As we step into 2026, Manchester Digital is proud to launch Picturing 2026 - a new series of essays from our members exploring the tech trends, opportunities and challenges shaping the year ahead.
In this piece, Absolute Nexa reflect on how the agency landscape has shifted as digital has moved from a supporting capability to the core driver of business growth.
For most of my career in digital, creative agencies did exactly what clients needed at the time. They built websites, designed emails, produced campaign assets, and adapted as new channels emerged. Digital was a capability that sat alongside everything else - important, but not dominant.
As digital became the primary way brands reached, engaged, and converted customers, that model began to strain. Complexity increased. Performance mattered more. Data, platforms, and technology stopped being supporting acts and became central to business growth. In response, specialist digital agencies emerged - not to replace creativity, but to go deeper into the parts of digital that now demanded expertise.
For a while, agencies could still sit comfortably in the middle. By 2026, that space has largely disappeared.
This isn’t because agencies are suddenly less capable. It’s because the environment they operate in has fundamentally changed. Clients are under greater pressure than ever: tighter budgets, higher scrutiny, faster decision cycles, and an increasing need to demonstrate measurable impact. In that context, breadth alone no longer feels reassuring for clients.
What clients are really buying now is certainty.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen a clear shift in how clients assess agency value. The question is no longer “what else can you do?” but “what do you do better than anyone else?”
Agencies that sit in the middle - capable of many things but defined by none - are finding it harder to stand out, harder to prove genuine expertise, and harder to win competitive pitches. Not because they’re bad at what they do, but because they aren’t clearly defined in a crowded market. Competition isn’t the biggest threat. Indistinguishability is.
AI plays a significant role in accelerating this shift, but not in the way it’s often framed.
By 2026, AI will be embedded into the operational fabric of most agencies. It will speed up execution, streamline analysis, and remove a lot of the admin friction that once justified large, generalist delivery models. Content, reporting, optimisation, and even elements of strategy will be faster and cheaper to produce.
What AI doesn’t do is replace judgement. In fact, AI benefits specialist agencies most. It removes operational friction and sharpens focus on what they’re actually there to do. Clients don’t pay for AI - they pay for knowing how to use it to make the right decisions and deliver outcomes.
Alongside this technological shift is a structural one. Clients increasingly want fewer agency partners, not more. But fewer doesn’t mean broader. It means deeper.
By 2026, the agencies that thrive will be the ones that take ownership, have a point of view, and don’t hide behind endless options or vague processes.
One of the biggest changes I’ve observed is how much clients value clarity of thinking. In uncertain environments, leaders aren’t looking for partners who will mirror their uncertainty back at them. They’re looking for expertise and conviction.
The evolution of Absolute Nexa reflects this broader shift. Nexa was created as a specialist agency working alongside Absolute Brand Agency, not because generalist capability had no value, but because clarity has become more valuable.
Creating Nexa as a specialist agency was a deliberate decision. It was about committing to focus, being clearer about where we add value, and being more intentional in the work we choose to take on - with AI supporting that direction rather than defining it.
2026 won’t be the year agencies disappear en masse. It will be the year many finally make a conscious choice about who they are and the role they want to play for their clients.
Specialisation isn’t about narrowing ambition or shutting doors. It’s about committing to where you add the most value and being comfortable that you won’t be everything to everyone, and for agencies willing to make that choice, the opportunity is significant.
As clarity, confidence, and expertise become more valuable, the agencies that thrive in 2026 will be those that lean into that shift and use focus as a platform for better work, stronger partnerships, and more meaningful impact.
Written by Gemma Illidge, Head of Digital, Absolute Nexa
To find out more about Absolute Nexa, click here.
