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Agency Trends for 2026

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By Max Fellows, Founder of allpoints

Five Big Shifts Reshaping the Industry

Fire work New Year display

As we reflect on 2025 and look forward to 2026, it is no secret the agency sector has experienced a slow down in growth and competition has intensified. The traditional agency model still remains under sustained pressure across the board from clients, to procurement, talent shortages to technology. However, opportunity still exists and 2026 will be the year for agencies who are prepared to adapt quickly and decisively.

Here are five major shifts that will be reshaping the agency industry in 2026, and what agency leaders must do to stay ahead. 

1. The Market Will Experience Slower Growth, With More Competition And Tougher Choices

With over 25,000 agencies operating in the UK alone, oversupply has become one of the industry’s biggest structural challenges. Where agencies once enjoyed 30–40% year-on-year growth, most are now operating in a far more constrained environment, with typical growth sitting closer to 6–8%.

The commercial reality is stark, with widespread revenue pressure and margins under constant strain, means many agencies are operating with increasingly thin cashflow buffers. On the opposite end of the scale, buyers within the market will look to consolidate spending and favour agencies that offer scale, as well as multi-disciplinary services with global reach.

2026 will be a barbell market, where well positioned agencies with clear differentiation will continue to win and generalist or undifferentiated agencies will be squeezed. Agency leaders and owners must make tough strategic choices by doubling down on defensible niche offerings or rethinking them completely whilst expanding capability through partnerships or acquisitions.

2. AI Will Move From Experimental Into Adoption

2026 will see AI move from a nice to have,  side project to a fundamental operational capability within the agency landscape. 

Currently only a minority of agencies have implemented a fully formed AI strategy as part of their daily operations. Many are still experimenting with tools in silo and only using AI for pitching and lead generation.

Early adoption agencies are already seeing clear advantages with faster delivery, leaner teams and more scalable offerings. Most notably, AI is shaping client expectations and brands want agencies that can move at the same pace as their internal teams, this can be achieved through the use and adoption of AI. Agencies who choose to ignore AI in 2026 will get left behind. 

In 2026, agencies will need a comprehensive AI strategy that covers:

  • Operations and delivery efficiency
  • Commercial modelling and margin protection
  • Productisation and IP creation
  • Data capture and insight generation

3. Charging Models Will Shift From Time to Value

The traditional day rate model has been under sustained attack for some time now with  value at the heart of the debate. Procurement pressure and budget scrutiny from the client side has exposed the flaws of charging purely for time and resource.

Clients are leaning much more towards outcomes and as a result, agencies are moving towards value-based pricing, with performance-linked fees and profit-share arrangements at the forefront of the agency pricing model. This shift reflects a deeper truth within the industry, that clients hold impact to a higher regard than volume of activity alone. 

For 2026, agencies will experience challenges on two fronts when it comes to implementing the correct charging strategy. First, agencies must be far clearer on the value they create commercially, not just creatively. Secondly, they must build financial models that support this shift from time to value, ensuring risk is priced properly and margins are protected.Those that succeed in doing this will unlock stronger client partnerships and more scalable revenue.

4. Centralised Budgets and the Evolving Role of Procurement

Another major shift is the centralisation of marketing budgets, decision-making power is slowly moving away from local teams and into global or regional hubs, often controlled by procurement.

This changes the buying dynamic significantly, with procurement no longer just a cost-control function, it is now shaping agency rosters and contract structures. Agencies that fail to understand this evolution risk being filtered out before they even reach the pitch stage.

Winning in 2026 means speaking the language of procurement and knowing how they operate inside and out. Agencies need:

  • Clear, transparent pricing
  • Demonstrable ROI and outcomes
  • Scalable, repeatable delivery models
  • Risk mitigation and compliance

Agencies that are able align brand ambition with procurement realities will be far better positioned than those that treat procurement as an obstacle rather than a stakeholder.

