Key points
- A Digiday survey published in May found only 9% of media agencies were not pursuing some form of agentic AI.
- M&C Saatchi North America set aside one hour per week on employee timesheets for AI-related training, per group CEO Nadja Bellan-White.
- Monks is reviewing early-career hiring, shifting junior tasks away from spreadsheet work, according to evp Gila Wilensky.
- Some agencies limit access to costlier AI models by role, mainly to control compute costs.
Why it matters for marketers: Agencies are still deciding how to build teams around AI, so marketers can ask now how training, junior roles and tool access will shape the work they buy.
Agencies have embraced AI agents quickly, but their team structures, job descriptions and career paths have mostly stayed the same, according to Digiday's report from its Media Buying Summit. A Digiday survey from May found just 9% of media agencies were not pursuing agentic AI in some form.
The gains remain uneven. Individual workers save time, but few companies have spread those benefits across teams. Digiday cited an Apollo Partners estimate that profit margins and revenue per worker have not improved outside the tech sector. Attendees speaking under Chatham House Rules also said staff at all levels use AI as a shortcut, sometimes skipping critical thinking.
Some agencies are responding with structure. M&C Saatchi North America has an hour of weekly training built into timesheets. Monks is training junior staff, retraining senior colleagues and reviewing how it hires early-career talent. Wilensky said Monks is not hiring fewer juniors, but is being more deliberate about who it hires and what tasks they do. Some agencies also give developers and engineers access to more powerful models, mainly to manage compute costs.
For marketers, the shift affects who handles planning and activation work on their accounts and how that work is checked. Wilensky predicted a role she called AI checkers, similar to fact checkers in journalism, and said senior staff must supply originality and risk-taking.
Watch for whether agencies formalize these changes in job titles and team design, and whether training time and quality-control roles appear in the way they staff client work.
Sources
This brief is our own summary. Read the full reporting at the source.
