What will be different at agencies in 2030? Over the next five years, the answers could make—or cost—you millions of dollars.
First, there are no guarantees. But I’ve focused 100% on agencies since 2010. My colleague Diane has been in the industry for 40+ years. Nearly 30 years ago, my first freelance client was an agency. Our experience spans 600+ agencies on every inhabited continent. Like Farmer’s Insurance, we’ve seen a thing or two.
Second, evaluate how the 19 predictions apply to your agency. For most agencies, 3-5 predictions will make the biggest impact—so triage and focus on those. At the end of this article, I share a prioritization shortcut from my new book, Calm the Chaos. You’ll want to enlist your leadership team to help, since this is more than one person can handle alone.
Third, take action. Don’t get to 2030 and wish you’d acted more urgently. No one had answers when COVID started—but smart agencies pivoted fast. Get support from your leadership team and your advisors, and then do something.
What I predict in 2025 about agencies in 2030
I’ve separated my 19 predictions into six categories to make it easier for you to read the list. [Last updated: February 2025]
My predictions are a mix of good and bad, depending on where your agency is today and what you want from the future. Some may seem bleak while others will affirm your recent choices. Well-positioned and well-run agencies will get stronger… and mediocre agencies will struggle or fade away.
Client Expectations for Agencies in 2030
1. Clients continue pressuring agencies to cut costs.
Generative AI offers huge productivity gains. But it’s often really “cover” for cost-cutting.
Cost-cutting isn’t new; it’s gone on for hundreds of years. That includes the shift from individual artisans to assembly lines in the 19th century, time-and-motion efficiency experts trying to build widgets faster in the early 20th century, corporate consolidation and layoffs in the second half of the 20th century, and the accelerating information age in the early 21st century.
AI is an especially visible solution for cost-cutting. It’s like eating at Waffle House—yes, there’s often employee drama, but that’s not unique to the 24/7 diner; you just happen to see it because employees aren’t hidden in the kitchen.
This requires a complex combination of solutions. But for many agencies, they’ll switch agency models—from full-stack to front-end. Or if they continue to be a full-stack agency, they might increasingly outsource fulfillment to lower-cost countries.
2. Clients hire agencies instead of adding paid staff.
As companies continue to eliminate middle management layers, corporate employees are pressured to do more with less. This often means using individual contractors and agencies to get things done without justifying headcount to the CFO.
If you play your cards right, this can help you grow. But you’ll need a clear value proposition and potentially different hiring to build a “staff augmentation” team.
3. Agencies train clients that take work in-house.
If clients are going to do it anyway, you might as well get paid to help clients take things in-house. It also tends to take longer than you or they expect.
I worked at an agency that recommended for years that a particular client take things in-house. They finally agreed, with a retainer to handle training and coaching. However, the transition took another two years to complete, and my agency was paid the whole time. You can also charge to help recruit people for the client.
Agency Business Models & Growth Strategy in 2030
4. Agency owners question whether to continue owning an agency.
In my work across 600+ firms, rarely does anyone ask, “Should I own an agency?” It sometimes comes up as people consider whether to sell the agency to do something solo, especially if they don’t like managing people. But it’s rarely something people ask themselves before they start their agency.
For me, the first time was when a British ex-pat in Thailand booked a one-off ActionPath consulting call. His biggest freelance client offered to help him start an agency, and he was asking whether he should do it. I asked if he wanted to run an agency and summarized the pros and cons.
It’s hard to answer that question honestly once you have the agency income and infrastructure, even if they also involve debt, Wet Twine employees, and other headaches.
5. Industry consolidation accelerates.
When I was an equity research analyst, companies were always merging in search of higher profit margins. Although mergers often go poorly, that doesn’t stop people from trying.
As agency owners grow their EBITDA (or realize it won’t grow further without major effort), they’re inclined to sell. If you’re ready to sell, this can be lucrative for you and your leadership team. If you’re not prepared, you might miss the boat.
Unless an employee is a superstar who can write their own ticket, consolidation doesn’t bode well for “redundant” roles: sales and operations. But it’s likely helpful for people who join the leadership teams at acquisition-oriented agencies and investment firms.
6. Deeper agency specialization.
In a scarcity economy, most clients want specialists who know their industry. If you need heart surgery, you don’t want just any surgeon. You want the cardiac surgeon who has done your procedure 500 or 1,000 times before.
Shifting back to agencies, specialized expertise will be all the more important as AI models churn out low-quality marketing. Every client needs expertise; smart clients want it.
Semi-related, agencies won’t be called “digital” any more. Most people believe this already in 2025; we just haven’t found a new name for them yet. But we’ll have that largely sorted out in five years.
Agency Pricing & Services in 2030
7. AI creates new agency revenue streams.
Instead of solely replacing human work, AI will open up new services that agencies can monetize.
- AI-powered real-time consumer insights, hyper-personalized campaigns, and predictive marketing models will create premium offerings beyond basic execution.
