R/GA Creates Global AI Products Team, Hires Ben Cooper as Lead

R/GA has created a dedicated global AI products team, led by newly-appointed global executive director, AI products, Ben Cooper. 

The team – which was created following the business’ return to independence and “just wouldn't have been possible in a holding group structure” – will work to help brands realise growth through custom AI-enabled products that deliver new experiences, capabilities, and value.

“We're transfixed a lot of the time on the outputs of AI – oh, it looks like a film or looks like a person in a picture,” Ben told LBB in an interview.

“But actually, for those that have spent time with it, you'll see that [AI] helps you hone your craft and push things in new new ways, particularly with what we're doing. We're solving customers' problems in radically new ways, and this is where the products fit in.”

One of the biggest goals of the team is to evolve what’s possible with AI, rather than simply doing the same things faster – focusing on growth as much as efficiency.

Built around modular platforms, the team will deliver bespoke products, tools, blueprints, and accelerators tailored to each client’s needs, enabling smarter, more personal, and more relevant interactions. Ben is also turning his attention to “building out our product, our IP catalogue” to create new revenue streams and ensure the team’s success.

“What's really important about the AI products team is the fact that ultimately we can create IP for the business,” Ben said. 

“We're already seeing that some of the work that we're doing lends itself into repeatable blueprints and products.

“This IP allows us to create different revenue approaches, as well as also back ourselves into the future. Because things are going to keep changing, and I believe this puts us on the front foot.”

Ben will report to Michael Titshall, APAC CEO and now also global head of AI products. The AI Products Team is supported by the company’s new $50 million innovation fund. Michael told LBB the fund was tied to the agency’s commitment to invest in AI, which it made in line with its return to independence, becoming a privately-owned company again after 23 years as part of IPG.

“Going independent has allowed us to change the way that we look at our growth trajectory,” said Michael. 

“In a holding company, it's month-to-month, or maximum quarter-by-quarter. In this space of innovation, you need to look at three to five year horizons, and the investments that we'll make this year may not provide a commercial turn straight away, but we're confident they'll have an exponential return over the next two or three years.

“Being independent gives us the flexibility to plan and invest in that way for the future, and the Innovation Fund helps us have the capability in order to activate that potential. The AI products team just wouldn't have been possible in a holding group structure, to be honest, because it's not about focusing on one resource and showing how that one resource gets revenue against it next month. It's more transformational than that.”

Ben is a creative technologist and innovation strategist best known for ‘Clever Buoy’ for Optus, the world’s first shark detection system – which won seven Cannes Lions and a D&AD White Pencil – and ‘NRMA Fireblanket,’ named The Australian Financial Review’s ‘Most Innovative Product’ for bushfire detection. 

He founded Brainstrust, where he worked with C-suite leaders on AI strategies for brands including D&AD, Studio Space, Revolver, and Uber. His career also includes roles at M&C Saatchi’s Tricky Jigsaw, The Monkeys, and collaborations with BWS, Google, and Woolworths. Ben also led The D&AD AI & Creativity Report 2025, a landmark global study examining how artificial intelligence is reshaping the creative industry.

The creation of R/GA’s AI products team follows the success of its AI Search Optimisation Platform (AISOP), a proprietary platform offering real-time search health checks and visibility across AI-driven search experiences – the first in a series of products under the new team. Other focus areas include predictive personalisation, generative interfaces, and brand design tools built for the intelligence age.

With expertise in AI consulting, design and development, the team has collectively delivered over 100 AI products for tech companies, brands, and agencies.

“We've already got some key talent that we've pulled together, and they're all incredible. I feel extremely privileged to be working with them and bringing it all together,” said Ben.

“We're attracting [the right] talent – we’ve got talent that have conversational design experience, we have AI engineers, we have product teams that are coming in.

“The global network is working well, and … we've got these tools and technologies that allow the business as a whole to go a lot further.”

He also mentioned the team’s push for “reusability and utility.”

“This is not us saying, ‘We could build that custom thing for you.’ We’re asking, ‘Can we reuse it? Can we get scale, and can we push things that much further?’”

Michael added the team can provide clients “the promise of personalisation” that actually makes an impact, unlike off-the-shelf AI tools.

“You've hardly met a client who hasn't invested heavily in martech, and they're pulling their hair out about how to extract the value from that – because the promise of personalisation can be done in those platforms from a technical point of view, but can you make sure that what you put in there is engaging enough for a human being on the other end of it to take an action or change their perception on it?”