What agencies actually do with AI.

Every agency is working out what AI is for. Some of it takes an hour a week off your plate. Some of it looked good in the demo and not so good in the pilot. Some of it your team uses on clients as shadow work. And some of it leverages AI powered products from Adtech partners that deliver performance.

The Ground Truth Census asks which is which. Where AI takes the drudgery out of planning, buying, activation and measurement, and where it augments the media plan and delivers performance. Whether the time saved turns into thinking time, client time, work life balance or just more work.

You have answers to that. Eleven minutes of them, and you see how your role and your kind of agency compare with everyone else's, delivered as a fully anonymised report.

Take part Anonymous. Report free.

At a glance

11Minutes, at most

5Seniority levels

70–125Agency people

£0To take part

What you get

Four reasons to spend eleven minutes on this.

You answer the questions. In return you get numbers you cannot get anywhere else, because no one else has collected them.

A benchmark for your role

Results break down by seniority level. If you run an account director team, you see how other account directors answered, not a blended average that hides them.

A benchmark for your kind of agency

Findings split by holding company and independent. Compare yourself against agencies built like yours, rather than against the market as a whole.

The gap between the floors

The study asks the same questions of CEOs and account managers. You see what leadership believes about AI use, next to what the people running accounts report.

A say in what gets built

Questions ask what would make an AI tool worth using. The vendors selling into your agency will read the answers.

The study

Two themes.

Ground Truth Census surveys 70 to 125 UK media agency people across five levels of seniority, from CEO to account manager. The findings publish with New Digital Age and other trade partners in Q4 2026.

Automation

The machinery of the agency. What runs without a human inside live client work, where progress stalls, where people use tools that drive genuine value and the types of tools whether internal or external or a blend.

Acceleration

The performance of the media. How teams use AI on media plans, where it drives performance and what agencies want from an adtech AI product.

How it works

Three steps.

Register

Fill in the form below. It takes under a minute and asks for your role so the results can be cut by seniority.

Answer

The survey runs to eleven minutes at most, nine on a good day. Prefer to talk? Book a thirty minute interview instead by writing to info@groundtruthcensus.com.

Read it first

Participants receive the full report before general release, with the benchmarks for their role and agency type.

Anonymity

Say what you think without it landing on your desk.

The line we never cross

Your individual answers never appear in the report and never leave the research team. Findings publish in aggregate, cut by seniority level and agency type. No person is named. No agency is named against a number.

Names appear only where someone has agreed in writing to an attributed quote, and that agreement covers quotes alone. Survey answers stay anonymous for everyone, including people who agree to be quoted.

Groups too small to report get merged or held back rather than published.

Take part.

Thank you. You are registered. You will hear from us with the survey link before fieldwork opens.

Giving back £1,000 from this study goes to NABS, the charity supporting people who work in UK advertising and media.