Remembrance, Power of Confusion, Empathy: Prasoon Joshi’s Call for Human Advertising at AAAI
CE DESK 
Prasoon Joshi receives AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award, urging ad industry to embrace remembrance, confusion’s creativity, and empathy over AI in heartfelt speech.
At the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award 2025 ceremony, celebrated poet, lyricist, and ad leader Prasoon Joshi delivered a poignant speech urging the industry to reclaim its human essence amid AI’s rise. Accepting the honor, Joshi wove themes of remembrance, the creative power of confusion, and deep empathy into a philosophical meditation on advertising’s soul.
He reflected on personal loss and gratitude, honoring teams and collaborators who fueled iconic campaigns rooted in Indian storytelling. Joshi passionately defended Hindi and regional languages as emotional conduits, rejecting the notion that creativity needs an “English suit” for legitimacy. “When the world gets noisy like drums, you need the quiet of a flute,” he poeticized, positioning cultural authenticity as advertising’s flute.
Embracing confusion as fertile ground, Joshi declared it “the in-between space where imagination breathes,” not weakness. He called for empathy-driven narratives that brands must steward responsibly in a noisy world, blending ethos, emotion, and integrity. This address transcended an award speech, reigniting the industry’s human heartbeat and challenging it to chase craft over fame.
