Agencies and consultancies that sell hours are racing to sell software and results instead

How the business works

Four kinds of firm rent out expert time that AI makes cheaper

The leaders on our list run four kinds of business that outsiders tend to lump together as "agencies" or "consultants." They share one feature: most of their revenue comes from billing clients for skilled people's time, by the hour, by the full-time person on a retainer, or as a markup on a contractor's pay.

Each row names one of several pressures; the numbers section below has the trend lines.

Agencies earn retainers, project fees, and money on media

A creative agency is usually paid a retainer sized by the number of full-time people assigned to a client, plus fees for projects. A media agency plans and buys advertising and earns a fee on what it spends, and more and more often a margin on media it buys itself and resells, known as principal media. The research firm Forrester expected principal media to reach nearly a third of agency billings in 2026. Forrester PR firms work much the same way as creative agencies, on retainers and projects priced by hours.

Consultancies and staffing firms sell time by the hour

Consultancies staff projects with analysts and managers and bill by the hour or day, or agree a fixed price. Staffing firms place contractors with clients and earn the gap between what the client pays and what the worker earns. Marketing and creative staffing is a small corner of the industry: the nine largest firms in it had $1.6 billion of US revenue, about two-thirds of the segment, by Staffing Industry Analysts' count. Staffing Industry Analysts

The numbers now

Clients keep buying advice while spending less on agencies and temps

The government's monthly jobs count shows the split. Consulting employment grew through the pandemic and is still near its peak; advertising and PR employment is flat; and temporary help, which includes creative staffing, has shrunk for three years.

Three pressures sit under the numbers:

• Clients want AI's savings in the price. Leaders interviewed by the 4A's, the US agency trade group, say "pricing models built on hours and headcount start to break" as AI automates the work. 4A's Martin Sorrell says getting clients to stop paying by the hour is proving harder than predicted. Digiday
• Clients are doing more themselves. 82% of ANA members had an in-house agency in 2023, and the ANA expects that share to peak at 85% to 90%. ANA
• Consulting demand is slow. Accenture's new bookings fell 3% in local currency in its quarter to May 2026, and its filings describe slower client spending, "particularly for smaller contracts with a shorter duration." Accenture Accenture 10-Q

What is changing

Agencies, consultancies, and staffing firms are changing how the work gets done in five ways

The biggest shift is what these firms sell. A firm that bills for hours earns less when AI does more of the work in each hour. The leaders furthest along are building software that does the work, charging for results, and changing how the firm is organized to deliver both.

From 2023 to 2026, the firms changing most are doing one or more of five things. The first three match the three groups of leaders on our list, and each cuts across all four kinds of firm.

The innovators

Seven leaders on our list are rebuilding firms that sell expert time

Seven agency, consulting, and staffing leaders are among The Originals. Each runs a firm that its founders, a family, or its employees control, and each has made a dated, costly change to how the work is done. The highest scorers are John H. Chuang of Aquent (7.1), George Popstefanov of PMG (7.0), and Bill Koenigsberg of Horizon Media (5.5).

Building their own AI

George PopstefanovOn the list · 7.0 of 10

Founder and CEO, PMG · Dallas; independent, privately held marketing and media agency with more than 1,000 people and 13 hub offices, by its own count

George runs every PMG account on Alli, the operating system the agency built, and has created Alli Buyer Cloud as its own alternative to ad-buying software. Digiday reports that PMG refuses principal-based media buying, puts part of its fee at risk against client targets, and redeployed staff rather than cut them when accounts left. Digiday He has folded acquisitions into Alli: the retail-media firm Momentum Commerce in 2025 and the influencer agency Digital Voices in January 2026. PMG MarTech Edge

“We've always been based on growth and outcomes and service strategy.” source

Ask aboutWhen a client's results improve because of pricing, distribution, or a competitor stumbling, how PMG and the client agree on what PMG caused.

