What Does an “Agent” Actually Do Anymore?
If you’ve been paying attention to agency news lately, it feels like the industry is going through a bit of an identity spiral. Between holding company consolidation, platform power plays like The Trade Desk deepening ties with networks like Publicis Groupe, and a steady rise in brands bringing media capabilities in-house, the question keeps surfacing in different forms: what is an agency actually supposed to do right now?
Or more specifically, what does it mean to act as an “agent” on behalf of a brand?
The definition should be simple. An agent is someone who acts on behalf of another in their best interest. But in modern media, that clarity has been lost. Agencies now position themselves across an increasingly fragmented set of capabilities, from performance and strategy to AI, creative, social, SEO, influencer, and beyond. Meanwhile, most brands aren’t looking for a menu of services. They’re looking for someone who can make their life easier and help the business grow.
As Campfire Senior Account Strategist Aidan Clark puts it, “Agencies have started to look like everything to everyone. But most brands aren’t asking for all of that. They’re asking for someone who can actually simplify the complexity and move the business forward.”
“Agencies have started to look like everything to everyone. But most brands aren’t asking for all of that. They’re asking for someone who can actually simplify the complexity and move the business forward.”
That disconnect is where things start to break down. Industry coverage from Ad Age and Campaign has framed the current shift as one driven by control. Brands want closer proximity to their data, more transparency into decision-making, and greater ownership over outcomes. In response, agencies have expanded their positioning, often blurring the lines between what they can do and what they should do.
The result is a market full of mismatched expectations. Brands enter relationships expecting transformation, while agencies stretch to present themselves as capable of delivering across every discipline. In reality, most are built to solve a narrower set of problems. When that gap isn’t acknowledged upfront, it shows up later in underperformance, misaligned KPIs, and reporting that looks polished but lacks real accountability.
Clark describes it more bluntly: “It’s like buying a house in cash and somehow still ending up underwater in a mortgage. Everyone thinks they’re getting certainty, but the structure underneath doesn’t support it.”
At its core, the issue isn’t a lack of capability. It’s a lack of alignment. And that’s where the definition of an agent becomes more useful again, not as a broad label, but as a responsibility. Acting as an agent means operating in someone else’s best interest, even when it’s not the easiest or most commercially attractive path. It requires acknowledging limitations, setting clear expectations, and, in some cases, recommending solutions that reduce your own scope in favor of a better outcome.
“The real job is fiduciary in nature,” Clark says. “You’re responsible for helping someone navigate complexity and make better decisions, not just executing tasks.”
That’s a harder road, especially in an industry that has historically rewarded scale, volume, and the ability to say yes to everything. Large holding companies will continue to win on scale. Platforms will continue to automate execution. In-house teams will continue to move closer to the data and the business itself. None of that eliminates the need for agencies, but it does narrow where they can create meaningful value.
“Smaller, independent agencies aren’t going to outscale the holdcos but we can outthink them. The value is in the clarity you bring, not the volume you push.”
Increasingly, that value sits upstream. In strategy. In audience understanding. In interpreting signals across channels and translating them into decisions that hold together over time. It is less about pushing volume through platforms and more about helping brands understand where to show up, when, and why.
“Smaller, independent agencies aren’t going to outscale the holdcos,” Clark notes. “But we can outthink them. The value is in the clarity you bring, not the volume you push.”
The agency identity crisis isn’t a sign that the model is disappearing. It’s a sign that it’s being forced to specialize. The idea of the agency as an all-in-one solution is giving way to something more focused and more accountable. Not everything to everyone, but the right partner for a specific role in a much more complex system.
In a landscape increasingly shaped by automation and consolidation, the role of an agent isn’t expanding. It’s narrowing. And the agencies that embrace that shift, rather than resist it, are the ones that will remain essential.
