There is an uncomfortable conversation happening inside Nigeria’s advertising industry.
It is not really about AI.
It is about what happens to an advertising agency when the things it traditionally charged clients for can increasingly be automated.
Steve Babaeko, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of X3M Ideas, recently warned media agencies that they risk becoming irrelevant if they continue to depend heavily on media buying and placement. Speaking at the 2026 MIPAN AGM, he argued that agencies need to move towards data ownership, strategic interpretation and deeper understanding of African consumers.
That sounds like an industry speech.
It is actually a warning.
For decades, agencies have built businesses around expertise that clients couldn’t easily replicate: where to advertise, how much to spend, which audience to target, which media channel to use and how to execute the campaign.
But the technology underneath that model is changing.
Platforms can increasingly automate audience selection, campaign optimisation, budgeting and placement.
A small business owner can open Meta Ads Manager tonight and do things that once required an agency, a media planner and several meetings.
Google is automating more of the process.
Programmatic advertising has already changed media buying.
AI is accelerating it.
So the question is no longer whether agencies will use AI.
The question is: if the machine can execute the media plan, what exactly is the agency’s value?
This is where Nigerian agencies have a choice.
They can become cheaper execution machines.
Or they can become thinking businesses.
Because there is one thing AI still cannot magically manufacture: understanding why Nigerians behave the way they do.
It can tell you that an audience in Lagos responds better to one creative.
It cannot automatically understand why a particular phrase works in Lagos but fails in Enugu.
It can identify a pattern.
A strategist has to interpret the pattern.
That distinction is going to become increasingly important.
The agencies that survive the next phase of marketing won’t necessarily be the ones with the biggest media budgets.
They will be the ones clients cannot replace with a dashboard.
The agency of the future may not sell media.
It may sell judgement.
And that’s a much harder thing to commoditise.
TL;DR: AI is making advertising execution cheaper and easier. The agencies that continue selling execution alone are going to feel the pressure. The opportunity is to own the thinking behind the execution.