Richard EdelmanOn the list · 5.3 of 10

CEO, Edelman · New York; family-owned communications firm, part of DJE Holdings, which also owns Zeno Group; more than 6,000 people by one trade count

Richard is turning Edelman into one integrated firm built around its own AI. In December 2024 he cut about 330 jobs, closed six specialist brands, and hired more than 200 creative staff in Colombia to compete for marketing budgets. PR Daily He said Edelman was investing in its own large language model built on 25 years of Trust Barometer data. Marketing-Interactive In 2025 the firm introduced ECOS, an internal AI operating system, alongside Archie, its in-house trust model, and in May 2026 it merged its AI, data science, and research teams into Edelman Intelligence. ContentGrip O'Dwyer's Headcount is from Everything-PR. Everything-PR

“We are best when we bring the full force of Edelman to the complex problems facing our clients. Corporate affairs, marketing and government affairs are now all closely aligned on the client side.” source

Ask aboutOne decision a client changed because Edelman's trust model flagged a risk before a survey or the news did, and whether clients pay for that as a product.

John H. ChuangOn the list · 7.1 of 10

Founder and CEO, Aquent · Boston; privately held creative and marketing staffing firm he founded in 1986; Aquent publishes no headcount, and the list's figure of about 10,000 likely includes contractors on assignment

In early 2026 John launched Skill, a recruiting technology company run alongside Aquent whose AI writes and optimizes job ads. He described Skill's move toward a model with no recruiters. Aquent In September 2026 Aquent launched Milton, its own AI engine that searches more than 10 million portfolio pieces by what they show. Aquent Earlier, Aquent went virtual-first, gave up 170,000 square feet of offices, and built six solar farms that came online in 2024 and 2025. Aquent

“I would argue that human beings are actually sort of not qualified to do the initial stage of sourcing because they cannot absorb data,” source

Ask aboutWhether Skill, with no recruiters, and Aquent, with them, are two deliberate bets, and which one Aquent's recruiters will work in five years from now.

Selling results instead of hours

Bill KoenigsbergOn the list · 5.5 of 10

Founder and CEO, Horizon Media Holdings · New York; privately held parent of Horizon Media, an independent media agency with more than 2,400 people

Bill formed Horizon Global with Havas in September 2025, a joint venture with $20 billion in combined billings that merges the two firms' AI platforms into BluConverged. Havas In March 2026 Horizon named Bhavana Smith to a new chief operating officer role to move the firm away from traditional billing toward pay tied directly to client results. Pulse 2.0 In June 2026 it added AI buying agents to its Blu platform; the release puts Horizon Media's staff at more than 2,400. PR Newswire

“Built exclusively for the needs of the modern global marketer, Horizon Global is rewriting the agency network playbook.” source

Ask aboutWhich client contract Horizon has moved off staff-time billing so far, and how the two sides measure the outcome.

Mal VivekOn the list · 4.6 of 10

Founder and CEO, zeb · Wilmington, Delaware; founded in 2023, with offices in Canada, India, and Ireland; privately held, woman-owned AI and data consultancy; more than 1,500 technologists in 2024, by its own count

Mal restructured zeb over 2025 into a flat, builder-only firm with no engineering specialties, delivering work through its own Substrate system, and zeb says every engagement comes with a 100% outcome guarantee. zeb zeb prices work in what it calls Engineering Capacity Units, agreed upfront, rather than by the hour. zeb It signed a co-investment agreement with Amazon Web Services in November 2025 and became an OpenAI Select Partner in August 2026. zeb PR Newswire The headcount is from a 2024 zeb release. zeb

“AI is not the reason we restructured. AI is the deadline on a restructuring that was always overdue,” source

Ask aboutWhat share of deals zeb has turned down or re-scoped since offering the outcome guarantee, and what happened the first time an outcome didn't ship.

Rewiring how the firm is run

Chris MeyerOn the list · 3.8 of 10

CEO, Project Worldwide · Auburn Hills, Michigan; 100% employee-owned network of 13 agencies and 45 offices with about 2,300 people; previously CEO of its experiential agency George P. Johnson

Chris moved all of Project Worldwide's AI and digital transformation work under one agency, Wondersauce, in August 2026, making it the network's business transformation partner for clients. GlobeNewswire via The Manila Times A month earlier he restructured the leadership team, promoting the chief operating officer to president and naming the network's first global chief creative officer. micebook The 4A's credits him with buying the design agency Cresci's. 4A's

“Today, those experiences extend to the platforms and intelligent systems that shape daily customer relationships.” source

Ask aboutHow he got sister agencies in an employee-owned network to send their clients' digital budgets to Wondersauce, and whether employee ownership made that easier.