5. M&A Continues With Succession Being The Silent Driver

M&A activity in the agency sector will show no sign of slowing down even after 202’s record breaking year. Economic volatility has made deals more complex, but private equity appetite will remain strong throughout 2026, particularly for agencies who offer scale and defensible positioning. 

Crucially, succession is becoming one of the biggest drivers of M&A and 2026 looks to be no different, with many founder-led agencies who have shallow management benches and limited long-term transition plans. As a result, a growing number of founders are being forced to consider their exit options sooner than expected, from minority investment, to a majority sale or a full exit. 

Succession planning is no longer optional, it’s a necessity for all founder-led agency leaders. Buyers in 2026 will be  looking forward, not backward and they want agencies with strong leadership teams, who have clean financials and scalable offerings with AI literacy.

For agency founders looking to exit in the next few years, 2026 represents a narrow window to prepare the business so it is acquirable and attractive to investors.

Looking Ahead 2026 Is The Year For The Leaders, Not The Followers

The agency industry is entering a period of profound change, with oversaturation and slower growth, as well as AI disruption and a looming wave of agency succession, 2026 will be the year that reshapes the agency landscape.

Agencies that thrive in 2026 will be early adopters, who embrace AI into their strategies, and move with the constantly evolving commercial models. They will take time to understand procurement, as well as planning for the future of leadership and ownership.

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Allpoints Insights

M&A’s of the Month: December 2025

Image showing hand and jigsaw image in green and M&A's of the Month: December 2025
By Max Fellows, Founder of allpoints

Bearded Kitten, Bigger Bets and Broader Reach

HAVAS and Bearded Kitten logo

December rounded off a remarkable year for dealmaking across the events, experiential and broader agency ecosystem. Against a backdrop of heightened strategic activity where buyers are increasingly looking to build scale, deepen capabilities and position for solid growth in 2026, December did not disappoint. The month showed a flurry of activity with a set of headline transactions signalling both ongoing trends of consolidation and targeted capability expansion.

The month began with a flurry of mergers and acquisitions from, Eventbrite‘s acquisition by tech group Bending Spoons, to the merger of UK agency OrangeDoor with US experience agency Unbridled. The acquisitions didn’t stop there, we then saw global exhibition and experiential agency 2Heads acquired by communications group Spiro, and production and corporate events agency FIRST being acquired by Encore.

Make no mistake, each of these December deals are reshaping the events and experiential agency landscape. Here is a deep dive at the key December M&A activity and what they really mean for the sector.

Havas strengthens experiential muscle with Bearded Kitten acquisition

Deal: Havas Play acquired UK-based experiential agency Bearded Kitten.

This move marks a strategic push by Havas to deepen its experiential marketing offering within the global Havas Media Network. Bearded Kitten is a multi award-winning agency known for immersive brand activations and end-to-end experience design that brings specialist capabilities in prop-making, theatrical production and immersive campaign delivery to the table.

Founded in 2007 and working with clients including Netflix, Unilever, Google and Disney, the 45-person team now sits alongside Havas Play’s broader experiential proposition within the UK and global market. The acquisition creates a nearly 200-strong experience division within Havas Play UK, underlining their premium position in the high-impact experiential brand market.

Why it matters?

This consolidation speaks to a broader trend within the market where holding groups are enhancing in-house creative and production expertise, especially in immersive and experiential marketing, to meet growing demand from brands seeking differentiated, culture-driven engagement.

Beyond the Headlines: December’s M&A Momentum

While not all deals in the events and agency space have been publicly disclosed or as widely reported, the broader market continues to be buoyant and reflects the momentum we have seen throughout 2025.

Globally M&A activity has rebounded strongly this year, with strategic deals forming a significant part of deal value growth across multiple sectors. Strategic buyers are increasingly using M&A to drive growth and pivot into new capabilities and markets.

