Media agencies face the uncertainty of a Trump 2.0 presidency and the rise of agentic AI in 2025

So what’s in store for the media agency world? A lot, it would seem. For one, the mid-December news that Omnicom moved to acquire Interpublic Group has observers and analysts thinking it’s bound to set off a wave of acquisition and consolidation among the other agency holding companies — at least most of them. Scenarios usually involve WPP, which has been the largest global holdco, or Havas, which has just spun out from parent Vivendi, making it a much easier acquisition target now. 

One board member of a holding company, who declined to speak for attribution to speak freely, said there’s a good chance the next wave of consolidation will involve private equity. Apollo Holdings is a name that comes up, as is Carlyle Group, said the board member. “What I would expect, in all honesty, is for private equity to team up with [another holding company],” said the exec. “If the intent is to remain independent, you’d have to be a consolidator of that sort of the next tier of assets.”

“Can WPP and Publicis merge? I personally doubt it — that’s No. 1 and 2, which is much harder than No. 3 and 4 [which is Omnicom and IPG],” continued the board member. “So what do they do? They probably go shopping, if you will, and looking, you know, much harder at Dentsu, Havas, etc. I actually think that tier is going to be bought.”

One second-tier holdco that has little to no intention of getting too much bigger is Stagwell, whose CEO Mark Penn has been clear about the size he believes is right. “I’ve always felt that the ideal size in the marketing industry was really closer to the $5 or $6 billion level, and we’re $2.5 billion and growing,” Penn told Digiday in early December.

But could Omnicom and IPG be in any kind of trouble despite a market-friendly Trump administration? Right before the holidays, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a devout Trump acolyte and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, registered his concerns over Omnicom and IPG’s participation in the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which he was instrumental in shutting down, despite its efforts to promote brand safety, because he accused the body of being politically one-sided. Whether this amounts to a credible threat to the acquisition remains to be seen. An Omnicom rep declined to comment on Jordan’s grumblings.

This second iteration of the Trump administration is widely expected to also favor deregulation, including a more relaxed policy on generative AI. That has a lot to do with the single biggest influence on the president-elect — Elon Musk and his massive AI ambitions via X and Grok. Agencies should expect to be able to keep investing in advancements in the field, given its ability to save time, free up resources and make connections in deep pools of data that humans just can’t replicate. Its effect on search alone is undeniable, as Perplexity and Microsoft’s Copilot make inroads on search giant Google (which is innovating in the field as well). Media agencies are even trying to get their arms around agentic AI, as the small but growing practice elbows its way into general search and shopping behaviors. 

But it’s not all smooth sailing, noted Alison Pepper, evp of government relations and sustainability at the 4A’s. “When I talk with agencies, they really care about copyright issues. Because copyright matters when you’re creating assets for clients,” said Pepper. “They care quite a bit about transparency too — trying to have more insight into what their AI provider is actually doing, so that they’re not exposing themselves to liability in the process.”

Still, the agency world needs to press forward on generative AI, if only to stay relevant in a world where the conversation between brand and consumer gets more direct all the time. Steve Boehler, who runs Mercer Island Group media consultancy, said it’s almost a matter of survival.

“Agencies are gung ho [about AI] anyway,” said Boehler. “The big agencies need to reinvent themselves to survive, and they’ve got the capital to do it for the most part. For smaller agencies, there will be tons and tons of tools and capabilities in the open market, and AI will help them reinvent themselves. AI will change things, but not in cataclysmic ways.”

To Boehler, the bigger worry is the lingering uncertainty that hangs over the agency world — and the broader economy — in this Trump 2.0 era. “It was already going to be a fascinating four years because of AI and continued consolidation,” he said. “In a really surprising way, I think that this new administration adds uncertainty to everything, which isn’t what you would expect from an [incumbency]. Usually when the new president shows up, you know exactly what they’re going to do.”

And that’s why everyone better buckle up.