Larry EnglishOn the list · 4.9 of 10

Co-founder and CEO, Centric Consulting · Dayton, Ohio; privately held management and technology consultancy, remote-first since its founding in 1999; more than 1,200 people, by its own count; CEO since June 2023

Larry has restructured Centric so its AI work reports directly to him, and the firm now rewrites its own AI strategy every eight weeks. Centric In October 2024 Centric launched a solutions model that builds AI into all of its services, with a dedicated AI team. Centric Weeks after he became CEO in 2023, Centric bought the cyber risk firm The Mako Group. CIO Influence Centric

“You have to get your hands dirty. You've got to see what's being built. You've got to talk to customers,” source

Ask aboutWhen an eight-week rewrite of the AI strategy makes client work faster mid-project, who gets the savings: the client or Centric.

A new consulting CEO outside the list is redesigning his firm around AI

Anthony Shaw isn't on the list because he is UK-based and his redesign of North Highland began in June 2026.

Anthony Shaw

Global CEO, North Highland · Atlanta-headquartered management consultancy with more than 2,800 consultants and 65 offices; he is its first UK-based global head

Anthony became global CEO on June 1, 2026, with a mandate to rebuild the firm around AI, and says North Highland is investing in its own AI capabilities: staff learning, tools, and how knowledge is shared. North Highland Consultancy.uk

“The organisations that will thrive in the next five years won't be the ones who added AI to their toolkit. They'll be the ones who redesigned around it.” source

Ask aboutWhich part of North Highland he has redesigned first, as opposed to adding AI to it.

The wider field

Holding companies, big consultancies, and AI-first rivals set the going rate

A few large firms and software companies shape what the leaders above can charge and whom they can hire.

Large firms

• Omnicom Bought Interpublic in November 2025 and says its Omni AI platform was in the hands of all employees by early 2026.
• WPP New CEO Cindy Rose is reorganizing it as a single company with four operating units and expects about 500 million pounds of gross savings.
• Publicis Groupe Committed 300 million euros over three years to CoreAI in January 2024, built on its Marcel platform and consumer data.
• Accenture Song Accenture's marketing and creative arm; bought the UK customer-data firm Sagacity in October 2026.
• McKinsey Counts 20,000 AI agents among its 60,000 "employees" and says it is moving toward outcome-based fees.
• S4 Capital (Monks) Martin Sorrell's digital agency group, which is moving clients from paying for time to subscriptions.

Companies selling the tools

• Brandtech Group (Pencil) Sells AI ad production through its Pencil platform; valued at about $4 billion after a $115 million round in March 2024.
• Stagwell's The Machine An AI operating system for marketing launched in January 2026, built with Palantir and Gradial as partners.
• FreeWheel (Comcast) Launched AI agents for buying premium video ads in March 2026, piloted with PMG.
• Torc (Randstad) An AI-matched marketplace for digital professionals that the staffing giant Randstad bought in May 2024.

How clients find a firm

Search consultants, purchasing teams, and media sellers stand between these firms and their clients

Agencies and consultancies rarely win large clients on their own. Big marketers hire search consultants to run reviews; purchasing teams set rates and payment terms; staffing programs make suppliers compete on rate; and in media and cloud work, sellers pay the firm. The map shows who pays whom.

Search consultants decide who gets in the room

Large marketers hire consultants to run agency reviews; 46% of marketers use one, and 39% of agencies hire their own to defend an account. Marketing Dive The field is consolidating: MediaSense, which bought R3 in November 2024, says it handles "half of all Fortune 500 creative, media and integrated reviews." MediaSense The global agency trade body VoxComm has complained that agencies which don't pay some intermediaries a fee "may not be put forward for pitch shortlists." EACA

A few owners control the brands independents pitch against

• Omnicom Bought Interpublic in November 2025, with pro forma revenue above $25 billion.
• WPP Reorganizing into a single company with four operating units under its new CEO.
• Publicis Groupe Built its business around its Marcel and CoreAI platforms.
• Havas Partner with Horizon Media in the Horizon Global joint venture.

