• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, 6 hours ago

Like you, I try to keep up with the news as much as I can, but there are times when it seems as if the news is an avalanche. This week felt like one of those.

AI agency start-ups claiming they can do the same/more/better than any of the old-school agencies. Old-school agencies investing in new tech and tools and claiming they should be trusted with your budgets (Publicis buys LiveRamp). Tech start-ups claiming you don’t need an agency at all; just buy their tech and do it all in-house yourself (Kovva is one such new AI ad-tech startup, which positions itself as “AI agents for media buying teams.”). Platforms like Meta and Google announcing a slew of new tech that says “forget the agencies and the start-ups, just bring your budget to us.” But these companies are also laying off thousands of workers in one week.

And while all these new tech solutions vie for attention, advertisers are finding it hard to make any of them work. The struggle with Meta’s new MCP server illustrates this. Advertisers want to use conversational AI (like Claude or ChatGPT) to control their campaigns, but they are hitting rocky integrations, despite the glowing “it’s easy” messages that come from the providers of tech solutions.

Perhaps this friction is intentional. Meta has a strong incentive to preserve control over its closed loop; that’s where its advantage lives. This creates an existential disconnect between the advertiser's desire for clarity and the platform's desire for dominance. Multiply Meta with all the other platforms, and it really does not matter which tool you set loose to manage your budgets. They will all struggle.

One other reason that marketers struggle with the new tools is that the platform stacks were not built for the P&Gs, Fords or McDonald’s of this world, but rather for small and medium-sized businesses that do not have a full-service agency, or -- often -- any kind of agency at all. These advertisers may only use Meta and Google and manage their budgets through the two respective proprietary tech stacks. These smaller companies take what Meta and Google say and do at face value.

It's probably true that Publicis’ acquisition of LiveRamp is smart and will be helpful for Publicis clients. Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun said of his agency holding company’s acquisition: “We did not need LiveRamp to win in the marketing space. Where LiveRamp plus Publicis is going to make a difference is in the agentic space, in this new market where there is huge opportunity because there is a huge barrier created by data.” As Seb Joseph wrote in one trade journal, “Identity is the qualifier for AI. Publicis’ $2.2 billion LiveRamp deal is a bet that whoever controls the data owns the AI era.”

Perhaps then the biggest takeaway from this week’s avalanche is that agencies are moving away from a world where they are independent advisors and toward one where they are logic builders.

I would say: Don't get distracted by the tools. The real value in 2026 isn't in using AI (88% of organizations are already doing that). The value is in workflow redesign. High performers are 2.8 times more likely to fundamentally redesign their workflows rather than just automating the old, broken ones. And the winner won't be the one with the best AI agent; it will be the one who uses identity data to fuel it best.

P.S.: Thank you, Stephen Colbert. I hope you resurface. We need your voice!