The news: At CES 2026, agency holding companies made it clear that agentic AI is reshaping how work gets done.

• Omnicom unveiled its latest version of Omni, framing it as an agentic AI operating layer that guides, rather than replaces, human decision-making.
• Stagwell used CES to unveil The Machine, an AI-powered marketing operating system designed to orchestrate workflows end-to-end without replacing existing tools.
• Havas announced AVA, a global AI portal that centralizes access to leading large language models while keeping human judgment at the center of decision-making.
• WPP introduced Agent Hub, an internal marketplace of vetted AI agents embedded within WPP Open to operationalize decades of proprietary brand, behavioral, and creative intelligence.

These agencies are converging on a similar idea: AI should have a place in every stage of workflows, while sitting on top of existing tools rather than replacing them.

Why it matters: These CES announcements show agencies repositioning AI not as a bolt-on tool, but as the operating layer that links insight to action, standardizes workflows, accelerates execution, and redefines how value is created and measured across the marketing ecosystem.

Zooming out: The shift comes amid a clear adoption gap. Agencies use AI mainly for ideation, not execution: 86% use it for brainstorming and 72% for research, but just 44.4% for process efficiency and only 20% for media strategy, per Basis Technologies.

Senior leaders are starting to prioritize operational AI, yet adoption isn’t keeping pace. MiQ reports that 35% of marketers use AI for campaign management and 39% for automation, showing growing comfort with AI-driven performance. Yet workflow fragmentation and AI saturation are causing anxiety: 57% of leaders fear AI content oversupply will hurt organic reach, and 35% worry about disruption and job security—fueling the push to frame agentic AI as an augment rather than a human replacement.