Commentary
A Change Is Coming For (Agentic) Ad Agencies
- by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, April 30, 2025
We need to have a conversation about AI in media planning. More specifically, what will agencies be forced to do in the age of agentic media?
AI Agents are everywhere now. Just watching TV last night, I saw three different companies advertising about the agents they are creating, and the concept of agents is quickly overtaking the media planning world. Agentic media planning is approaching quickly, with agents now able to intake queries and prompts for audiences, flight dates and other basic buying parameters and activate them in a trading desk seat just as easily as any media buyer. Even more interesting, agents can be set up to recommend and even implement optimization across demand-side platforms, so the question quickly arises: What role does the agency team play when agents can do much of the work?
This is the general question facing the use of AI in the workforce: the fear that our jobs will be replaced. I have written about this often, and I don’t believe that it's as existential a threat as the media makes it out to be, simply because humans are adaptable and we created this technology, so we need to view it as a tool.
More simply stated, yes, the role of a media buyer may not exist in a few years, but that role can be repurposed to some other set of responsibilities in the organization.
One of the common gripes against agencies is that they tend to pitch with the best people and once the account is won, they replace them with lower-level people to do the execution work. This leads to a cycle of agency reviews every few years.
In this new future, the best teams will still be there for strategic planning and guidance, but they will instead use a team of agents for implementation. These tools are standard and the teams managing those tools will be standardized as well, so you won’t be relying on less-experienced teams.
I see the agentic workflow as a way for agencies to use their best talent more efficiently and supplement with technology, which means more consistency and better margins over time because they will need fewer people to execute.
So, what happens to those people who were being hired out of school for execution? My guess is they shift to more experiential activations, which I predict will continue to increase in value over the coming years.
You cannot evaluate AI in a silo. AI creates efficiency in media planning and execution. AI is also going to overhaul digital media. I’ve been writing the last few weeks that I see a future that revolves around video, generative search, mobile, social, DOOH and experiential media, with a clear decrease in display and traditional search. Those lower-level, or entry-level people, will shift to more experiential and event-based marketing activations. Agencies can charge more for those, too. As a result, agencies are going to shift from a purely digital go-to-market strategy and will start to embrace the balance of digital and IRL once again.
Needless to say, there is a LOT of change impending in the ad agency landscape.
Where do you think agency services are headed in the next few years?
Cory, to answer that question you must predict what will happen to the agency clients--especially their marketing execs--the CMOs and brand managers. Will the latter be replaced by AI? If so, then the agencies will respond by getting rid of many of their underling account handlers and let their AI systems service the client's AI systems. And, needless to say, AI will take over the agency brand positioning and "creative" functions.
Same goes for media planning andfinally buying. If advertiserrs turn over their media supervision, auditing and accounting systems to AI then the agencies will do exactly the same and the dream of our digital friends will come true--media planning --and buying--- will become fully automated, using "data" for all decisions--except those surviving MSOs will, no doubt, instruct the various AI systems that they must buy certain media---NFL games, specials, news, prime time TV, etc no matter what the numbers say. And they'll probably keep the upfront TV time buying system going as well.
And speaking about those numbers, I guess that we will not need rating or "audience" surveys nor media sales orgs--they, too will become part of our AI "future".
In fact, I suspect that a typical ad agency of the future will consist of a handful of very senior execs supported my a small staff that deals with AI directly and nothing else. The computers will do the rest--using AI. And their clients will be organized in the same way--lean and mean where people are concerned but AI all the way for just about every function.
media sellers' AI computers still buy the agency AIs lunch or invite them to galas, parties and the like? And will the agency and media seller big wigs still need to go to those posh industry gatherings, conventions, etc. or will these only be for the computers?
So many changes to contemplate---but one question remains. What happens to all of the people that AI replaces?
If there is a plethora of AI Agents does that mean that they have a specific source of placing ads. The current large Ad Agents have access to the majority of reputable sources, and in particular their audience data, times etc. Will AI agents have that wide-an access?
If so, won't the advertising reach be smaller. And likely, in order to get broad reach they will probably have crossed over with the other sellers. Surely that will mean a lot of wastage. Yes, the cost will be lower, but the risk to be boringly repetative it is highly likely to annoy, and maybe to lose them as purchasers. I wouldn't be surprised that the old saying "Less Means More" might have its place.