Agents now do much of the routine channel work in marketing. Public writing from BCG and Think with Google says the human role is moving toward strategy, system design and oversight. If you hire an agency, ask for those things, not hours of output.
Source basis (fetched Oct 19, 2026): BCG, How Agent-Native Marketing Transforms Operations (https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/agent-native-marketing-operating-model); Think with Google, Agentic marketing: Managing AI agents, not prompts (https://business.google.com/us/think/ai-excellence/agentic-marketing-ai-strategy/).
The 7 questions
- Who is accountable? Name one person at the agency who answers for results.
- What is the brief process? Ask to see how goals, audience and banned claims are written down before agents run.
- What does the agent do alone? Ask for a list of tasks agents may finish without review.
- Who reviews output? A named human should check anything customer-facing before release.
- Can you see the log? You should be able to see what was produced, approved and by whom.
- How do they handle a mistake? Ask for the steps to pause work, fix it and tell you.
- What do you own? Check who owns the workflow, prompts and data if you leave.
Limits
These are questions to ask, not a guarantee of results. This is a forecast-driven checklist; check it against your own contract and legal advice.