How Much Longer Can The Agency/Client Model Survive?
While the FTE-based model is flawed and often exploited, its one saving grace is that it creates predictable billing for both sides. But there’s a new problem. With a single AI-enhanced, well-trained FTE capable of outproducing entire teams, the math changes. Now what?
Agencies serve an extremely important purpose. They bring fresh, bright talent with an outside perspective and have the capacity to explore and innovate in ways that in-house teams do not. As AI forces us to separate creativity (humans) and execution (machines), new innovative workflows will naturally emerge. Human-AI co-worker teams will attend to these workflows and all of this will require leadership to evolve.