Modern Retail+ Research: Expectations around AI are straining brand-agency relationships
Overall, agencies’ top concerns this year are client spending and the effects of AI. Thirty-eight percent of agency professionals anticipated that the biggest challenge the agency industry will face in 2026 is reduced client budgets, while 38% said the same about the effects of AI. That’s according to a Modern Retail+ Research survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2025 among 62 agency professionals.