Independent Agencies Don’t Need More Capabilities. They Need Better Partners.
I recently read Ad Age’s discussion about what separates today’s winning independent agencies from the rest, and one theme kept coming back throughout the conversation.
https://adage.com/ad-age-video-podcast/aa-how-indie-agencies-win-in-2026/
The agencies succeeding today aren’t simply producing better creative. They’re reinventing themselves. They’re finding new pricing models, embracing AI, specializing in areas where they can truly differentiate, and constantly looking for ways to create more value for clients.
That reinvention is necessary. But I think the conversation misses an important point.
Many agencies assume that reinvention means expanding their internal capabilities. They believe they need to hire engineers, build AI practices, create ecommerce teams, or invest in deep technical expertise to stay competitive.
I don’t think that’s the answer.
Reinvention Doesn’t Mean Building Everything
One of the observations that stood out in the Ad Age discussion was the expectation that independent agencies will continue expanding beyond their traditional specialties, whether through mergers, acquisitions, or partnerships.
The partnership piece deserves far more attention.
Today’s clients expect agencies to solve increasingly complex business problems. Those problems often extend well beyond advertising. AI strategy leads to AI implementation. A commerce strategy becomes a platform migration. A customer experience project becomes a systems integration effort. Marketing increasingly intersects with technology.
Few independent agencies can justify maintaining permanent teams across all of those disciplines. More importantly, they don’t have to.
The Difference Between Creative Scale and Technical Scale
Independent agencies have always been good at scaling creative work. Freelancers, production partners, and specialist consultants have been part of the industry for decades.
Technology is different.
Building AI applications, integrating enterprise platforms, modernizing legacy systems, engineering data environments, or developing custom applications requires dedicated teams with highly specialized expertise. Those capabilities need governance, security, quality assurance, cloud infrastructure, and long-term support. They’re difficult to build and expensive to maintain.
For most agencies, creating those capabilities internally isn’t the best business decision.
Having access to them is.
Where Opportunities Are Won—or Lost
The article highlights how agencies are moving toward outcomes-based pricing and using AI to create more measurable value for clients.
That’s exactly where technical execution becomes critical.
Many agencies can define an AI strategy. They can identify opportunities, facilitate workshops, and develop compelling roadmaps.
Eventually, however, every client asks the same question:
“Can you actually build this?”
That’s often the moment when promising opportunities begin to stall—not because the strategy wasn’t good enough, but because the production capability wasn’t in place.
Why I Became an Advisor to Net Solutions
Over the past year, I’ve spent a great deal of time talking with independent agency leaders. The conversations are remarkably consistent. They don’t want to become software development companies. They don’t want to hire dozens of engineers or build an AI practice from scratch. They want to continue doing what they do best—strategy, creativity, client leadership, and brand building—while confidently saying “yes” to larger, more technically complex opportunities.
That’s one of the main reasons I chose to become an advisor to Net Solutions.
I saw a company with the technical depth to help agencies deliver AI, ecommerce, cloud, data, and digital engineering projects without forcing them to reinvent themselves. More importantly, I saw an opportunity to help introduce independent agencies to a partnership model that allows them to compete for work that might otherwise be out of reach.
For me, this isn’t about selling technology.
It’s about helping agencies stay independent while expanding what they’re capable of delivering.
A Different Way to Think About Growth
For years, agencies measured growth by the number of people they hired.
Today’s most successful agencies may grow differently.
Instead of building every capability internally, they’re building ecosystems of trusted specialists who allow them to compete well beyond their size.
That approach makes agencies more agile, more profitable, and more resilient. It allows them to stay focused on what they do exceptionally well while confidently delivering capabilities that clients increasingly expect.
The Bottom Line
The Ad Age conversation makes it clear that independent agencies are reinventing themselves at an unprecedented pace. They’re rethinking pricing, organizational models, AI, and the way they create measurable value for clients.
I believe the next phase of that reinvention is recognizing that competitive advantage doesn’t come from owning every capability.
It comes from knowing which capabilities define your agency—and which capabilities are better delivered through the right partners.
That’s why I’m excited about the work I’m doing with Net Solutions. I believe more independent agencies deserve access to world-class technical capabilities without sacrificing the focus, culture, and entrepreneurial spirit that made them successful in the first place.
The agencies that thrive over the next decade won’t be the ones trying to become everything to everyone.
They’ll be the ones that assemble the strongest teams—whether those people sit inside their walls or alongside them.