New Research from XR Extreme Reach Finds Creative Differences Between In-House & Agency Workflows

New York — June 22, 2026 — New insights from leading advertising operations platform XR Extreme Reach, which powers ad delivery for 80% of the world’s top brands, are pulling back the curtain on a shift quietly reshaping the creative industry: the rise of the in-house agency.

According to XR’s State of Ad Ops study of 400+ marketers, including agencies and brands, more national and international brands are investing heavily in building internal studios and creative teams to keep pace with the relentless demand for content across platforms. And a clear pattern is emerging in how work gets divided — early-stage, high-volume creative stays inside the building, while agency partners are called in when productions demand specialized craft and technical expertise.

The study found that:

• Ad versioning, resizing and adaptation: 58% of brands handle this in-house, reflecting the speed and volume required for multi-platform distribution.
• Paid social content: 51% manage this internally, underscoring how endemic content creation has become to modern marketing operations.
• Branded content: 44% produce this themselves, signaling that even longer-form storytelling is now within reach of in-house teams.

On the agency side, the work skews toward high-touch production that demands deeper expertise:

• Post production, VFX and finishing: 51% of brands rely on agency partners here.
• Animation and motion graphics: 44% depend on their agencies for this work.
• Full production with cast and crew: 40% turn to agencies when logistical scale, celebrity talent and production expertise are required.

“The in-house agency model has advanced significantly just in the last few years,” says XR CMO Graham McKenna. “Brands have moved well beyond handling basic creative tasks and are increasingly taking on work that requires sophisticated operational expertise. But our findings make clear that agency partnerships remain essential for the work that demands specialized craft, technical execution and finishing capabilities. Even those with robust in-house studios still rely on agency partners for some of their most complex, high-value work.”

The findings arrive at a pivotal moment for the industry, as brands and agencies alike work to redefine their roles and build workflows that play to each other’s strengths. For many, it’s hard to understand where in-house work ends and agency begins.

Since being founded in the 1990s as an advertising delivery and management company, XR has become a critical creative infrastructure platform, reconciling all aspects of commercial production (including processing over $1.3 billion in annual celebrity payments in advertising) and managing more than 5 million ad deliveries across 45 countries.

This unique research comes as XR works to bring new product and platform innovations to market as a way to solve crucial gaps between creative ambition and operational reality. Doing so will not only help reduce friction, but create efficiencies that help drive opportunity for ROI.