Investments in AI and talent will drive 2025 agency budgets

As we roll into Q4 and look forward to 2025, agencies are in the thick of decision-making on which investments will propel them forward in the coming year. Despite a backdrop of economic uncertainty, plus somewhat volatile market conditions, ad executives feel well-positioned for growth, and projections have given them confidence: In June, global media investment firm GroupM forecast that ad spend will grow by 7.8% in 2024, pushing projected global ad revenue to $989.8 billion by year-end. 

With an even sunnier outlook for 2025, GroupM also predicted that this figure would surpass $1 trillion in the coming year, with both globalization and artificial intelligence advancement playing key roles.

So it’s no surprise that agencies are doubling down on growth opportunities by investing where it counts, whether it’s talent and culture, data and innovation, or production and AI. For this month’s spotlight, we spoke to leaders from the Amp community to find out where their dollars are going in 2025, and their views on the following major opportunities for the industry:

On talent and culture

Sam Zises, CEO, [L]earned Media

In 2025, our agency will be heavily focused on investing in great talent. While larger agencies are seeing layoffs as clients bring more work in-house, and are using AI tools for efficiency, we recognize this shift as a strategic opportunity. The current market is brimming with experienced professionals who are available for freelance and contract work, allowing us to tap into a diverse pool of highly skilled talent.

This influx of freelance talent positions us uniquely to offer personalized, flexible and innovative solutions to our small- and mid-sized business clients. By hiring on a project basis, we can tailor our teams to match the specific needs of each campaign. This not only ensures top-quality work but also gives our clients access to high-caliber talent without the overhead costs typically associated with larger agencies. 

Our approach allows us to stay agile and responsive, adapting quickly to changing industry trends and client demands. We’ll continue to prioritize individuals who bring both creative vision and technical expertise—particularly in areas like content creation, digital strategy and data-driven marketing.

While AI tools will be a valuable part of the equation for increasing efficiency, we believe that human creativity and strategic insight remain irreplaceable. By investing in top-tier freelance talent, we are positioning ourselves to provide both cutting-edge solutions and the personalized touch that clients still value.

Kyle Johnston, president and founding partner, Gigasavvy

In 2025, Gigasavvy will continue investing in human capital and culture as well as launching our first ever agency campaign in our local market of Orange County, California. Despite the rapid growth of AI, we remain keenly aware that our people are our greatest asset. As demand for creative and content continues to increase, we will be investing in a few strategic roles in design and production to bolster our in-house capabilities, and create cost efficiencies to remain competitive in an increasingly budget-conscious environment. 

We also expect to invest in and host a company retreat later this month, when our entire agency will experience a packed three-day agenda in the California desert. 

And instead of just following the herd of LinkedIn thought leaders posting about their work and perspectives, we plan to launch a more traditional ad campaign of our own in 2025. This campaign will take an openly self-aware approach to our craft and may include various activations across local out-of-home, print and digital media. The creative for this campaign was put together over the course of a few months, was presented to and critiqued by our entire team, and is now in planning for a highly anticipated launch early next year.

Erica Coates, president, integrated brands, Mocean

The advertising industry has been hit hard by the “silent recession.” Financial analysts don’t want to use the “R” word, but we’re feeling it. Many agencies have had to downsize and even shutter. Clients have been doing fewer campaigns and being more selective about big budget campaign spends. 

Despite turbulent waters, Mocean’s client roster has continued to grow. We’ve leaned into the shifting market conditions through investments in new talent, current employees and innovation, including our own proprietary AI tools. Strategy and media have also been priorities for us, as we see spend shifting from traditional platforms to digital and social media. The major trend in advertising has been empowering niche audiences to amplify to the mainstream, a trend that uniquely benefits our legacy of fan engagement and 38 years of entertainment marketing.

On data and innovation

Florian Haller, CEO, Serviceplan Group

In 2025, we will continue investing in innovation and global growth. We’ll keep advancing our AI initiatives, particularly through our AI labs in San Francisco and Munich, with a focus on moving from pilot projects to concrete use cases that deliver measurable business outcome. Additionally, we’ll focus on emerging innovation areas such as cultural marketing, first-party data and spatial computing as key parts of our 2025 strategy.

As part of our global growth, we plan to establish a House of Communication in the U.K., uniting all three of our core agency brands—Serviceplan, Mediaplus and Plan.Net—under one roof. This follows our 2024 acquisition of Total Media Group after a long-term partnership. We will also continue expanding our European media agency network and broadening our health-care offerings to strengthen the Group’s integrated services across key markets.

With these initiatives, we aim to build on the successes of the past year, which brought us 11% revenue growth, and continue pushing boundaries to deliver future-proof solutions for our clients.

Eric Beane, chief analytics and data officer, VML

In 2025, as businesses operate in an increasingly competitive marketplace, they will need to look for growth from new spaces to reach and tap into changing customer preferences. PWC research shows that 49% of CEOs believe these shifts will drive how companies create and deliver value. 

This underscores the critical need for data-informed decision-making. VML’s Marketing Effectiveness & Intelligence (ME&I) group, whose north star is to put insights at the heart of business decisions, will be prioritizing two key areas: business-wide insights and AI-driven advanced analytics.

In an era of content saturation fueled by generative AI, we will further leverage a suite of marketing effectiveness and intelligence capabilities that inform insight-driven growth avenues. These capabilities span from understanding short- and long-term market and consumer growth avenues, through to building the right data infrastructure and marketing effectiveness strategies to improve the return on investment of marketing programs. 

We will continue to leverage AI across our marketing and analytics platforms to deliver faster, smarter and more actionable insights into customer behavior and marketing performance. This will empower our analysts to focus efforts on optimizations, identifying growth opportunities and driving continuous improvement.

John Higgins, CEO and chief creative officer, OS Studios

In 2025, OS Studios will focus on fan acquisition, ensuring that our brands not only serve consumers but also foster genuine fandom. We’ve observed a growing trend where brands across industries—from sports to everyday products like toothpaste—are striving to cultivate a fanbase, not just customers. 

Our investment will center on identifying and engaging passionate fans who resonate with our brands’ stories. By harnessing this energy and enthusiasm, we aim to strengthen our market position and continue winning business. Our strategy will prioritize building deeper connections with fans, making our brands the ones they actively choose to follow and support.

On creativity

Macaela VanderMost, founder and CEO, Newfangled Studios

In 2025, Newfangled Studios will double down on what makes us a leader in creative production—by investing heavily in three core areas: social media, digital video and quick-turn production. These specialized “studios” are part of our strategy to stay ahead of the rapidly changing media landscape, ensuring we create platform-specific work that drives engagement where audiences spend their time.

As global budgets for platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Meta and Snap continue to rise, we’re expanding our team of creative experts and account service pros who know these platforms inside and out. Statista projects global social media budgets to increase by $111.6 billion between 2024 and 2029—a 47.66% growth rate. To meet that demand, we’re crafting more innovative solutions for paid social and digital video, tapping into the full potential of each platform.

Our production studio is the backbone of it all, supporting both digital and social projects from concept to final output. This enables us to scale efficiently, delivering high-quality, agile campaigns for clients who need to move at the speed of today’s market.

Chris Gokiert, CEO, Critical Mass

At Critical Mass, it’s about doing more of what our clients need and delivering more of what we’re in the perfect position to deliver. And one thing that checks both those boxes is creativity. 

At CM, our clients know us as uncompromising designers who intrinsically get how to merge tech and AI innovation with beautiful design to do entirely new and out-of-the-box things that benefit the business and delight customers. That’s a special breed of creativity, and we’re going pedal-to-the-floor, full speed on it. It’s going to be an exciting year.