Zuckerberg nears his “grand vision” of killing ad agencies and gobbling their profits

Meta (META) may be closer than ever to replacing ad agencies.

The Wall Street Journal rattled Madison Avenue on Monday with a report suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg’s “grand vision” of fully automated advertising is starting to materialize. If it plays out, it could rewrite the rules of digital marketing.

“Our goal is to make it so that any business can basically tell us what objective they’re trying to achieve, like selling something or getting a new customer, and how much they’re willing to pay for each result, and then we just do the rest,” Zuckerberg said on Meta’s Q1 earnings call on April 30.

To some, that may sound like automation as usual. But longtime Meta advertiser and podcaster Jon Loomer sees it differently.

“He’s taking direct aim at ad agencies,” Loomer warned in a recent episode. “The entire business model is at risk if his vision becomes reality.”

Loomer believes Meta is developing tools that can create “infinite variations of ads” — from visuals to copy — using minimal input from advertisers. If that happens, the agency value proposition of bespoke creative and strategy could start to evaporate.

“Kind of like dynamic ads with a catalog, but on steroids,” he said.

That could spell trouble for marketing firms that rely on charging clients for manual, creative-heavy campaign work.

Loomer says Meta’s tools are designed to not just streamline the ad creation processbut eventually make it so intuitive and that a small business owner with zero ad experience could launch campaigns as effectively as a Madison Avenue team.

While some marketers remain skeptical, Loomer said the tech is advancing fast and the endgame is worth taking seriously.

“You're not going to hear me laugh this off,” he added. “I believe that it's probable we end up somewhere close to what Zuckerberg describes.”

💰 What's in it for Meta?

The AI future may spell trouble for creative professionals and performance marketers, but it's a major cash grab opportunity for Meta.

Zuckerberg is pouring cash into generative AI — including up to $72 billion in capital expenditures this year — much of it focused on data centers and AI infrastructure to power automated tools like Advantage+.

The payoff is already starting to show. In Q4, Meta’s AI-powered ad tools — especially Advantage+ shopping — delivered a 70% year-over-year revenue boost, with that product line now running at a $20 billion annual clip.

And even though Meta didn’t break out Advantage+ results in Q1, the top line still impressed. Revenue rose 16% to $42.31 billion, and earnings per share surged to $6.43, topping Wall Street expectations.

If Meta succeeds in becoming the AI engine behind small business advertising, it could unlock a new era of high-margin, automated revenue, rendering traditional agencies effectively obsolete.