Cloud partners and staffing programs shape consulting and staffing work

Technology consultancies such as zeb and Centric win much of their work alongside cloud and software companies, which refer deals and fund some partner work instead of charging a fee. A study commissioned by Amazon Web Services found expert partners can earn up to $6.40 in services for every $1 a client spends on AWS. TechTarget Creative staffing firms face the opposite: large clients buy contractors through managed programs and their software, and the staffing firm usually pays the program's fee. KORE1

State and city hiring rules reach staffing firms, recruiters, and agencies that use freelancers

Three leaders run channels these firms depend on

Doug Leeby's Beeline runs staffing programs for large companies; Hayden Brown's Upwork connects clients with freelancers and small shops; and Bob Liodice's ANA represents the marketers who hire agencies.

Doug Leeby

CEO, Beeline · Vendor management software that large companies use to hire and pay staffing suppliers and contractors

Doug runs one of the main programs that sit between large clients and staffing firms; in most US programs the suppliers pay the fee. In June 2025 Beeline bought MBO Partners, which handles independent contractors, extending its reach from staffing firms to freelancers. Beeline

“Managing independent contractors outside the VMS has historically led to fragmentation, inefficiency, and unnecessary risk.” source

Ask aboutWhether his clients now buy creative and marketing talent through freelancers more than through staffing firms, and what that does to the firms' fees.

Hayden Brown

President and CEO, Upwork · Public freelance marketplace that keeps a share of every job between clients and freelancers, small agencies, and consultants

Hayden runs Upwork, a freelance marketplace where the value of work fell 4% in the second quarter of 2026 as AI took over simpler jobs, while the share Upwork keeps rose to 19.6%. Panabee In the quarter's results release she said demand is growing for "high-value AI talent" and more complex projects. Upwork

Ask aboutWhich kinds of creative and consulting work are moving from agencies to freelancers on Upwork, and which are moving to AI.

Bob Liodice

CEO, Association of National Advertisers (ANA) · The trade group for brand marketers, the clients who hire agencies; it sets the client side's norms on reviews, payment terms, and media buying

Bob's ANA tracks principal media: its March 2026 study found 58% of marketers used it in the past year and 90% question whether it serves them. ANA In July 2026 the ANA, the 4A's, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) agreed to set up a cross-industry AI leadership council. ANA

“Marketers should always understand whether their agency is acting as an agent or a principal in any media transaction.” source

Ask aboutWhat the ANA tells members to ask an independent agency about principal media that it wouldn't ask a holding company.

Trade-offs

6 trade-offs divide the agency and consulting leaders you'll meet

Most leaders on our list have picked a side on several of these. In our reading, asking which side they picked, and why, gets to their strategy faster than asking about trends.

Before a first conversation

These leaders want to talk about pricing, independence, and how juniors learn

Leaders across all four businesses face the same question from clients: if AI does part of the work, why pay the old price? The 4A's calls outcome-based pay "the inevitable direction of travel," but few contracts have moved yet. 4A's Digiday The leaders on our list talk about three things: what to sell instead of hours, how to stay independent as the holding companies consolidate, and how to train people when AI does the junior work.

7 mistakes mark an outsider

• Saying AI will make agencies obsolete. The leaders interviewed by the 4A's describe the job moving from production to work clients can't do alone, and expect basic production to move in-house while agencies take on newer work. 4A's
• Assuming the billable hour is already dead. Outcome pay is still mostly small pilots, and Martin Sorrell says moving clients off the billable hour is "change management." Digiday Digiday
• Calling an independent "just a smaller holding company." Independents define themselves by whose interests they serve, as well as by who owns them; one agency marketing chief calls the ownership-only definition "technically accurate but incomplete." The Current
• Opening with "isn't principal media just a kickback?" Marketers who use it cite lower cost; the argument is about disclosure. The useful question is how they handle it. ANA
• Treating staffing as a commodity business. 45% of marketing and creative leaders told Robert Half that skilled people are harder to find than a year ago. Robert Half
• Treating a channel that charges no fee as free. A losing agency spends about $204,000 on a pitch run by a search consultant. 4A's
• Asking when they plan to sell. Independence and succession are better framed as a design choice than as an exit date.