Beyond the experiential and events world, large holding companies and networks like Havas are also active in other markets and sectors. Recent acquisitions in media and data assets with the purchase of Australian based independent media group, Kaimera indicates an appetite within the market to explore diversification strategies that straddle traditional creative, tech and data services.

Thought 2026 Outlook For Agencies and Brands

For agencies December’s deals underscore that scale remains a strong differentiator, particularly where strategic offerings or specialist skills such as experiential production can be brought under a unified network. Independent agencies with strong niches and demonstrable capability will continue to attract buyer interest.

For clients and brands consolidation will continue to amplify the value proposition for end-to-end partners looking to combine media, creative, tech and live experiences. Buyers are increasingly seeking seamless delivery models that reduce friction between strategy, creativity and execution.

For the market as a whole, corporate confidence and strategic M&A intent remain healthy,  reflecting a positive outlook for robust dealmaking across varying sectors. Agencies should sharpen their value narratives and consider how scale, specialisation or integration into broader networks might shape their next phase of growth.

Final Thought

December’s activity was anchored by the high-profile Havas-Bearded Kitten deal which reinforces that 2025 is closing with a strong statement on industry consolidation and capability expansion. As we head into 2026, we expect buyers will continue to prioritise deals that incorporate differentiated talent, technology, and immersive experiences.

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Allpoints Insights

Events Sector Shake-Up: Why Yesterday’s M&A Surge Matters

Image showing Deals in green and Midweek M&A’s: A Big Deal For Events
By Max Fellows, Founder of allpoints

Yesterday the events sector saw an unusually high volume of M&A action. Four substantial deals were announced, each with different dynamics, but all pointing to the same trend of consolidation and strategic repositioning.

First, Eventbrite agreed to be acquired by tech group Bending Spoons in an all cash transaction valued at an estimated $500M. 

EventBrite and Bending Spoons logo

Eventbrite will now transition from public ownership into the hands of a private company who own an impressive portfolio of businesses such as Vimeo and WeTransfer to name a few. The tech arm of Bending Spoons signals renewed investment for the Eventbrite platform resulting in improvements in its product capabilities, potentially including AI assisted event creation, better ticketing experiences and improved long-term platform development. 

Secondly, UK based agency OrangeDoor merged with US experience agency Unbridled, combining OrangeDoor’s strong UK creative events and exhibitions heritage with Unbridled’s US experience agency footprint.

Not long after the OrangeDoor and Unbridled announce, global exhibition and experiential agency 2Heads broke the news that they had been acquired by communications group Spiro. Adding 2Heads’ live events and experiential capabilities to Spiro’s current offering will help them broaden their comms and content services.

Finally, production and corporate events agency First has been acquired by Encore, further strengthening Encore’s global agency side footprint and production offering.

Consolidation in Motion: Four Deals Redefining the Events Landscape

These Four deals took place in four distinctive parts of the events market, and all of them were structured under the guise of consolidation, capability aggregation and strategic repositioning.

Why now?

These moves are the industries response to client expectations for end-to-end capability that promotes scale, global reach, and certainty in delivery. Agencies and platforms that can offer breadth of service offering, from creative concept to global delivery, to ticketing tech and live production, are far more attractive to buyers than niche standalone players.

What does it mean for the agency landscape?

Expect tighter competition, raised expectations from clients, and increased pressure on independents. Buyers will look to agencies with depth in their senior leadership, as well as proven delivery, and a diversified service offering. These deals ensure the agencies have a strong operational discipline and long term vision.

At the same time, this wave of consolidation presents a real opportunity for independents with clarity of proposition, strong client retention, disciplined commercial operations and a compelling value narrative. If you are in that position now is the time to sharpen your strategy, invest in structure and consider whether you want to build for scale or position yourself as a viable acquisition target.

Final Thought

What we saw yesterday was not a random flurry, it was a strong message and indicator that the events and experiential industry is entering a new phase. Those who understand the new landscape and act accordingly will benefit tremendously.