- Agencies that master AI-driven creativity and analytics will sell proprietary tools and methodologies, creating licensing or subscription-based revenue.
- While clients may push back on implementation costs, they’ll increasingly pay for expert strategic insights to make sense of AI-generated data and marketing noise.
- Agencies that package AI-driven execution with deep human expertise will thrive, much like law firms charging for both legal research (AI-assisted) and high-value strategic counsel (human-driven).
Your opportunity? Don’t just use AI to be more efficient; package it as a new high-margin service. CMOs want agencies to lead on AI.
Looking for new ideas and ways to up-level your team when it comes to using AI? Join me in San Francisco at AI & Your Agency 2025, for insights on both topics: using AI for clients and using AI for operations.
8. More performance-based contracts.
If you’re good at what you do, you might consider putting some of your clients on performance-based contracts. This would be true value-based pricing rather than the easier-to-do value-anchoring. If you make them an extra $1 million, you might get a base fee plus 10% of the increase. And if it’s an additional $5 million, you’re getting a percentage of that bigger number.
I wouldn’t shift 100% of your clients to performance-based contracts, but start looking at who’s a match. And then read Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns for advice on how to make it happen.
If your current services don’t lend themselves to performance-based incentives, it may be a sign that you want to add new services that are “closer to [client] revenue.” The same is true if you’re charging on a Time & Materials basis.
9. Time & Materials (hourly) pricing disappears.
Before the growth of AI, I was relatively agnostic on hourly pricing. Time & Materials doesn’t capture efficiencies like milestone (deliverable-based) pricing, but it matched what a lot of what agencies’ clients wanted. And it’s easier to fix scope creep in your existing milestone or hourly pricing model than it is to jump to value-based pricing.
AI killed hourly pricing. Once you’ve invested to build a custom model, you can accomplish a lot of marketing, creative, and technical work in a fraction of the time. Under hourly, you just charge for the hour it took to accomplish the task—not for the dozens or hundreds of hours it took to build the model.
Agencies might continue hourly pricing for things like post-launch website maintenance. But it’s a bad idea for new projects or ongoing in-depth retainers.
10. Implementation services continue racing to the bottom.
Clients have always valued strategy more than implementation. The problem for agency revenue growth is that clients aren’t going to sign strategy retainers. Each client shouldn’t need a new strategy every month.
This might lead to your splitting-out strategy work into separate projects. Then, you hire implementation-oriented agencies (white label or back-end agencies) to handle fulfillment, where you oversee the work as a front-end agency. Clients might sometimes hire the outsourced agency directly, but that assumes they can competently supervise the work.
11. Driving revenue via owned media.
Instead of just a lead-generation tool, agencies will turn their owned media into stand-alone profit centers.
- Some agencies will monetize their content directly, creating subscription-based industry insights, training programs, or media properties. See what 1000WATT is doing with their membership program and summit.
- Others will build “micro-communities” of clients, offering premium access to insights, AI-powered tools, or exclusive events. See what Capacity Interactive is doing with their annual bootcamp and now their academy.
- Note that both example agencies are super-niched: 1000WATT to real estate and Capacity to performing arts organizations.
Look at your content and audience as an asset—can you monetize it beyond client work?
Agency Staffing in 2030
12. It’ll be hard to find high-quality mid-career employees.
I’m a fan of remote work, and my own business is 100% remote. I sense that lots of the corporate “return to office” (RTO) mandates seem to be about control-freak bosses, corporate real estate commitments, and companies thinking in-person will fix a drop in profit margins. But the RTO promoters are right about one thing: it’s harder for early-career employees to develop remotely versus in-person.
Those who graduated from college during COVID in 2020 will have 10 years of work experience in 2030. But will it be the experience your agency needs? And will they want to work for you? This will be even more stark for senior employees.
13. Senior team members prefer to work fractionally.
I suspect employees will increasingly start in person and move remotely as soon as their career growth supports it. As 2025’s mid-career employees become [more] senior employees in 2030, will they want to work full-time at a single agency?
Agency life is hard. Not everyone wants to ride the roller coaster. If a fractional executive has a dysfunctional client, the executive can move on—whereas they’re stuck for a while if the dysfunctional organization produced 100% of their income.
This may requires shifts to your team structure, too. Look at what’s working now and what might “break” based on these predictions.
14. Agencies poach in-house talent, thanks to remote and hybrid work.
Consider three current trends: continued growth in corporate RTO, agencies paying a relative “discount” on salaries compared to in-house roles, and workers saying they’d take a salary haircut to be fully remote.
These will combine to create a labor arbitrage opportunity: by offering hybrid or fully remote work, your agency can afford to hire great employees who’d otherwise be in-house.
You’ll still need to pay fairly—or more than fairly, if you want superstars. But you might be able to hire people who wouldn’t have joined you before.
15. Employees will start unionizing.
Unionization likely won’t succeed during the current U.S. administration, but politics are cyclical. As the joke goes, “Companies that deserve unions usually get them.”