10 questions get these leaders talking about the work

1. Forrester expected agency jobs to fall 15% in 2026. Where has AI changed who does the work at your firm, and where has it changed nothing?
2. If an hour of work now produces three times as much, what are you charging for?
3. Which client has agreed to pay on results, and what made them say yes?
4. Since Omnicom and Interpublic combined, have mid-sized clients come looking for an alternative? What do they say they're leaving?
5. What has gone in-house at your biggest clients, and what has come back out?
6. How do you train a new graduate when the tasks people used to learn on are automated?
7. What does your own platform do that a client couldn't buy from a software company?
8. How much of your new business comes from your own reputation and network, and how much from search consultants, procurement panels, or technology partners?
9. What did you stop doing in the last 18 months that you used to think was core?
10. What would you do differently if you were starting the firm today at 200 people instead of 2,000?

Where they gather

8 events bring these leaders together before July 2027

Agency leaders gather at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) conferences, Cannes Lions, and POSSIBLE; PR leaders at the PRovoke summits; staffing owners at Staffing Industry Analysts' forums. Dates are from each organizer's or venue's page.

Glossary

25 terms come up in the first ten minutes

AOR

Agency of record: the agency a client names as its main partner for a discipline, such as creative or media, under a long-term contract.

Bill rate

The hourly or daily price a firm charges for a person's time.

Co-sell

A cloud or software company and a consultancy pursue a client deal together, and the platform credits or funds the partner.

DSP

Demand-side platform: software buyers use to bid for digital ads across many sites and apps.

Earned media

Coverage a brand gets without paying for it, such as press articles; the core product of PR firms.

ESOP

Employee stock ownership plan: a trust that buys an owner's shares for the employees, used to sell a firm without selling to an outside buyer.

Holding company

A public parent that owns many agency brands, such as Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, or dentsu. Often shortened to holdco.

In-house agency

A team inside the client company that does creative, content, or media work an outside agency would otherwise do.

Independent

An agency or consultancy not owned by a holding company; usually owned by its founders, a family, its employees, or private equity.

MSP and VMS

A managed service provider runs a client's contract-hiring program; a vendor management system is the software suppliers bid and bill through. Suppliers usually pay the fee.

Network of independents

A membership group, such as ICOM or Worldwide Partners, through which independent agencies in different countries share clients without merging.

Outcome-based pricing

Fees tied to a measured client result, such as sales or cost saved, rather than to hours worked.

Pitch

A competitive review in which several agencies present ideas and terms to win an account, often unpaid.

Principal media

The agency buys ad space itself and resells it to the client at a price it sets, rather than buying at cost plus a fee.

Procurement

The client's purchasing department, which negotiates agency fees and terms and often sits in on agency selection.

Programmatic

Buying digital ads through automated auctions run by software.

Pyramid

Many juniors under a few seniors: the classic shape of a consulting or agency team.

Realization

The share of standard bill rates a firm collects after discounts and write-offs.

Rebates

Payments from media sellers to an agency based on volume; clients often argue these should be passed back to them.

Retainer

A fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope of ongoing work.

Scope creep

Work the client asks for beyond the contract, which the firm often absorbs without being paid.

Search consultant

An adviser a client hires to run an agency review and often to negotiate the agency's fee; also called a pitch consultant.

T&M

Time and materials: the client pays for hours worked at agreed rates, plus expenses.

Take rate

The share of each job a marketplace such as Upwork keeps.

Utilization

The share of a person's available hours billed to clients; the main margin lever in a people business.

Read more

Three pieces explain the merger, the pricing fight, and consulting's AI bet

• As Omnicom subsumes IPG, a new, stratified reality for Madison Avenue emerges (Marketing Brew) What the biggest agency merger means for mid-sized clients and for independent agencies, with named analysts.
• Look Ahead 2026: The Agency's Next Job, From Execution to Existential Value (4A's) Agency CEOs, a marketing chief, and Forrester on pricing, in-housing, and training junior staff.
• 2026 Consulting's AI Revolution Update: Billions Spent, But the Old Pyramid Persists (Future of Consulting) How McKinsey, the Big Four, and others are spending on AI, and what is happening to junior hiring; some figures are the author's estimates.