Why We Hired an AI Engineer (and What That Means for Agencies)

Media buying used to be the secret sauce for digital agencies. But let’s be honest: that sauce is thinning out.

Platforms like Google, Meta and TikTok are baking AI directly into their ad products. Bidding, targeting, placements, the tactical side of media buying is becoming commoditised.

So where does that leave agencies?

At farsiight, we believe the future belongs to those who think two steps ahead of the market. That’s why we’ve just made a big move: hiring a full-time AI engineer to work alongside our operations team, with a single focus.

Building AI agents that streamline our processes, empower our media team, and most importantly, deliver impact for our clients.

Why We’re Investing in AI Now

We’ve learned the hard way that unless someone owns an initiative outright, it rarely moves beyond good intentions. AI is too important to risk becoming another “side project.”

Over the past few months, we’ve been experimenting internally. Tinkering with prompts, trying out different workflows, testing reporting automations. The potential was obvious. AI isn’t just another shiny tool; it’s a strategic lever for growth.

So we asked ourselves, do we want to sit back and watch, or put our flag in the ground and lead?

Our answer was easy.

The Shift We See Coming

Here’s how we see the next 1–3 years playing out:

• Media buying gets commoditised → Platforms continue to refine and expand on how they optimise campaigns for you. Button-pushing won’t cut it anymore.

• Strategy and creativity rise to the top → Clients will lean on agencies for growth frameworks, creative, and commercial insight.

• AI-powered operations separate leaders from laggards → Agencies that integrate AI into their workflows will run leaner, move faster, and deliver sharper insights. If how you integrate AI isn’t part of your pitch in <12 months, you’ll be behind.

In other words, it’s not the end of agencies, it’s the end of media buying only agencies that stand still.

What We’re Building First

When we kicked this off, our ops team and leadership mapped out every AI idea we could think of, from client-facing tools to internal time-savers. We then ranked them by commercial impact and time saved.

Here’s our starting line-up:

1. Auto Weekly Reports
Right now: reports are built by hand every week, pulling data across multiple platforms, writing commentary, formatting.
Future state: an AI agent does the heavy lifting, pulling data, building charts, writing “so what?” insights, ready for Slack or client delivery after human input.
Outcome target: cut reporting time by 50–80%; standardise quality; shift resources to strategy.

2. Creative Briefing Assistant
Right now: briefs are cobbled together across docs, LLMs, and Monday boards.
Future state: raw thoughts go in, polished briefs come out. The assistant references past creatives, brand style guides, and even suggests new hooks or visual styles based on what’s performing.
Outcome target: reduce briefing cycle time by 30%; increase first-round creative acceptance rate; and ensure consistent brief structures.

3. Market Demand & Competitor Tracker
Right now: competitor analysis and trend spotting is reactive, often once a month.
Future state: an always-on agent scans Google Trends, audience sizes, and impression share shifts — flagging when demand spikes or competitors change tactics.

Of these, we expect the Market Analysis tool to drive the biggest impact for clients by allowing us to proactively spot growth opportunities.

Building in Public (The Fun Part)

This blog is the first of many where we’ll share our AI journey, the wins, the fails, and the lessons in between.

A few things you should know upfront:

• We’ll always be human + AI. These agents won’t run end-to-end without oversight.

• We’ll be transparent about the tools and workflows we’re testing.

• We want to show what’s possible, not sell hype like the majority of content on LinkedIn

If that means lifting the hood on a half-broken experiment that didn’t quite land? So be it.

And The Human Side

Let’s clear something up: AI isn’t here to replace our team. It’s here to free them from repetitive work so they can focus on strategy, creativity and commercial impact.

We’re doubling down on training too, helping our people grow beyond media buying into omni-channel thinking, creative strategy, and business growth.

As for agencies that still think AI is hype? Well… good luck.

What’s Next

This is just the start. In upcoming blogs, we’ll break down the specific agents we’re building, share results, and explore how AI is reshaping growth marketing in real time.

If you’re a founder, marketer, or industry peer curious about where agencies go next: welcome to the ride.