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At a Bureau event in Austin, Bart Mroz (Agency Focus) interviews Carl Smith (The Bureau) about where the agency industry is headed in 2026.
Carl argues agencies are stuck chasing past “easy mode” and have become noisy generalists, while clients increasingly tune out synthetic content and plan more agency reviews. He says agencies must shift from professional services vendors to “intelligence agencies” that bring unique insights, deep domain knowledge, and the confidence to challenge clients, building trust through real relationships and strong points of view.
The conversation covers reducing agency size, hyper-niching, human-to-human business development, and the need to give teams space to think rather than optimize only for utilization and headcount growth.
They also discuss shifting pricing models from hourly to blended, accountability-based retainers with performance components, and packaging unique institutional knowledge as a defensible advantage.
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