The news: Omnicom’s 2025 annual report placed strong emphasis on clients, AI, and its merger with IPG—but shied away from mentioning its talent pool.

A keyword index from NotebookLM cited by Mediapost indexed the word “clients” 111 times; “media” 104 times; “advertising” 60 times; and “AI” 41 times. The words human and people were only indexed a combined 8 times.

The trend: Agencies and holding companies continue to shift away from human talent in the digital age, evidenced by mass layoffs and the ongoing AI race.

• Omnicom and IPG cut a significant 8,200 roles pre-merger, a 6.4% reduction in combined headcount. Post-merger, the company announced plans to lay off about 4,000 additional employees; an additional 10,000 were expected to be impacted by sell-offs.
• Layoffs in the ad industry are widespread. The overall trend of US ad jobs pointed downwards from September 2024 to May 2025; increased use of AI is the most likely factor to influence an organization’s decision to layoff employees, per Careerminds.
• 91% of US senior agency leaders expect AI to reduce headcount, per Sunup.

Rather than employing new and emerging talent, holding companies are largely shifting focus to enhancing AI capabilities. Publicis has acquired content intelligence company AdgeAI and data management platform Lotame to reinforce its CoreAI offering; Omnicom is using its IPG acquisition to expand its enterprise genAI capabilities; WPP struck a deal with Google AI and continues to push its AI marketing engine WPP Open.

Modern client expectations are driving the shift. As AI-driven content creation becomes more accessible through self-serve tools from industry leaders like Google and Meta, agencies now have to work hard to prove that their operations are AI-driven, automated, and better than alternatives.

The need to prove valuable is emphasized by the 73% of teams who have reduced agency budgets because of successful agentic AI adoption, per Typeface. Meanwhile, 81.3% of senior agency professionals say AI will shape the next decade of digital advertising, according to Basis Technologies.

Implications for agencies: AI will continue pressuring headcounts and eliminating junior talent—but the agencies that succeed long-term will leverage AI for its ability to streamline tasks while keeping human oversight a key part of strategy.

Clients do expect agencies to use AI for more efficient processes, but they simultaneously seek agencies that are leaders in judgment and creative differentiation—areas where humans still outperform. Over-automating risks weakening the diversity of thought that convinces clients to stick with agencies long-term, even amid the rise of more affordable, self-serve options.