The ad game is looking a lot less like Don Draper’s boardroom and a lot more like an API call. As AI reshapes the fundamentals of media buying, creative development, and performance optimization, agencies are building platforms instead of just campaigns. Stagwell’s The Machine, Omnicom’s Omni, and WPP’s Open Pro are just a few of the tech stacks changing what it means to be a full-service agency. Brands are now choosing between hosted hands-on service, co-created AI infrastructure—or skipping agencies altogether in favor of DIY platforms. The pressure is on for agencies to make their software indispensable and not just another proprietary black box.
WPP’s Open Pro, for example, is giving smaller and mid-size brands an entrée into automated creative and media tools without requiring a full-service agency relationship. At the other end of the spectrum, Omnicom’s Omni platform helped the pet brand Temptations uncover an amusing insight—cat owners are stingier with treats than dog owners—and spun that into a campaign featuring a feline in a dog suit, created with generative AI. Omni cut the production cycle from seven months to seven weeks. Meanwhile, Dentsu is differentiating by letting brands co-build the tools and keep the IP, reducing the “switching cost” often associated with deep agency-tech entanglements.
The shift isn’t just about tech—it’s reshaping how agencies make money. Performance-tied contracts are gaining traction as AI reduces the need for full-time staffing, challenging the old “bill-by-the-hour” model. Horizon Media’s HorizonOS platform emphasizes openness and custom vendor collaborations, allowing clients to pick their tech stack and even see model training data. And Havas’ Converged.AI, with internal agent-building and a sandbox for 25,000 employees, is focused on letting the folks closest to the client problems build the AI solutions. In other words, agencies have stopped selling hours and started selling real value—backed by code.
Read more at AdAge.