The Orchestration Shift: How Dept Is Rethinking Agency Economics Through AI

By Seb Joseph | June 22, 2026

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital services, global agency Dept is making a radical bet: it is abandoning the traditional model of selling proprietary AI "operating systems" to clients. Instead, the agency is pivoting toward a strategy of orchestration, prioritizing growth-based outcomes over software licensing.

At the heart of this transformation is "Deptify," an AI-driven ecosystem governed by a persistent digital assistant named "D." By refusing to charge for the underlying technology layer, Dept is signaling a departure from the industry’s obsession with building walled gardens, opting instead for a "connect-don’t-conquer" philosophy that leverages existing client workflows.

The Core Strategy: Orchestration Over Operating Systems

For years, major agency holding companies have raced to build internal "operating systems"—centralized, branded interfaces designed to consolidate every partner tool under one roof. Roy Armale, Dept’s Chief Product Officer and a veteran of the WPP Open project, believes this approach is fundamentally flawed.

"You want to run Workfront from your operating system?" Armale recalls Adobe asking during his tenure at WPP. "Workfront is an operating system," was his retort.

This friction underscores the core problem with the "operating system" model: it forces clients and employees to abandon the tools they already know and trust. Deptify, by contrast, acts as an orchestration layer. It does not replace tools like Asana, Adobe Workfront, or other enterprise-grade workflow software; it integrates with them. D, the AI assistant, acts as a concierge, pulling context from these tools to route tasks to the appropriate platform, effectively bridging the gap between disconnected workflows.

The "Multiversal" Assistant: How D Operates

The user experience with D is defined by its "multiversal" nature. During a live demonstration, Armale showcased how D maintains strict context separation. When asked about a specific task, D identifies the client, retrieves only the relevant history—such as a specific "spring sale" campaign—and purges all information related to other client accounts.

This compartmentalization is critical for data security and client trust. Armale compares the experience to the "Spider-Verse" films: each version of D evolves and learns within the context of a single client relationship, but these versions never intersect. This ensures that sensitive strategic insights or campaign data remain siloed, preventing the "leaking" of information between competing brands.

Chronology and Deployment: A Rapid Scaling Strategy

Dept is not merely theorizing; it is executing. The rollout of Deptify has been swift and aggressive:

• Early 2026: Initial testing phase begins with a select group of pilot clients.
• June 2026: Official unveiling at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Three unnamed clients have confirmed their immediate adoption, with a fourth onboarded following a competitive pitch.
• Current State: The system is already operational across clients representing approximately 20% of the agency’s total global revenue.
• Future Outlook: Dept expects this penetration to reach 80% by the first quarter of 2027.

Crucially, all new business wins are now onboarded directly into the Deptify ecosystem. By embedding the tool into the inception of every new client relationship, Dept is creating a standardized operational baseline that scales automatically with the agency’s growth.

Supporting Data: The Economics of the "Augmented Human"

Dept’s business model shift is perhaps its most controversial move. By choosing to build an orchestration layer rather than a proprietary software suite, the agency has effectively removed the ability to charge for the "tech layer."

"If I pass token costs on, I have removed the value of the person using the token completely," Armale explains. He argues that billing for compute costs shifts the client-agency conversation toward overhead and away from the ultimate goal: growth.

Instead, Dept has categorized its revenue into three distinct tiers:

1. Input: Time and materials-based billing. Armale compares this to Uber Black, where the cost is justified by the higher caliber and training of the "augmented human" managing the AI.
2. Output: Asset-based billing. Crucially, Dept only charges for assets that have passed an effectiveness test conducted by a third-party tool (Optimal). This prevents the agency from "grading its own homework," ensuring that clients pay only for creative that meets specific performance benchmarks.
3. Outcome: Performance-based bonuses tied directly to growth metrics. This remains the most advanced tier and is currently treated as a supplement to primary fees, though Dept expects it to grow in prominence as the agency gains more end-to-end control of the marketing lifecycle.

Official Perspectives: The Lean Agency Advantage

Dept’s ability to pivot so rapidly is attributed, in part, to its structure. Armale points to the "opportunity costs" faced by larger, $15 billion conglomerates. In such organizations, the administrative burden and the push for high-margin software sales can stifle innovation.

"Dept is lean by comparison," Armale notes. He emphasizes that he remains a client-facing, billable employee who is building the product in real-time. This hands-on approach allows the agency to iterate on the tool based on daily feedback from actual account managers and clients, rather than relying on a disconnected R&D department.

Implications for the Industry

The shift toward orchestration reflects a broader trend in the marketing services sector. Clients are increasingly wary of "black box" agency tools that force vendor lock-in. By favoring interoperability, Dept is positioning itself as a partner that plays well with others, rather than a gatekeeper.

1. The Death of the "Proprietary AI" Hype

For years, agencies have touted proprietary AI platforms as their "secret sauce." Dept’s strategy suggests that the real secret is not the tool itself, but the ability to orchestrate existing enterprise tech to drive measurable outcomes. Expect other mid-tier agencies to follow suit, moving away from custom-built interfaces toward API-first, orchestration-heavy models.

2. The Shift to Outcome-Based Billing

Dept’s three-tier model represents a significant evolution in agency-client contracts. By tying billing to third-party validated outputs and growth outcomes, the agency is aligning its incentives directly with the client’s P&L. This moves the agency-client relationship from a service-provider dynamic to a partnership model, though it places immense pressure on the agency to deliver tangible results.

3. The "Augmented Human" Paradigm

By focusing on the "augmented human," Dept is effectively framing AI not as a replacement for human labor, but as a force multiplier. This narrative is likely to resonate with CMOs who are currently struggling with the cost-benefit analysis of AI integration. By absorbing the token costs and focusing on the performance of the human-AI hybrid, Dept is lowering the barrier to entry for complex AI workflows.

Conclusion: A High-Stakes Bet on Transparency

As Dept moves toward an 80% adoption rate by 2027, the success of Deptify will serve as a bellwether for the agency world. If the orchestration-first model proves to be both scalable and profitable, it could fundamentally disrupt the way agency holding companies structure their tech stacks.

By prioritizing growth over licensing and transparency over proprietary black boxes, Dept is betting that clients will ultimately pay for the value created by their expertise, not for the software used to deliver it. As the agency gears up to demonstrate this "multiversal" approach to the wider industry at Cannes, the question remains: will the market value the orchestration, or will they continue to be seduced by the allure of the branded "operating system"? For now, Dept’s gamble seems to be paying off—one outcome at a time.