The marketing agency landscape faces its most significant transformation in decades. With global AI spending for sales and marketing reaching $57.99 billion in 2025 and 88% of marketers now using AI tools daily, the dynamics between brands and their external partners have fundamentally shifted.
The era when agencies could command premium fees for producing content, managing campaigns or generating creative assets is rapidly closing. AI is automating repetitive workflows and enabling real-time personalization and campaign optimization, fundamentally changing what clients can do for themselves—and what they can’t—as well as what they value and are willing to pay for.
Success in this new landscape requires a fundamental recalibration of what marketing consultants and agencies sell—and how they prove their worth. Here, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank—specializing in brand strategy, digital transformation and the integration of emerging technologies—offer critical insights into how consultants and agencies must reposition themselves to remain indispensable.
“The new edge isn’t who can generate more content; it’s who can generate more clarity.”
Strategic Intelligence Is Replacing Execution As A Differentiator
Magda Paslaru is Founder and CEO of THE RAINBOWIDEA, which specializes in integrated marketing strategies and strategic brand growth. She says the biggest disruption of the AI era isn’t automation itself—it’s the collapse of execution as an agency differentiator.
“AI is reshaping the entire value proposition for agencies and consultants,” Paslaru says. “The days of selling execution are over. AI can now do that faster and cheaper.”
What brands genuinely need from their agency partners now, she says, isn’t production capabilities—82% of businesses now use AI tools for content creation, and they’re reporting significantly higher output volumes. It’s expertise.
“What clients truly need now is strategic intelligence: partners who can interpret data, shape brand meaning and connect technology with human insight,” she explains. “Brands are no longer hiring for outputs; they’re hiring for judgment.”
This shift requires agencies to fundamentally rethink their positioning in the market. Successful firms will no longer frame themselves as service providers; instead, they’ll become strategic copilots.
“To stay indispensable, agencies must focus on guiding clients through complexity, helping them use AI responsibly and turning automation into differentiation,” Paslaru says. “The new edge isn’t who can generate more content; it’s who can generate more clarity.”
Brands Are Looking for Agency Partners Who Can Be AI Architects
Jayashree Rajan, CMO of Nexla, says brands are no longer impressed by agencies that simply “use AI.” They expect partners who architect it—with speed, precision and strategic depth.
“AI makes common tasks easy for marketing teams,” Rajan says. “The important thing now is the strategy—that’s where companies want agencies that integrate AI, offer deep strategy, and most importantly—work fast.”
With AI bringing efficiency and speed to the table, brands are looking for agencies that blend technical fluency with human experience and judgment. Instead of viewing AI as a threat, Rajan says, agencies have to become experts in its smart, ethical use.
“For agencies now, it is important to focus on capabilities that combine AI with humans in the loop, as well as tasks that can’t be done by AI alone,” she explains. “Agencies must become AI implementation partners. Those that provide generalist services will struggle; winners will specialize, innovate or build their teams and capabilities with and around AI.”
Recent research has found that only 17% of sales and marketing professionals report having received comprehensive, job-specific training on AI. Agencies that invest in providing their teams with comprehensive AI training could quickly establish a strong competitive edge.
“Double down on building your teams to be AI-enabled and nimble, and keep up with the rapid changes in the market,” Rajan advises.
“Brands hire for outcomes, not assets.”
Clients Are Hiring for Outcomes, Not Assets
Heather Stickler, Chief Marketing Officer of Tidal Basin Group, sees a clear pattern emerging: AI has turned marketing production into a commodity, and brands are adjusting their expectations accordingly. What they want now isn’t content or campaigns, but outcomes they can measure and scale.
“Value has moved to strategy, data and orchestration,” Stickler says. “Brands hire for outcomes, not assets. They want first-party data leverage, solid models and governance, and change enablement.”
While brands can and do leverage AI to build marketing campaigns in-house, they may not have access to the datasets they need to reach broader audiences or the expertise to analyze results and build successful campaigns at scale. That, says Stickler, is where modern agencies can step in.
“To stay essential, bring test and learn rigs, copilot workflows, clean data pipes, and clear ROI baselines,” she advises. “Upskill the client so that their wins scale.”
Human Instinct Is Needed to Separate Signal From Noise
Paul L. Gunn Jr., Founder of KUOG Corporation, draws on extensive experience in procurement, logistics and supply chain strategy—fields where precision and foresight are often directly tied to competitive advantage. He says that while AI excels in its ability to rapidly surface patterns and optimize campaigns, automate research, and generate content, these strengths can become weaknesses if they’re not paired with uniquely human capabilities.
“Humans excel at context—like industry nuances and overall brand integrity—which can often be missed by AI,” Gunn notes.
He says that in a crowded, bustling digital marketplace, AI alone isn’t enough to achieve brands’ bottom-line, critical goal.
“From my own experience, brands are diverting resources to what helps them create separation from the noise,” Gunn observes. “They want to differentiate their message not just to attract buyers, but to clarify their ‘why.’”
He adds that while smart agencies will develop fluency with AI tools to assist their clients in navigating the changing climates within their industries, those clients need more than just technical expertise.
“The successful agencies will be those that blend human wisdom with the efficiency that AI brings to drive attention to their clients’ businesses and help them build revenue,” Gunn concludes.
How Agencies Can Remain Indispensable in the AI-Driven Market
- Lead with judgment, not output. Brands now hire for strategic clarity, not campaign volume or asset production.
- Position yourself as an AI implementation partner. Don’t just use AI—architect how it gets embedded responsibly and competitively inside client operations.
- Focus on measurable, scalable outcomes rather than deliverables. Clients want systems that improve over time, not one-off campaigns or creative artifacts.
- Protect brand integrity with human context. AI can generate patterns, but only humans can interpret market nuance and uphold the “why” behind a brand’s voice.
Brands Need Agencies That Offer Precision, Foresight and Human-Centered Strategy
AI has permanently changed the basis of agency competition, but not in the way many expected. Automation hasn’t eliminated the need for agencies; it has simply raised the bar for the expertise agencies must bring to the table. Brands aren’t looking for capacity—they’re looking for strategic clarity. And they aren’t testing for creative volume—they’re testing for intelligence, implementation fluency, judgment and ethics.
The agencies that thrive in the years ahead will be those that move decisively beyond execution into advisory, orchestration and decision acceleration roles, fusing AI-enabled efficiency with human insight and narrative precision. The work ahead isn’t about proving capability. It’s about proving irreplaceability.
