AI (Artificial Intelligence) and In-House Agencies

September 3, 2025

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How are in-house agencies utilizing AI tools?

AI is here to stay. For in-house agencies, AI can be a useful tool to enhance creativity, assist with workflow, and automate data to garner better insights. According to recent ANA survey findings, 62 percent of in-house agencies are experimenting with AI to help workflow.

For companies with smaller budgets, training an LLM can be timely and costly. Michael Olaye, SVP and managing director of strategy and innovation at R/GA, noted that harnessing AI doesn't have to be a cost prohibitive technology that only the biggest companies have access to; at an ANA event, Olaye explained that companies can "create small language models (SLMs), trained on smaller datasets making them more cost effective," as noted in the event recap.

Olaye explained that further costs can be saved by allowing existing employees to learn how to effectively use AI, stating, "I don't think you necessarily have to hire. Every company has a crazy person like me on staff. Find that crazy person and give them a little bit of time. Their job is to go out and find all these AI tools that are out there. Do some research on which ones are safe. Find the ones that can help. Test and bring that back to the leadership team, so we can make a plan around it. Find someone internally first and start there."

In addition, regardless of budget, Kelly Cutler, associate professor at Northwestern University, shared key recommendations for how teams can successfully use AI, with tips including:

Developing a holistic approach to use AI beyond content creation to enhance personalization, streamline workflows, and improve measurement.
Planning for the long term and exploring how AI can drive lasting transformation in marketing and customer value.
Retaining control over high-impact AI applications to ensure quality and alignment with brand strategy.
Balancing third-party tools with custom solutions. Use off-the-shelf tools where efficient, but build bespoke solutions when deeper integration or differentiation is needed.
Implementing AI a CMO-led initiative and position AI as a strategic priority with marketing leadership driving adoption and cross-functional alignment.

Below are helpful best practices, examples, and case studies. Don't forget to check out this guide, The Value of In-House Agencies and In-House Agencies.

Best Practices and Trends

In-House Agencies' Current Use of AI Tools. ANA, July 2025.
Here the ANA shared survey data that reveals the extent to which in-house agencies are adopting AI as well as the uses to which they are putting it:
Northwestern Study Finds Enthusiasm, Gaps in Gen AI Use. ANA, July 2025.
Kelly Cutler, associate professor at Northwestern University, introduced a strategic framework for testing, piloting, scaling, and measuring new AI technologies within a marketing organization. This framework is informed by research findings and offers practical guidance for integrating generative AI (gen AI) tools effectively.
AI Is Ready, Right Now, for In-House Creative Agencies. ANA May 2024.
In this wide-ranging discussion, Michael Olaye, SVP and managing director of strategy and innovation at R/GA, offers tips and POV around the road ahead for in-house agencies to close the gap on their creative excellence through AI. See especially the Q&A section following the action steps (listed below), as the Q&A contains rich detail and insight into day-to-day issues around the use of AI:

Put a small team together to test and learn. If you have an incoming brief, do the same project twice leveraging AI tools.
Focus on data and image sourcing, creative explorations, production and editing.
Check with legal teams before inputting data into any tools or leverage safer tools, like Adobe Firefly and Shutterstock AI, that have legal protections.
Ensure that legal and/or business affairs are always involved in the process of implementing AI and vetting its output.

ANA In-House Agency Fact Book. ANA, January 2025.
This regularly published fact book has a new column tracking AI capabilities in in-house agencies. One key takeaway: 64 percent of in-house agencies use AI in creative services.
Leveraging AI for Marketing Success: A Guide for In-House Agencies. ANA, June 2023.
AI is a practical and readily available tool at the marketer's disposal. Today, marketing teams can leverage AI to develop content, increase their output, and bring capabilities in-house previously thought unattainable. It is the next evolution of in-house agencies, moving closer to the ideal: brand stewards with incredible speed to market, cost efficiencies, and top-class creativity.

Few have seen the evolution of in-house agencies from the vantage point of Michael Olaye, SVP managing director of strategy and innovation at R/GA. With over 20 years of experience, he knows how far the field has come in recent years. As one of Ad Age's top AI marketing leaders, he sees a future in which AI empowers in-house agencies of all sizes to redefine their marketing potential.