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Allpoints Insights

The Real-Life Succession Unfolding Across UK Agencies

Image in the allpoints branding, displaying the title: The Real-Life Succession Unfolding Across UK Agencies and image of a handshake.
By Max Fellows, Founder, allpoints

Succession stories make great TV: from Waystar RoyCo in Succession to the brewing dynasty in Netflix’s new House of Guinness, but while those dramas play out on screen, a quieter, no-less-intense version is happening across UK agencies right now.

Since the boom of the early 2000s, around 43% of agency founders are now in their early 60s. With over 25,000 agencies in the UK across brand experience, events and creative services, the question of who takes over next isn’t a niche concern, it’s about to redefine the industry’s structure for the next decade.

The generational tipping point

The first generation of modern agency founders built their businesses in an era of growth, global expansion and post-recession resilience. Many of them are now facing their biggest challenge yet: how to exit gracefully without dismantling the culture, reputation and client trust they’ve spent 20 years building.

What happens next will depend on the choices these leaders make. Some will sell, others will merge, and a few will simply fade out. But just as often, their senior lieutenants, those account directors, strategists and creative leads who’ve grown up under them, are spinning out to start something new. It’s the natural lifecycle of our sector: succession breeds reinvention.

The tax trigger

The latest tax rise has accelerated the shift. With the first tax bill now a million pounds higher, Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) are booming, up nearly 40% this year. Entirely tax-free and approved by HMRC, EOTs let founders sell to a trust representing their employees, using the business’s own profits to fund the buy-out.

It’s a smart, sustainable route for those who want to protect their teams and legacy, but it’s not without risk. The business has to stay profitable for years to pay the founder out, and many owners still hold up to 50% of shares, creating a complex “double-dip” dynamic. Still, compared with the volatility of private equity or trade sales, EOTs are offering a new kind of stability, and increasingly, credibility.

Slowing growth, rising pressure

The backdrop to all this is far from buoyant. Agency growth has slowed to 6–8% year on year, down from 30–40% a decade ago, and 90% of agencies reported revenue losses in the past 12 months. Against that reality, the old playbook of “grow fast, sell high” simply doesn’t hold.

The next few years will see a polarisation of the market. On one side, large networks and investor-backed groups will continue consolidating. On the other, lean, independent agencies, often led by second-generation founders, will focus on agility, specialism and purpose. The mid-market players in between will face the toughest squeeze.

Planning the handover

If House of Guinness taught us anything, it’s that chaos fills the vacuum when succession isn’t planned. The same applies here. Too many founders still treat succession as a distant problem rather than an urgent business priority.

The answer lies in early planning, financial literacy and transparent leadership. Decide your endgame before you’re forced into it. Bring your senior team into the conversation. And treat succession not as an ending, but as the start of your agency’s next chapter.

In the 1800s, Guinness heirs fought over barrels. Today, we’re fighting over clients, culture and continuity. The agencies that survive, and thrive, will be those that understand that succession isn’t a storyline. It’s strategy.

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Allpoints Insights

AI, Identity, and the Future of Event Experiences

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By Anton Christodoulou, allpointsAI

Stepping into the world of events and immersive experiences today, it feels as though we’re at the very edge of a profound shift. For decades I’ve worked at the forefront of technology and creativity, always asking “What’s possible using the tools available to us, not just for efficiency, but for real, meaningful human connection?” The emergence of truly intelligent AI, and its capacity for “memory” and identity, is at once exhilarating and daunting, and a paradox worth exploring.

Rewiring the Future: Platforms and People

From my earliest days working with nascent immersive technologies such as VR and AR in the ‘90s, to leading experience design for global brands, building platforms has always always been at the core. Not for the sake of shiny tech, but to push what’s possible, at scale, for global audiences. Even during the prototype phases, the focus is always on clearly understanding the objective and intended outcome, to create something that truly connects us. By rewiring technology in innovative and creative ways to achieve these goals, it has never been solely about “How can we use this specific technology?”

