Agencies still aren’t ready for AI disruption in 2024

But what of the macro? What about how AI, which is undoubtedly here to stay, will reshape the agency world?

What clients want from AI

Let’s start with the stats, and the client expectations. When we polled our UK clients a few months ago, we found that UK marketers see generative AI as key to finding efficiency gains across their organizations. Nine in ten (89%) marketers associate it with enhancing operational procedures and efficiency; 74% consider improvements in process efficiency as its main success criteria.

When asked which areas of their marketing operations they saw as most likely to face disruption from AI, 89% of respondents identified content production, and 47% social management. Just 36% of respondents said that reporting and insights were most likely to face disruption.

For agencies, this is telling. It flags a huge opportunity, especially for those that are disruptors. It also signals warnings, especially for those who lack agility.

The agency-client-AI relationship

A simple truth about the relationship between agency and client is that it’s constantly in flux. Technology is often a driver of this change, but AI is the impetus for a more significant shift than we have seen since the advent of the internet.

As AI becomes more integral to production and creative generation, the biggest challenge to the client/agency relationship is not strategic thinking or specialisms, but organizational design, solution design, and process overall.

So, four material elements will define the agency of the future. First, a structure that facilitates customer data at the heart of and breaks down silos within organizations. Second, ways of working – true agile methodology and training – throughout the organization to drive transformation. Third, processes that support real-time or agile decision-making, not just the tech to get it out the door. And, fourth, and governance: being able to sign off and manage risk at the speed and quantity needed.

A fifth element is managing the relationship between creativity and the machine. We know clients have some functions established in-house already. It’s critical that they do, for all the reasons we’ve already set out, including access to data, speed, de-siloing. But you still need those in-house teams to be experts in creative, strategy and change. In my experience, this breadth of experience is injected from outsourced in-house teams.

A world for specialists?

Comparing what generative AI can do when it’s used by creative, strategic and change experts with when it’s used by generalists demonstrates where the real value comes from. Creative humans drive exponentially better outcomes using AI, while the technology frees creative and strategic folk from the ‘process’ of creating work so they have more time to think and add value.

Those who truly master both the creativity of AI and the process improvements can win out – producing the more effective content the fastest, delivered to the right customer, at the right time, to get the right outcomes.

Thus, having the best partners in tech, people, and process is more critical than ever for clients. And having generalists or non-creative folk at the helm of content creation will be a fast race to the bottom of creativity mediocrity.

Board games

Then there’s the age-old issue of how marketing is perceived at board level. Lacking KPIs and results has encouraged an uncomfortable shift at board level for some companies where marketing is seen as a necessary cost, not a value-add. This is a real problem both now and in the future, for agencies and marketers alike. We need to ensure that our KPIs ladder up to business success, rather than being a merely tactical tool. AI-driven solutions run a heavy risk of introducing so much flexibility and speed that they become purely tactical ‘We need to fill up sales in this region for this product, next week…’ and not a long-term brand-building tool.

One way to address this is to build the agency-client relationship in a way that’s much more centered on structures with customer data at their heart, allowing the business to employ proper agile methodologies and training. The quality of structure, agile working, processes, and governance will continue to be foundational in driving both sales and brand equity – and now, foundational to driving better quality and creativity in our AI-driven work.

AI is the prime mover in this shift. It’s already disrupting traditional agency models and pushing them beyond a positioning that’s relied for years on strategic thinking and creative genius, within a structure that’s now not fit for purpose. The agencies of the future will harness generative AI to ramp up creative and strategic thinking further, fully embracing speed, agility, and technology to reposition as close partners that can guide clients along a transformation journey by actively helping them to make change happen, across the board.