Examples

How a Natural Ingredients Brand Mastered Artificial Intelligence: Breyers' Cost-Saving AI Campaign. ANA, September 2025.
Unilever's marketing team drove success through innovative use of the Pencil AI platform, working with the in-house creative team U-Studio to create a versatile process that streamlined workflows and enhanced agility across business units. The team leveraged Pencil AI's data-driven insights to create virtual focus groups that uncovered key brand, consumer, and cultural truths, then developed comprehensive brand workspaces with branded materials, briefs, and supplementary information that served as guardrails for AI prompts. This approach enabled the creation of an entire Breyers campaign including key visuals, branding, and commercially used videos, all produced using AI technology that achieved 90 percent cost savings compared to traditional video shoots, four times production speed, and six times creative speed while generating 800 AI creative iterations.
Progressive's Three Tips for Enhancing Your In-House Agency. ANA, July 2025.
Progressive's Matt Dillon shared three tips for enhancing in-house teams, addressing the use of AI, external agencies, and media. He still uses external agencies, primarily out of the conviction that no one excels at everything; agencies can compensate for internal weaknesses. Regarding AI in specific, to fully capitalize on AI, Dillon charges his team with what he calls the "25 percent challenge:" each team member must apply AI to a minimum of 25 percent of his or her daily activities to yield improvement, acceleration, or heightened efficiency. By adopting this rule, Dillon predicts that these marketers will become the subject matter experts for the technology in their company, being, for instance, invited to join AI enterprise committees and responsible AI teams.
Unleashing In-House Creativity with AI at Rocket Mortgage. ANA, July 2025.
To unleash creativity, Rocket Mortgage's in-house agency is deploying AI to remove the job boundaries of team members.

AI Unleashed: Supercharging Your In-House Agency for Efficiency and Innovation. ANA, June 2025.
In today's business environment, in-house agencies face the daunting challenge of managing skyrocketing content demands, business expectations, and increased productivity with fewer resources. AI can revolutionize how in-house agencies operate when used effectively, driving efficiency and results. Melanie Huet, CMO of Newell Brands, shared her insights on how Newell leverages AI in its consumer insights, marketing strategies, content management, and employee upskilling. Learn how Newell developed 20 AI consumer personas for testing and idea generation. These personas have enabled Newell to generate actionable insights and ideas, reducing research costs and time investment. She also discussed how AI is being used to rebuild the team's internal content supply chain and upgrade their marketing technology stack with a vision of delivering five times more content without increasing internal headcount. By leveraging AI, Newell's in-house team is unlocking value creation and enhancing its strategic capabilities to win in the marketplace. See the full presentation by clicking here. See also: From Rubbermaid to AI-Made: A Conversation with Newell CMO Melanie Huet.

Maximizing In-House Consumer Retail Marketing with AI: How ESTYLE Is Driving Innovation with Stagwell Marketing Cloud. ANA, June 2025.
As the No.1 hair gel brand in the U.S., ESTYLE faces the challenge of staying top-of-mind while driving awareness and reducing reliance on external agencies. To stay ahead, the brand needed in-house tools to streamline concept development, content creation, and media flighting. Partnering with Stagwell Marketing Cloud, ESTYLE now leverages AI-powered tools seamlessly integrated into their marketing workflows — enhancing in-house efficiency to support innovation. Explore how ESTYLE and Stagwell Marketing Cloud are reimagining marketing with AI — boosting efficiency, driving smarter content creation, and shaping the future of brand growth. See the full presentation by clicking here.

AT&T's In-House Agency. ANA, January 2025.
In this presentation, AT&T comments on its cost savings from using AI in its in-house agency. The speaker says, "So, if we just do simple math and we said last year we spent $10 million on this set of assets and this year we are spending $3 million, we save $7 million. So, at the top line we're looking at what we were contracting our agencies for and what we're now contracting 1876 [the name of their in-house agency]. So that gives us the broad savings."

Committees

In-House Agency Committee.
The In-House Agency Committee is for client-side marketers that manage the creative and/or operations of their in-house agency, including other in-house marketing work. Those interested in starting an in-house agency or learning more about in-house marketing also are welcome to participate.

While the external agency can be a crucial marketing partner, many client-side marketers look internally to meet their creative and advertising needs. Some in-house agencies are full-service inclusive of account and project management support. Other in-house agencies may only specialize in capabilities, such as social media, programming, or video production. This committee provides a forum for education, networking, and discussion that helps elevate individuals in their respective organizations, as well as advance the role in-house agencies play throughout the industry. Click here to request to join the committee.

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Source

"AI (Artificial Intelligence) and In-House Agencies." ANA, 2025.