Ad agencies are a thing of the past?

Thank god, Don Draper isn't around to see this!

The ad agencies are staring down the barrel of AI

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The world of advertising feels like one that we all know intimately, with each of us faced with an almost overwhelming bombardment of logos, promos, and ads every single day.

But how many advertising firms can you actually name? If the answer is “not many,” you’re not alone.

That’s because there are thousands of advertising agencies, each bursting with creative individuals looking to nudge our collective consciousness to be a little bit more sympathetic to the brands they’re tasked with representing on billboards, screens, and in print. Many of those agencies are owned by one of six major players that dominate the landscape — each one is having a tough 2025.

The “big six,” the parent companies of dozens of smaller outlets, have all seen shares drop this year, but the largest — UK-based WPP — is hurting the most, with CEO Mark Read announcing his departure this morning, as the company’s stock has slumped by more than one-third so far in 2025.

Winter is coming

In the competitive world of advertising, industry execs are comfortable campaigning against each other for mandates to run all things advertising for major brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Nike. With the advent and popularization of AI, however, a new threat has emerged.

Just last week, Meta rocked the big six after The Wall Street Journal reported that the social media giant was planning to launch tools that would completely automate ad creation and targeting. That could mean the same product being shown in completely different settings to different users. For instance, an ad for a watch might show one user the timepiece on the wrist of a climber ascending to great heights, while someone else might see the same model on someone stepping out of a beautiful car, at a concert, playing a sport, or reading a newsletter on their phone.

With many other parts of the agency-brand relationship, like project management and media planning, already susceptible to AI tools, the creative part of the job was perhaps seen as one aspect that might be harder to replace. I’m not sure I’m ready for the ads on my Instagram to get any worse, but here we are.