"Do Not Use These Agents, Do Not, I Implore!"

Such is how author and entrepreneur John Battelle entitled his recent Lorax-tinged column.

He then added a Seussian rhyme: "For while they may charm you, it's not you they work for!"

Well, yes and no. An agent can have multiple masters. Battelle is most concerned about agents by tech titans like Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Google hoovering up all our data.

I'm guilty of the cardinal sin of social media commentary: I responded to Battelle's LinkedIn post before I read the full article. I wrote:

"I want to agree with this, but I also think there will be an issue of haves and have-nots here. While more privacy and security protocols are needed for agents, not having one will soon be akin to those who resisted getting an email account or a mobile phone."

That much I stand by.

I don't think everyone should rush to get Meta's Muse, which became the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store soon after debuting. I tried Muse and was unimpressed with the initial tasks I gave it. My first mission for it involved travel planning, and the flight options it gave me included coach seats that were more expensive than first-class seats I was looking at on similar flights. Then it made all kinds of excuses for its errors.

I'll eventually give it another shot. Muse may prove to be good enough for most people, and it may even become unavoidable, just like how it's hard to use Google Search, Gmail, and other Alphabet services without using Gemini. If you're a regular user of WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook, you may wind up on Muse one way or another. And there's a chance you'll like it.

What surprised me when I read Battelle's piece was how it ended:

"This is why I'm cheering the rise of truly independent agent companies like Instinct or Town. They're building a future I can get behind. I hope they get a chance to shine, but I'm not certain they will. It's a huge lift to build a world-class product that can compete with the tech oligarchs - and it's even harder to refuse buyout offers reaching into the tens of billions of dollars. Godspeed."

I wrote about Town in August (it underwhelmed me), and I'll write about Instinct way more (it's so good, it’s overwhelming). Instinct has made some journalists and analysts wary of using it precisely because of how new it is; there's a leap of faith required for you to trust it and give it enough access to your accounts to make it useful.

Instinct has helped optimize dozens of sites for AI, find breakthroughs in my genealogy research, and save me hundreds of dollars in travel and subscription fees so far. It knows no bounds language-wise, whether that comes to human languages or coding. I still don't know how it often delivers better results and responses than what I get from major AI platforms for comparable queries or tasks.
The likely endgame for any independent agentic app that scales is that it's sold to one of the major tech companies. I agree with Battelle that such an outcome will be hard for founders and investors to resist.

For consumers, resisting using agents may prove to be a badge of honor. But most won't be able to resist once they hear of other success stories like mine.

If you ask people, “Do you wish a few major tech companies didn’t have access to so much of your data?” most would probably say yes. If you ask those same people whether they stopped using those companies’ products, odds are very of them could show a single example of doing so. Quitting Facebook and using WhatsApp doesn’t count.

Once you find an agent that works for you, you’re not going to think about who owns it. You’ll think about what else it can do for you.

The bigger challenge will be who you choose to trust: the devil you know or the devil you don't?

— David Berkowitz, Chief Community Officer, Marketecture Media

1

Programmatic's Agents Wait for Permission

Who: Programmatic Leads, Ad Tech Executives, Agency Media Buyers, Publishers

What: IAB Europe's 2026 study found AI is already standard plumbing: 86% of respondents use AI for marketing, with 59% applying it to programmatic optimization and 55% to media planning, Digiday reports. But fully agentic buying and selling sits at 38%, and of 47 respondents asked about autonomy, 36 reported either no agentic system in daily use or one that humans still direct. Performance evidence is lukewarm: AI in current ad operations scores 2.76 out of 5, with wins concentrated in operational efficiency (69%) rather than audience quality (21%).

Why it matters: The gap between "AI runs my campaign" and "an agent owns my budget" is where the next two years of ad tech fights happen.

(Digiday)

2

Adobe and the NHL Drop the Puck on AI

Who: Sports Marketers, Brand Partnership Leads, Fan Engagement Teams, Creative Technologists

What: The NHL named Adobe its Official Creative, Marketing, and AI Partner, giving the league and all 32 teams access to Adobe's AI stack, ADWEEK reports. The deal puts Adobe GenStudio's AI content supply chain behind personalized content across NHL.com, the app, social, and digital ads, and opens Adobe Express with Firefly-powered generative tools and NHL templates directly to fans. It lands as other leagues get cautious: MLB has restricted dugout AI use for in-game strategy.

Why it matters: The second major U.S. league to hand Adobe its fan experience (the NFL partnership is in year two) suggests league-wide AI marketing stacks are becoming a category, not an experiment. The fan-facing generative tools are the part to watch: Official templates are how leagues keep fan-made AI content on-brand.

(ADWEEK)

3

The F-List Adds an AI Column

Who: Agency Executives, Holding Company Leadership, Brand Purpose/ESG Leads, PR/Comms

What: Clean Creatives' sixth annual F-list counted 1,321 fossil fuel contracts held by agencies, up nearly 9% and the highest since tracking began in 2021, Marketing Brew reports. Omnicom-owned agencies hold the most at 118, with WPP at 88, though independent agencies account for more than three-quarters of all contracts. New this year: The group tracked how oil companies are using AI narratives (Chevron's "AI is here... and Chevron is working to power it") and AI-generated creative, including an AI-made Ramadan ad from Abu Dhabi's ADNOC Distribution.

Why it matters: Holding-company accountability and AI-washed messaging collide here. Watch "AI needs energy" become the fossil industry's favorite brief, and watch which agencies keep taking it.

(Marketing Brew)

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