The Unlikely Trends Reshaping Agencies (And It’s Not Just AI)

Every conversation we hear in the agency space right now sounds roughly the same.

What AI tool are you using for this?
How can we automate?
Where are you finding efficiency?
How are you getting leaner?
What are you doing to scale faster?

And yes, technology is radically changing the agency game, but there is another underlying reality here. When an industry swings hard in one direction, there’s an equal and opposite force (as our physics teachers would say).

The firms we work with are thinking about five to ten years out, not just five to ten months. The conversations they’re having in boardrooms and planning meetings are far more nuanced than “what tool do we need?”

Here are four unlikely trends emerging behind closed doors.

1. Prioritizing In-Person and Local Saturation

Thanks to the shifts that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, for years now, virtual-first has been the default. The positive? Geographic reach became infinite, and businesses were able to serve anyone, anywhere.

Now, clients are craving depth, personalization, and a human touch as we navigate what many experts are calling a “trust recession.”

To overcome this, we’re seeing a meaningful return to in-person. Not just a return to office, but leveraging an in-person element as a business and service differentiation. This is coming to fruition as on-site intensives, strategic offsites, and events designed for immersion.

When everyone can jump on Zoom, sitting in the same room becomes premium.

This shift is also showing up in how agencies think about their own growth strategies. Instead of expanding endlessly, more firms are doubling down on their own backyard. They’re finding ways to saturate their local market first, recognizing that there’s something powerful about serving their own community before broadening.

As most industries race toward frictionless everything, some founders are intentionally reintroducing friction by asking clients to travel, sit in the same room, and participate in real-life conversations. 

They’re doing the same for their own businesses as well, prioritizing networking, conferences, and in-person events for their team.

The bet they’re making is that depth (and therefore trust!) builds faster face-to-face.

2. Services are Going High and Low

We’re watching agencies philosophically rethink how their services are built and delivered.

For years, the default model was tiered retainers or projects with flexible scope. A little strategy. A sprinkling of execution. Customization available to everyone. 

Now, we’re seeing two very distinct types of services sell easier and scale faster.

High Scale

On one end, we’re seeing highly systemized, scalable services that are repeatable, well documented, have tightly trained teams, and are engineered for consistency. They almost mirror factory style production.

These firms are ruthless about clarity with clear inputs, outputs, scope boundaries, and training programs for their teams. The goal is to remove ambiguity before it ever has the chance to reach a client.

That clarity does three things:

• It compresses sales cycles
• It protects margin with a hyper focus on eliminating drag
• It reduces founder dependency

Clients understand what they’re buying, teams understand how to deliver it, and leaders understand how to measure it.

That alignment compounds into a highly scalable service model.

High Outcome Focus

On the other end, we’re seeing deeply specialized, high-touch, outcome-obsessed services. These agencies may have fewer clients, but they are experts at solving a specific client’s problems.

These firms are not trying to be accessible to everyone. They’re narrowing their focus intentionally and know exactly which clients they serve. They understand the specific, high-value problems that typology will pay to solve, and design immersive engagements around those outcomes.

They’re not selling deliverables, but rather resolution.

They have fewer clients with higher stakes, and therefore, higher compensation.

What’s losing momentum is the in-between that often looks like a semi-custom retainer. The agency that says, “we can be flexible to whatever you need”. These are services that often grew organically by incorporating all the tasks that clients kept requesting over the years.

In this market, AI is lowering the cost of and access to basic execution, and buying behavior is shifting faster than our news cycle.

If they want efficiency, they want an agency partner with clean, predictable, and affordable services.

If they want a specific outcome, they want the best expert they can afford.

The agencies that are predictably growing and scaling right now, are identifying and launching services in these two distinct lanes. 

3. From “More” to “Enough”

In our opinion, this may be the most important shift of all.

For the last decade, scale has been treated as the default. The goal was more revenue, bigger client rosters, expanded teams, new verticals, and new services.

High growth became synonymous with success.

The most experienced founders we work with are now asking what is enough?

They’re not asking from a place of complacency, but rather discernment.

We live in a capitalistic culture that has always equated expansion with progress, and we absorbed that logic without questioning it. However, growth focused solely on “more” without a deeper layer of intention becomes incredibly heavy, and heavy doesn’t scale very well.

The founders who are thriving the most right now aren’t any less ambitious. They’re becoming crystal clear on what they actually want and why.

They’re getting clarity on the revenue number that actually supports their personal and business goals, the team size they want to lead, the type of clients they enjoy serving, and the role they want to play inside (and outside) their business.

That level of clarity forces editing and pruning services, team structures, and business decisions that are misaligned to their vision. 

And…it’s working.

Last year, in a year marked by economic turbulence, more than half of the agencies we’re engaged with in ongoing strategic planning doubled their business. All of them made the hard but necessary decisions to focus.

On the other side of that focus, we see founder pay increase, stress decrease, decision fatigue drop, and overall confidence in running the business explodes.

4. Team Models Are Becoming a Reflection of Values

The traditional agency org chart used to be account teams, client leads, strategists, and billable targets.

If you wanted to scale, your team growth roughly followed that blueprint.

That assumption is breaking.

Now, agencies have more optionality than ever when determining how client work gets done thanks to global talent, AI agents, distributed teams, and flex workforce. There’s no single “right” way to build a team.

Firms are taking a step back and designing or reconfiguring in a way that deeply aligns with their values.

We’re seeing three clear patterns emerge.

First, some agencies are doubling down on developing early-career talent. As AI increasingly absorbs entry-level execution, there’s a real risk that the industry will stop training the next generation.

Some founders see that clearly, and they’re responding by expanding intern programs, apprenticeship tracks, and structured training programs.

They aren’t doing this as charity, but as a talent pipeline strategy. They’re building their own hiring engine and reducing long-term recruiting dependency. 

Second, we’re seeing firms that prioritize skill density and output. Instead of expanding mid-tier roles, they’re building assistant layers and leveraging AI to increase the capacity of a senior team.

The goal isn’t headcount growth, it’s output per team member. This model works particularly well for agencies that require specialized expertise and need to scale capacity.

Third, we’re seeing renewed interest in shared ownership structures. As independence and business ownership become easier than ever for experienced talent, retaining A-players requires rethinking the employment contract.

More and more, founders are offering equity pathways or profit-sharing tied to leadership contributions in an effort to retain leaders versus losing them to the idea of building something of their own.

The Pattern Beneath the Patterns

At first glance, these trends may seem unrelated, but they share the common theme of Intentionality.

While the loudest industry conversations center on automation and speed, seasoned founders are asking, “what can’t be automated?”

The answer is trust, discernment, culture, ownership, and clarity.

The agencies that will thrive in the next decade won’t be the ones chasing every tool. They’ll be the ones designing around what is irreplaceable.

If you’d like to discuss how your agency can establish a clear path forward, connect with our team to discuss strategic planning.