The Line Between Marketing Agencies and AI Consulting Firms Is Blurring. Here's Why — and What B2B Buyers Should Do About It.

Five years ago the vendor selection decision was clean: campaigns went to agencies, AI strategy went to consultants. That clarity is gone. Accenture committed $3 billion to AI and is competing for CMO budgets through Accenture Song. WPP launched an enterprise AI transformation unit and moved to outcome-based billing. McKinsey has 5,000 AI specialists and is selling into marketing functions. Publicis posted 5.7% organic growth by positioning itself as an AI-driven transformation platform. The firms that defined two separate industries are converging on the same client, the same budget, and the same set of services — and the categorical labels they use to describe themselves are increasingly unreliable guides to what they actually deliver.