The strategy in the agencies is going through a critical moment. This is reflected in the 2025 edition of the “The Future of Strategy” report published by WARC based on a global survey conducted to more than 1,000 strategists around the world. The study warns that, while customers demand clear guidance in an environment dominated by uncertainty, the strategy is too often relegated to the level of the expendable.
The report, which includes the responses of 1,127 professionals (mostly working in agencies) and conversations with strategic thinking leaders, underlines a growing disconnection between the value that the strategy can contribute and the role it effectively occupies within the agencies. Lena Roland, WARC Strategy content director, summarizes the mood of the sector: “Our annual report acts as a thermometer on how strategists feel regarding their discipline. Explore the challenges of the strategy in agencies and the rise of independent strategists, analyzes the impact of AI and claim the importance of human research led by human.”
62% consider that, in budget pressure situations, the strategy is treated as a expendable element
The data this year reveal that 80% of respondents believe that the strategy is at a crossroads and needs to adapt to remain relevant. However, 62% consider that, in situations of budget pressure, the strategy is treated as a expendable element. Despite this, brands demand more than ever strategic thinking that helps them make decisions in a volatile, complex and ambiguous environment.
The contrast between necessity and reality is even more evident if it is considered that only 31% of respondents expect the number of professionals dedicated to the strategy to increase in the next twelve months, compared to 47% who anticipated it in 2024. In the words of Tom Morton, founder of the narratory capital consultant, “The economic structure of the strategy is falling apart, which is strange because demand has never been so high.”
Ellie Bamford, Chief Strategy Officer of VML North America, points to the origin of the problem: “We have returned to risk, and our clients too. We hide behind mountains of data and research, and we are not expressing our point of view enough. That is decreasing our value.”
The discouragement is also reflected in the professional projection: more and more junior, intermediate and senior strategists visualize their next step outside the agencies, preferably on the client’s side. Among the most experienced, 24% consider that their future is in strategic consultancies.
The relationship with artificial intelligence
The impact of artificial intelligence on discipline also generates a division among professionals. 46% do not believe that erosione their long -term value, but 37% do consider that they will end up learning one of their key competences: the ability to make strategic jumps.
What seems clear is that AI has already transformed the day -to -day strategists. 76% of respondents claim that the greatest evolution in their role during the last year has been the use of AI tools, a percentage that amounts to 85% in North America, compared to 74% in Asia and 69% in Europe.
According to Oliver Feldwick, Chief Innovation Officer of T&P, “The challenge for strategists is not to resist AI, or embrace it without reservations, but to associate with it. It is not about abdicating our role, but about evolving it. Recovering the strategy of mechanical routine and rediscovering the pleasure of thought.”
Strategies use AI for tasks that consume more time, such as competition analysis (66%)
Currently, strategists use AI for tasks that consume more time such as competition analysis (66%), Briefs’s writing (51%) or rapid obtaining cultural insights (42%). In addition, the use of synthetic research data has grown, from 32% in 2024 to 38% this year. However, their limitations are also indicated: 61% identify the lack of originality as their greatest defect, and 60% underline the lack of cultural nuances and emotional resonance. Therefore, human -led research is still seen as an antidote in the face of the generic, and strategists demand a role as guardians of the real, rooting ideas in tangible experience.
Another of the study calls is to open the strategy to more imaginative and disruptive ways of thinking. This implies moving away from excess frameworks and allowing side jumps that break the rules of the category and discover asymmetric advantages.
Joseph Burns, Strategy Lead in Quality Meats Creative, explains: “The strategy recovers its relevance when it stops polishing symmetries and begins to open gaps: empty of understanding, such as insights that no one else has, or access, as places that others cannot reach, and of time, such as movements that others cannot match.”
Redefine the strategy as a growth engine
The report closes with a clear conclusion: the agencies strategy needs a repositioning. It should no longer be seen as a back-effect function or a luxury, but as an indispensable service to detect where and how to grow. In a complex world, strategists provide value to simplify chaos. And in the AI era, human qualities such as empathy acquire a new prominence.
Tomas Gonsorcik, Global Chief Strategy Officer of BBH, expresses it like this: “We have to reburate the strategy, not as a secondary function or as a luxury, but as a service: clear, responsible and indispensable. The strategy should operate as an autonomous service within the agency. Its main clients are creative and CMOS, and its purpose is to provide clarity about growth, not just make presentations.”
According to the report, the main opportunities for strategists are to help customers navigate the complexity and volatility of their categories (52%) and the media landscape (45%).
Thus, the current challenge is not alone in resisting technological attack, but claiming the differential value of human intelligence: lateral thinking, imagination, empathy … and the strategy has the opportunity – and the obligation – to recover its place, not as a cost, but as a growth lever.
