The trend: At Cannes Lions 2025, Meta and TikTok continued to issue carefully worded statements about the value of agency relationships, but their AI product roadmaps suggest a clear pivot toward direct brand servicing through automation.

• TikTok has insisted it’s not sidelining agencies. But the expansion of Symphony’s AI-driven creative suite paints another picture. These tools let brands generate content quickly and autonomously without intermediaries.
• Meta is taking a similar approach. While continuing to invest in agency communications, it’s clearly building toward a future where advertisers can efficiently generate campaigns—including creative and targeting—within its platforms.
• Google, Amazon, and even Comcast are pushing similar tools; the latter will launch a free, AI-driven commercial generator this summer, adding pressure on agencies to compete with platforms' self-serve efficiencies.

Why it’s happening: Platforms face slowing ad growth, rising tech infrastructure costs, and supporting gigantic agency-facing teams—as Meta and others do—is expensive.

If platforms’ genAI tools can replace agency support functions—like campaign setup, asset creation, or reporting—it could justify reducing headcount in those areas, turning what were once essential roles into potential cost savings

Yes, but: In the short term, platforms are very dependent on agencies—so they're trying to contain the fallout.

Meta CMO Alex Schultz posted on LinkedIn that the company “believes in the future of agencies,” but CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s earlier comments—claiming brands would no longer need creative, targeting, or measurement—have already shifted the tone.

Implications for agencies: Following a report that Meta would launch fully automated ad tools by 2026, agency holding company stocks dropped as much as 4%, affecting Publicis, Omnicom, WPP, and IPG. And while some share prices recovered, investor skepticism has lingered.

• Omnicom’s recently approved acquisition of IPG has been met with doubts about whether doubling down on legacy models makes sense.
• High-value services agencies once thought immune to cutbacks may be at risk. Strategic consultants, platform specialists, even senior account leads could be replaced or diminished if AI tools replicate their capabilities.

Our take: While agencies are trying to respond by ramping up acquisitions like InfoSum, Clearbit, and Lotame to improve their data, analytics, and AI capabilities after M&A activity declined last year, acquisitions are hard to integrate and expensive to scale.

Brand marketers are caught in the middle. Direct access to tools means more control and potential savings, but it also demands in-house expertise many marketing teams lack. Those best positioned will either build internal capabilities or seek agency partners that bring irreplaceable value.

The takeaway is clear: platforms are optimizing for efficiency, not tradition. Agencies can no longer assume their seat at the table—they have to earn it. And fast.