You’ll probably be fine if you treat employees fairly—and Millennial Managers help Gen Z employees find meaning in their work. If you’ve delighted in using downturns to squeeze employees, you’ll probably get a union. Or perhaps people will quit, rather than engage.
Agency Business Development in 2030
16. More self-marketing via live thought leadership.
This includes in-person speaking and human guests on podcasts. Your prospective clients need answers to questions. However, some questions are too important to trust AI. They’re more likely to hire someone they heard at a live event or [recorded] live on a podcast.
I want my doctor to use AI to help them make diagnoses, but I don’t want the AI to make a diagnosis with zero human intervention. That might change in the more distant future, but probably not between now and 2030.
If you want to do more speaking or podcast guesting, get a copy of my first book, The In-Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice. The tech recommendations (from 2015) are outdated, but the rest still apply.
17. Shift to “owned” media for self-marketing.
Plenty of articles have discussed the dangers of building on “rented” ground (like marketing via TikTok if the platform gets banned in the U.S.), and paid advertising will become noisier.
My marketing strategy is to share useful advice and then encourage people to join my email list. If you aren’t getting the tips, please subscribe; more than one agency leader has called it “the only email [they] read every time.”
For a framework to help you customize this to your agency, check out Gini Dietrich’s PESO Model® (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned).
Earned media will continue to have potential but it’ll be hard without journalist relationships. As I shared via 4As, WSJ editor Suzanne Vranica has 72,000+ unread emails.
Agency Operations in 2030
18. AI will finally improve accurate resource-planning projections.
You probably use several different tools to run your agency—PM software, accounting, resource management, and more. Over the next five years, someone will find a way to tie together your systems to provide truly actionable insights.
Imagine an AI system fed with real-time data on your staffing, client work, sales pipeline, and more. Several companies offer the promise of that today. In 2030, it’ll all come together—either as single software, or as middleware that ties things together across multiple systems. Hopefully, they’ll also automate data compliance, instead of your PMs needing to remind people about their timesheets.
19. More DIY business advice via agency communities.
Regarding business advice about agency growth, leaders will continue to hire agency advisors. However, a growing part of the market will rely on DIY solutions for business advice.
This includes leaders asking AI tools for advice—and joining agency communities and associations like 4As, Bureau of Digital, Grow Your Agency, Nostos Network, and SoDA. If you’re in a storm, sticking together’s usually better than spreading out.
Recap of Karl Sakas’ 19 predictions for agencies in 2030
Here are my 19 predictions in a single list, summarizing the detailed version above.
- Clients continue pressuring agencies to cut costs.
- Clients hire agencies instead of adding paid staff.
- Agencies train clients that take work in-house.
- Agency owners question whether to continue owning an agency.
- Industry consolidation accelerates.
- Deeper agency specialization.
- AI creates new agency revenue streams.
- More performance-based contracts.
- Time & Materials (hourly) pricing disappears.
- Implementation services continue racing to the bottom.
- Driving revenue via owned media.
- It’ll be hard to find high-quality mid-career employees.
- Senior team members prefer to work fractionally.
- Agencies poach in-house talent, thanks to remote and hybrid work.
- Employees will start unionizing.
- More self-marketing via live thought leadership.
- Shift to “owned” media for self-marketing.
- AI will finally improve accurate resource-planning projections.
- More DIY business advice via agency communities.
OK, so what now?
How to prepare your agency: What next
Are you wondering what might happen that’s unique to your industry focus, but you’re not where to even start? Break through strategy writer’s block with this framework via Pete Caputa and his team at Databox. And don’t do it alone; rally your leadership team to help.
Triage the list
When it comes to risk management, I suggest looking at angles that I share in my Calm the Chaos book:
- What’s most likely to happen?
- What might not be as likely to happen, but would be catastrophic if it did?
- What if things go extremely well?
If one of my predictions is unlikely—but it would have a huge negative impact on your agency if it comes true—you probably want to create a contingency plan. That also includes preparing for things to go extremely well; that becomes its own kind of problem.
Focus on strong positioning and execution
Rather than big firms dominating, specialist agencies with deep niche expertise will command premium fees—especially as AI commoditizes generalist marketing.
- Clients will value human intuition, creativity, and problem-solving, making agencies with a strong POV and niche authority indispensable.
- The growth in performance-based pricing means high-value agencies will share in client successes, boosting profits for clients and agencies alike.
- You’ll create a labor model that works for the future, instead of the one you cobbled together in the past.
Be bold. If you dare to make some tough choices now and over the next five years, you’ll be ready for what’s next.
Get my help at your agency
Want my expert help preparing for your agency’s unique future? Strengthen your agency today to give yourself extra runway. Check out my Agency Growth Diagnostic and then get in touch. You’ll get custom advice within 4-6 weeks of kickoff so you can start preparing for 2025 and 2030.
Want free advice about what to do about the predictions? Register for my April 8th Agency Office Hours, for more info and live Q&A.
Question: What else do you predict about agencies in 2030?
