difference.
The Specsavers side
From the client side, how has AI changed the relationship between Specsavers and MG OMD when it comes to planning, buying and measuring media?
Ian Maybank
Head of Connections Planning, Media, and Insights, Specsavers
AI hasn’t changed the relationship between MG OMD and Specsavers. It has however changed some of our practices, for example we’re using tools like AI Max and PMax from Google, we’re drafting search copy using Copilot and we’re taking part in the ChatGPT pilot for paid advertising.
We’re also looking to automate certain tasks to free up the time of the team so they can spend more time on the projects that will really impact the bottom line.
For projects like this, you need a strong partnership and the ability to embrace both risk and failure.
What do you now expect from a media agency that you perhaps didn't expect before AI became part of everyday working?
This is not necessarily a new expectation, but I do expect MG OMD to be constantly horizon scanning and ensuring we’re at the front of the queue for new innovations from media owners, external third parties and from within the group so that we ensure Specsavers is at the forefront of AI innovation.
Where do you feel AI has created the biggest opportunity for closer collaboration between Specsavers and MG OMD?
The biggest opportunity that AI has created for closer collaboration between Specsavers and MG OMD is unified search. Where we are bringing together a much broader set of marketing disciplines to help fuel our search evolution over the next 40 years of growth.
Has AI changed the way media decisions are made between Specsavers and MG OMD? Where does human judgement still matter most?
No.
We’re not yet at a stage where AI can make the big calls for us in terms of where we place our investments or what our strategy is, this still requires human judgement.
Even where we do use AI to assist with our annual planning, we need to make human interventions as the technology isn’t yet sophisticated enough to get to the final answer.
What's the biggest lesson you've learned about building a strong partnership with an agency in the age of AI?
Specsavers is a business that is built on partnership and our relationship over the last 14 years with MG OMD is testament to that founding principle. What’s important to remember is that AI doesn’t change the foundations of the relationship (partnership, trust, respect and doing great work) - we will just begin to expect different things from it as the media landscape evolves.
What's one thing AI has improved in your relationship—and one thing you hope it never changes?
I hope it never changes the human element of the relationship.
Published by the IPA, the IPA AI Magazine helps member agencies make sense of the fast-changing AI landscape, with practical insights, expert perspectives and real-world applications of generative AI.
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