There is a shift happening, and it is bigger than anything the industry has faced before.
Elon Musk said something like, it does not really matter how clean the beach is if there is a thousand-foot tsunami heading for shore. That captures the moment we are in. Most agencies are still tidying up their decks, adjusting workflows and revisiting templates while a wave is forming that could wipe out anyone who has not already started adapting.
I believe in the talent sitting in agencies. I have seen it, I have worked with them, and the quality of the work has never been the issue. The problem is that traditional agency structures are too slow for what is coming. While big agencies reorganise, the brave ones have gone out on their own or started micro-agencies with like-minded talent, and it is working. This small-agency model is already proving they can deliver work that rivals the behemoths but with the speed and agility clients now demand.
Why fighting it won’t work
Too many agencies jump to building their own AI tools, but that is not innovation, that is misdirection. The real shift is understanding and adopting what already works. You cannot have your PMs doing design work, and you cannot use we are experimenting as an excuse for delivering mediocre results. The one thing you still have is quality, so do not compromise it.
It might seem appealing for clients to go in-house, but most internal teams struggle because they inherit the worst parts of corporate structure and lose the creative edge in the process. Eventually, clients will return to the agencies that adapted, not the ones that folded under their own stubbornness.
What smart agencies do now
The smartest move you can make now is to invest in your people. That does not mean forcing them to learn new tools on their own dime. It means easing their current workload so they have time to experiment. Let them see what these platforms can do. Help them understand how something that once took a team of ten can now be prototyped in an afternoon. Once they experience that shift, they will start pushing boundaries on their own.
Give them unlimited access and buy as many tokens as needed so they can explore freely. Stop throttling their exposure. This is how you increase output by enabling their creativity with what they already know how to do.
When your teams start working with AI instead of against it, something fundamental shifts. They will spend more time shaping ideas and pushing creative boundaries in ways they probably could not imagine before. Instead of briefing others and throwing things over the wall, they will stay close to the work, control the details, and achieve the standard they have always aspired to.
This is where the real competitive advantage emerges against those nimble micro-agencies. They may be fast, but you have something they do not. Deep brand knowledge, established client relationships, and teams that can now move with the same speed but at greater scale.
Price and time will not really matter anymore because both are going to flatten. What will matter is the value and impact of the work. If you can show what your work does and how it affects a client’s business, no one will argue with that. They will invest in results, not just output.
Their boldest ideas, once limited by time, tools or cost, will now be easier to express, easier to test, and more compelling than ever before.
This is how we move forward. Not by resisting change, but by mastering it. The tsunami is coming. The question is not whether it will hit, it is whether you will be ready to ride the wave.