Today, the lines between AI as a creative tool, and as a collaborator, are blurring. We’re already seeing impressive leaps with local large language models – AI that can live on-site or in a private cloud, operate totally securely, and augment even the most confidential, high-value ideas and projects. Suddenly, privacy and personalisation can coexist. That’s a game-changer.

AI Memory: The Double-Edged Sword

Person holding a light bulb emulating ai memory.

So, what exactly is “AI memory”? Think of it as the evolving, persistent context that a digital assistant accumulates about a person. Not just “likes Thai food” or “prefers city breaks”, but connections and inferences spanning lifestyle, work, budget, even mood. This context can supercharge personalisation. Ask for a restaurant, holiday, a piece of advice, or much more complex or deep questions, and AI can offer truly relevant and specific answers, sometimes better than we can consciously describe ourselves.

But here’s the kicker. Your data, your memories, sit with the AI provider, not the individual. All the lessons of two decades of social media pale in comparison to the next era, where our “AI identity” is richer, deeper, and potentially locked to just one platform. What happens if permission, privacy, or even national policy changes? The platform provided, and managed, privacy controls are not fit for purpose. Frameworks exist to enable us to benefit from the advantages of the AI-powered Internet, while protecting us from these risks. They just need to be implemented correctly. An excellent example is Inrupt, co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which is underpinned by true decentralised ownership of your personal data via encrypted, portable, and personal data pods.

Freedom of Experience: Equalisers and Architecture

A group of people enjoy a music event

The danger is creating purely deterministic, algorithm-led worlds that strangle serendipity. Not everyone craves hyper-curated, predictively pleasant experiences. Sometimes, the magic lies in the unplanned, the unexpected, and the uncomfortable. That’s why I love the idea of an “experience equaliser”, an interface that lets each person dial up, or down, the level of AI inference and nudge they want, moment by moment. All privacy preserved, thanks to secure architectures, such as Inrupt’s Agentic Wallets.

Building for this reality means giving every attendee, not just event organisers, agency and consent. Event tech shouldn’t be a walled garden, but a series of open standards where any personal AI “plugs into” a trusted, interoperable platform. Organisers become hosts for shared knowledge, not extractors of personal data. This is a great outcome for all parties, as those that do opt-in, can do so, trusting the processes that are in place, with complete transparency. And those that opt-out, can continue to enjoy the experience their way, without fear of being sucked into an invisible marketing machine. Through trust and transparency, event organisers can tailor the perfect experience for every attendee, while preserving their privacy through AI-powered, agentic capabilities.

Rapid Prototyping: An AI-Powered Mindset Shift

ai connectivity in a hand

Are we ready for this future? Only if we learn to pressure-test ideas fast. That’s why I’m passionate about AI-powered sprints. Instead of sprawling 24 hour hackathons (which are a lot of fun, though serve a different purpose), these are tight, 2.5-hour sessions. Senior teams, with or without any technical experience, can frame, explore, and prototype real solutions, with AI as a creative collaborator, and accelerator. In just an afternoon, we are surfacing immediate and long-term solutions to key challenges, validating them, and deciding what’s worth pursuing – without being sucked into wasted weeks or months, and sunk costs. It’s a mindset shift as much as a method. Traditional business workflows are being ripped up, and reformed, enabling rapid innovation across every industry

Where Next?

AI will soon be the invisible enabler of every major event and experience journey, removing friction, surfacing timely information, saving us from the niggles that too often define an experience in hindsight. It will also be the enabler for the next-generation of mind-blowing immersive experiences, that will redefine our reality in real time.

Yet, the best metric of success will also be when attendees barely notice the tech, and are simply present, connected, and delighted.

Control, privacy, and creative potential must move hand in hand. The key is to build systems that respect the human at the centre, and give everyone the ability to define what “personalised” really means to them.

If I had to crystallise all of this into a single idea: The best technology disappears, leaving room for stories, serendipity, and a radically human experience.


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