AI Isn't Replacing Agencies. It’s Separating the Good Ones from the Great.

By Monica Richards, CBO, The Next Rodeo

Every major conference has its defining theme. At Mirren Live 2026, “Next Agency. Now: Mastering The Human + Tech” it was this: AI is no longer a competitive advantage. It's becoming the baseline.

The agencies that treat AI as a side tool, something to experiment with, something to bolt onto existing workflows, are going to find themselves outpaced by the agencies that have embedded it into how they actually operate. This isn’t happening someday in the future. It’s happening right now.

I've spent time the past few weeks thinking about what that really means for The Next Rodeo, and for the broader industry. Here's where I've landed.

The floor is quickly rising.

Leading agencies are using AI to generate briefs, synthesize research, build pitch materials, create synthetic audiences for testing, forecast margins, and produce creative at scale.

What this does is raise the floor on what "competent" looks like. If your competitors can research a market, draft a strategic brief, and build a pitch deck in the time it used to take you to schedule the kick-off call, speed alone is no longer a differentiator.

But here's the part that doesn't get said enough: AI accelerates thinking. It doesn't replace it. The agencies winning with AI are the ones using it to do more of the high-value work that actually moves clients forward.

Expertise, wisdom, and strategic insight remain the differentiators.

Efficiency is a growth lever, not a cost-cutting exercise.

This reframe matters. The most modern agency models with small senior cores, flexible freelance networks, AI-enabled workflows and outcome-based pricing are lean because it makes them faster, more profitable, and more focused on the work that actually matters.

When you build repeatable systems, you free up your best people to do the things that can't be systematized: building client trust, making the creative leap, seeing the opportunity that isn't in the brief yet.

At The Next Rodeo, we think about this constantly. Where are we reinventing the wheel on every engagement? Where could a more structured process or a smarter tool give our team back the time and headspace to do something genuinely exceptional?

The IP question is urgent.

One of the most underappreciated conversations at Mirren was around governance, contracts, and intellectual property. As AI becomes embedded in how agencies work, the questions of who owns what, and how you protect what you've built, matter more than ever.

Our frameworks, our methodologies, our proprietary processes: these are assets. They should be treated like assets. That means clear internal AI policies, updated contracts, and a deliberate strategy around how we license and protect what we've developed.

The culture question is the real question.

Here's what stuck with me most: technology is only as effective as the culture that supports it. Every session that touched on AI eventually circled back to this.

The agencies moving fastest are more curious, more experimental, more operationally disciplined, and more deeply committed to learning. They reward business impact as much as creative excellence. They treat adaptation as a core competency.

That's the culture we're building at The Next Rodeo.

The agencies defining the next decade aren't the biggest ones, or the oldest ones, or even the ones with the most impressive client rosters. They're the ones combining strategic rigor, creative excellence and intelligent operations, and building a culture that can sustain all three.