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Promethean Research · March 2026

State of Digital Services 2026: An Uneven Return to Form

Promethean Research's State of Digital Services 2026: An Uneven Return to Form (March 2026; n=119, fielded February 2026) found that About 1 in 3 digital agencies have implemented AI across their business.

Read the original report ↗Cite2 min read · Summary updated
Agencies that cut services grew fastest in 2025Average 2025 revenue growth, percent, by change in service offering
Reduced services
13%
Expanded services
9.8%
Held services steady
5.7%
Source: Promethean Research, State of Digital Services 2026, 2026.

Key findings

  1. 01
    Average digital agency revenue grew 7.5% in 2025, with large agencies rebounding and small agencies growing slowest.
  2. 02
    Net margins declined to 13%, and revenue per full-time employee fell for the first time in years.
  3. 03
    About a third of agencies have implemented AI across their businesses, with another 28% implementing; copywriting and coding lead.

By the numbers

About 1 in 3digital agencies have implemented AI across their business
7.5%average digital agency revenue growth in 2025
13%average net margin in 2025, down from 14% in 2024
Fewer agencies use value-based pricingPercent of digital agencies using value-based pricing
Source: Promethean Research, State of Digital Services 2026, 2026.

What it means for you Draft

For executives at $10–100M companies

For agency owners, this is a sober peer benchmark: AI is spreading, yet margins and revenue per person slipped. That suggests efficiency gains are being passed to clients or absorbed rather than kept. It may be worth checking whether our pricing model lets us keep any of the time AI saves.

Limitations

Medium trust.Independent agency-focused researcher with no software to sell; small sample (119), mostly smaller agencies than our audience.

About the publisher: Sells benchmark reports to agencies.

The headline figure measures the “In core work” stage of adoption (running in key processes).Why adoption numbers disagree

Cite the original

Promethean Research. "State of Digital Services 2026: An Uneven Return to Form." March 19, 2026. https://research.prometheanresearch.com/products/state-of-digital-services-2026-an-uneven-return-to-form

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