No, AI won’t kill agencies, but it will divide them. For over a century, marketing and advertising agencies grew by adding more people, more production capacity, more capabilities, and more billable hours. But AI’s ability to speed up delivery, remove costs, and scale deliverables nullifies agencies’ labor model. As content creation becomes faster, cheaper, and automated, the value of marketing services lies in orchestrating talent, technology, data, workflows, and AI agents to produce CFO-grade marketing impact.

As a result, marketing agencies in 2027 will fall into two buckets: orchestrators and executors. On one side will be intelligence-powered partners that help CMOs redesign operating models, govern AI adoption, and accelerate marketing transformation. On the other will be execution-focused agencies that contribute specialist capabilities that help CMOs deliver what AI can’t automate or authentically execute. Here are some of Forrester’s predictions for next year.

Brands will become their own content factories.

CMOs will accelerate insourcing content production as faster, cheaper, AI-powered studios absorb large portions of agency production. Already, 67% of B2C marketing decision-makers say that insourcing more creative and production capabilities will be a high priority over the next 12 months. We predict that enterprises will bring up to 60% of templated content production for blogs, social posts, image, and video variants in-house.

The winners will be boutique and large agencies that retain top talent and deliver differentiated creative thinking, strategic guidance, and business transformation. Marketing agencies will face the choice to compete with insourced AI content studios by either outflanking AI production slop with the highest-caliber creative ideation and execution or by transcending rote content automation with expertise to redesign marketing operating models, govern AI adoption, accelerate marketing transformation within marketing orgs, and redefine consumer influence in the market.

Marketing operating systems will become the new holding company battle.

Demand for cost efficiency, the top benefit requested by agency clients, will push holding company operating systems from vision to business imperative. Half of global holding company revenue and service delivery will flow through proprietary marketing operating systems. Holding company investments tell the story: Stagwell announced a deal with enterprise AI platform ServiceNow for access to its AI Control Tower; Havas reports that advancing the deployment of its Converged.AI operating system is a top priority for 2027; Omnicom acquired IPG, in part, to consolidate Acxiom into Omni; Publicis Groupe acquired AdgeAI and LiveRamp to strengthen MRCL; and WPP acquired InfoSum to expand WPP Open Intelligence.

Holding companies’ proprietary platforms will become their primary competitive moats as well as marketers’ engines for marketing efficiency, sales impact, and brand differentiation. As holding companies build, the midmarket and independents will partner with and white-label third-party operating systems from the likes of Adobe, Canva, Google, Hightouch, Pixis, or Zeta.

Three-fourths of agency RFPs will require AI transformation expertise.

CMOs pursuing enterprise AI leadership will expand agency expectations beyond campaigns and media buying to include AI transformation, operating model redesign, change management, and enablement. Code and Theory, Credera, DEPT, PMG, and WPP’s Enterprise Solutions division already position themselves as growth and transformation partners, deploying engineers and strategists to solve data maturity, enablement, and technology implementation challenges. Pitch consultants are certain to seize the opportunity to increase their relevance.

AI transformation, organizational design, and technology enablement will become even more important parts of agency evaluations, so agencies will have little choice but to add new products and partnerships to remain competitive. Publicis Groupe recently reported that addressing C-suite AI transformation needs drove significant new business revenue for the Paris-based holding company during Q3 2026.

Direct Growth Through Insight, Governance, Talent, And Change

Forrester clients can access our full Predictions 2027: Marketing Agencies report to get more detail about each of these predictions, plus two additional predictions. If you would like to further discuss implications, please schedule a guidance session with me. And be on the lookout for my upcoming report examining the rise of agency marketing operating systems.

Not a client? Download our complimentary Predictions 2027: B2C Marketing, CX, & Digital guide, which covers some of our top predictions for the year ahead. And sign up for our public webinar on Tuesday, December 8, where we’ll dig into those predictions in greater detail. Additional resources, including blog posts, guides, and webinars, are available on the Predictions 2027 hub.

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