Modern Retail+ Research: How agencies adapt to a media landscape shaped by AI and creators

01 Introduction 02 Methodology 03 Clients turn to creators to build community and trust 04 Agencies seek to monetize AI as costs add up 05 AI search reshapes media budgets This report is adapted from Modern Retail’s sibling publication Digiday. You can read the full report on Digiday.

01 Introduction Media agencies are navigating an increasingly complex advertising landscape, as economic uncertainty, fragmented media consumption and rapid advances in technology continue to reshape how brands reach consumers.

AI search and creator marketing are adding another layer of change to the agency landscape, creating opportunities to expand services while raising new questions about costs, capabilities and the future of media planning.

Bearing this in mind, Modern Retail+ Research examined how agencies and their clients are adapting to these shifts, from media spending and channel investment to creator partnerships and the evolving role of AI.

02 Methodology To understand how agencies and their clients are working with creators and implementing AI, Modern Retail+ Research collected responses from 30 agency professionals in a survey fielded in third-quarter 2026.

For additional industry insight, Modern Retail hosted a focus group of five senior media agency executives who oversee media investment and technology.

Agencies that participated in the focus group were: Go Fish Digital Horizon Media Novus Tinuiti UM 03 Clients turn to creators to build community and trust When Modern Retail asked agencies and brands how important creator marketing has become to their business over the last year, the overwhelming majority of respondents (75%) said that creator marketing has become at least a little or significantly more important in the past 12 months.

Focus group participants noticed an uptick in creator partnerships as well, including a shift in the type of work brands are asking creators to produce. “On the creator side, we’re seeing a massive influx,” Dweck said. “Bigger brands are leaning in far more and have been a bit looser with brand guidelines in terms of the content we’ll accept and publish.

Alongside that, we’re trying to negotiate as many direct deals for distribution rights for the creative assets we’re getting from creators. We’re seeing a 40% to 60% uplift against typical, traditionally produced creative units, mainly on TikTok, but the uplift is similar across Instagram and YouTube.”

Retail media networks are becoming another key channel for creator partnerships, according to Modern Retail’s 2026 guide to creator marketing.

Seventeen percent of respondents to Modern Retail’s first-quarter survey said they are partnering with influencers to create content for retail media — making it the second most used media channel for creator-brand partnerships after social media (96%).

The convergence of creator marketing and retail media is increasingly being formalized through data partnerships, including Omnicom Media’s agreement with Meta to connect Walmart Connect purchase data with Instagram creator campaigns, allowing marketers to better connect influencer activity with sales outcomes.

The company struck a similar agreement with TikTok the previous year, underscoring growing demand from advertisers for more measurable creator marketing programs.

When Modern Retail asked survey respondents about their goals for working with creators, the top five responses were community building (61%), paid media amplification and branded content creation (tied at 57%), building authenticity (50%) and establishing expertise and authority (46%).

Go Fish Digital’s Dweck sees creator partnerships as an opportunity to produce authentic, platform-native content that can drive consumers further down the funnel.

“I look at influencers for reach versus creators for content creation and a higher volume of assets that look and feel far more lifelike than the typical ads that advertisers are pushing out,” he said. “Creators live a bit more down funnel.

It’s taking $100,000 and spreading it across a handful of creators versus trying to spend that on one or two influencers that are going to have mass reach and appeal, but may not drive the bottom line results you’re hoping for.”

Some brands have begun establishing in-house creators programs, like Aerie’s Realmakers Creator Community, to increase the sense of community among brands, creators and their audiences. Leveraging creators with smaller followings can help UGC feel more authentic.

These programs can also offer more consistent touch points, as brands can push out prompts to hundreds or thousands of micro- and mid-creators rather than having to reach out to larger creators to organize specific campaigns. “Creator marketing is becoming much more community-driven,” Stacey McCormick, CMO at Aerie, told Digiday in June 2026.

“Creators are especially responding to the sense of access and community feeling like they’re genuinely part of th