Eight in ten German firms plan to move marketing work in-house, GWA finds

Four in five German companies want to move more marketing work in-house. The figure comes from a whitepaper the agency association GWA published on 15 September 2026. Only one company in ten has made AI a fixed part of its processes.

Two surveys sit behind the 120-page paper

GWA ran the work as two separate polls. Handelsblatt Research Institut asked 170 chief executives and marketing chiefs how they plan to use AI. A second poll covered 78 heads of GWA member agencies. The paper runs to about 120 pages and is free to download.

Around the survey data sit seven deep dives. They cover agency economics, business models, staff, brand visibility, creative work, agent systems and regulation. More than a dozen interviews fill out the picture.

Seven in ten agencies call themselves advanced on AI

Agencies rate their own progress highly. Some 72 per cent describe themselves as advanced. Their clients look much less ready, with that 10 per cent figure for firms where AI is fixed in the process.

Neither side reports big layoff plans. That matters, because the holding companies have been going the other way. WPP is cutting up to 1,000 more roles this year and Omnicom is heading for 105,000 staff.

GWA authors put the value in judgement, not output

The authors argue that cheap production shifts the value elsewhere. Nina Ireen Haller writes that value moves to “judgement, orientation, context, impact and responsibility”. Véronique Franzen puts the creative job more bluntly: the real task is “saying no”. Both quotes come from the German original.

Michael Frank adds a practical point for brands. Communication now goes to people and machines at the same time, so sources have to be clear enough to be cited. That is the same pressure behind moves like AXA hiring Publicis Sapient for an AI hub rather than building alone.

The paper is free, so these numbers will turn up in pitch decks this autumn. They leave one narrow question open. When GWA next reports what its members actually earned, will that 80 per cent show up as lost fees, or will the work come back as advisory hours at a different rate?