According to the Association of National Advertisers, 82% of its members now operate an in-house agency — up from 58% in 2013. The more striking figure is velocity: 65% of members have moved an established piece of business in-house within just the past three years. Gartner’s CMO survey completes the picture: 39% of this year’s CMOs plan to cut agency spend, and 22% explicitly cite AI as the reason it reduced their need for external agencies.
This isn’t an answer to “will agencies win or will brands” — that’s already the wrong question. What’s actually shifting is where each capability sits. Execution can move in-house because AI now scales it; but the judgment that directs execution — cultural intuition, brand voice — remains scarce and remains a negotiation. As the creative team inside the brand grows, the question of who leads it becomes more critical, not less — the exact problem DonerColle just solved, at a different table.