By Federico Soto Roland — Brand Strategy, AI & Digital Director, NSB Agency.
This week we held MAGNET's second annual meeting of 2026 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and, as you might expect, the event's claim centered on AI: «CreAItively Indispensable».
Over three days, agencies from different regions of the world debated the present of our business and how we picture agencies heading into 2030. These are my main takeaways.
- AI is a point of no return in our business.
Just as happened with the arrival of the Internet and digital communication, AI is already transforming the agency world: creativity, strategy, branding, media and digital production.
Although there was no absolute consensus, the vast majority believe its impact on how we work will be 10 times greater than the Internet's. Mainly because this intelligence cuts across much of the core of our business and the way we create value for our clients.
- Smaller, more senior teams.
Here there was near-unanimity: many of the tasks we do today, especially the lower-value-added ones, will be automated, absorbed by clients' in-house teams or outsourced to lower-cost freelancers.
We're talking about the tactical execution of digital media campaigns, simple content —usually organic—, design adaptations and informational pieces with little creative development, among others.
Agencies will focus on strategy and higher-value solutions, where judgment, know-how, seniority and sector experience will be key to differentiating ourselves from AI's «average» output.
- The value and pricing of our solutions.
One of the big discussions of the coming months will be how to distribute the productivity gains AI brings to creative production and media management processes.
That's why it's urgent to rethink the pricing model. Agencies can't keep charging by the hours worked when the value we bring depends, more and more, on judgment, know-how and experience. If, thanks to years of work and our intuitive ability, we can make a strategic decision in a minute, that decision shouldn't be worth less for having taken less time.
Clients themselves are also starting to rethink this logic. Pricing per deliverable was the model that came up most strongly, though there will also be room for hybrid schemes and service-tokenization models, like the one we already use at NSB.
- The speed of the impact.
Where there was least agreement was on the speed and depth of the change toward 2030. No one has a magic wand to know where we'll be. Those who anticipate a near-term dystopian future may be getting ahead of the adoption curve and of AI's real impact on the business. Those who resist facing its consequences may be being too optimistic.
We'll have to revisit our assumptions every six months or, at most, once a year. Adjusting as the technology, the negotiations with clients and the agency models evolve. With the acceleration we're seeing, 2027 will be another pivotal year.
There was agreement that agencies working with large corporations could experience a slower transition than those serving small and mid-sized companies, because of the greater resistance to change and lower appetite for risk in those organizations. In fact, several agencies in the network mentioned they still have clients that expressly prohibit the use of AI in developing strategies and creative campaigns.
- Offshore production and execution as a way to cut costs.
In a scenario where prices for many of our tasks will tend to fall, one way to protect margins will be to develop service centers, partnership agreements or freelancer networks in countries with more competitive costs, such as Argentina, Vietnam, Colombia, Poland or India.
Argentina has an advantage over other regions thanks to its cultural proximity to the United States and a time zone compatible with the East Coast. Producing and executing at lower costs will be an important tool to sustain profitability during the transition to the new operating and business model that AI will bring.
- New opportunities for solutions, products and services.
AI also opens opportunities to develop new businesses. There was agreement that one of them will be the creation of products, SaaS and other packaged solutions that combine data, analysis, business know-how and software, and that generate revenue through usage licenses.
Moreover, the speed at which these technologies evolve favors small organizations, able to learn, test and implement faster than large ones. For those of us working with large corporations, that agility can become a competitive advantage. Flexibility, adaptability, speed of learning and response, and focus on the value we bring to the client will be central attributes of our business.
At the close of the meeting, we all wrote our predictions about what our agencies —and the industry— will look like in 2030. We stored them in a «time capsule» to be opened by whoever is leading MAGNET and its agencies by then.
We'll see who came closest to anticipating what's next.
