← Back to Blog

2026 is the Year of the Agent

Rami Atassi Rami Atassi

Is 2026 the year of the agent? I think so.

Here’s a list of deliverables that can be produced with so-called “AI agents” right now:

  • Codebases
  • Website Builds (Platform Agnostic, anything with a CLI)
  • Front End UX Design
  • Applications (Backend and Front End)
  • API Integration
  • Media Library Management
  • Process Long to Short Form Video & Audio
  • Video Content Processing, Versioning & Distribution
  • Audio Content Processing, Versioning, and Distribution
  • HTML Email Design & Deployment
  • Marketing Automation Sequences (Email & SMS)
  • Programmatic Advertising Creative
  • Programmatic Media Buying (Meta, AdWords, Connected TV)
  • Landing Pages
  • Social Media Posting
  • Business Intelligence & Analytics
  • Email Processing
  • Slide Decks
  • Proposals

If you look at that stack, some of it involves deliverables that would usually be produced by humans. But in the last 5 years many companies have tried to automate away these deliverables using software… the problem is… the software has sucked in so many ways.

Agents give us a new model for understanding how humans interact with software. And in turn there are new things that humans can create by working in this new software layer.

I’ve been running web, media & marketing campaigns for 15 years. I’ve spent a lot of time serving SMBs and mid-market businesses who have innovative ideas and real marketing budgets but lack the infrastructure to make game-changing, scalable investments in marketing.

For those business owners, now is the time to start building in this new agentic software layer. If you’re thinking about getting in, here’s what you need to know:

  • It is not about filling the internet with genAI content. We still need to tell real stories of real people, human touch is now the differentiator.
  • If you’re SMB/mid-market the play is not to slash your marketing but to scale it programmatically the way that corporate marketing teams do. While they’re slashing, you can keep costs the same and punch above your weight by running on the new tools.
  • You want to develop company assets and company intelligence based on the new AI layer. Think of it like owning the server that hosts your website and owning your website files. You want to have that same ownership over the information layer created by your AI agents.
  • Don’t overindex on one model or service because costs and features are going to change.

I started this with a list of things agents can build, which I know creates a level of anxiety for everyone in technical and creative professions. But the fact is it has already happened. A lot of heavy lifting for robust media campaigns is already automated at the big agencies—holding companies and ad tech companies turned programmatic in the last 5 years by investing a tremendous amount in software. So this has been a reality in high-level corporate advertising for a while.

But now, the gates to that kind of programmatic, scaled marketing are wide open to those who are willing to explore agentic systems. It’s going to hit the SMBs and middle market, creating a huge disruption with both pain and opportunity for those of us operating in this space.

So yes we could focus on the pain but I prefer to focus on the opportunity.

Here are some of the domains where we need human contributions more than ever:

Strategy—building relationships with stakeholders and creating systems in the new ecosystem that actually solve business problems and improve work for real clients. That’s golden.

Systems Design—think of agentic systems like a new type of code-based design, like a website, SaaS product, desktop software or mobile app—but it’s a whole new class, a general systems framework that can generatively build any code-based system.

Taste and Quality Control—things will be better in proportion to the extent that a human has reviewed them and engaged with the output rather than approximating or glossing it over.

Video—video is currency and people who think GenAI video is the answer—these people are confused. There’s something undeniably appealing about real human beings on video.

Content Creation—you think that you can just automate this, but if everyone’s automating slop, creating distinctive, well-formed ideas becomes a superpower.

There’s a lot happening right now!

If overwhelm starts to kick in, it’s worth remembering that the agentic revolution is remaking work, not life. We’re all a little burnt out from being online, so it’s a great time to pursue things outside the digital space: community, family, events, art making, moving in the physical world.

Building new things is fun, but as things get even more digital, we have to remember that it’s good to live and move in the real world.