Building a thriving AI agency requires you to master AI tools, refine your AI marketing approach, and use AI to innovate client solutions. By leveraging artificial intelligence, agencies can automate key processes, integrate chatbots for real-time customer engagement, and even tap into free resources that lower barriers to entry. In this blog post, you’ll discover how to leverage AI effectively, positioning your agency for sustained growth and long-term success. We spoke with real experts using unique marketing strategies to grow their AI agency and take this new opportunity in AI-driven automation to help businesses streamline their marketing and business.
The release of ChatGPT in 2023 drove new opportunities for businesses to integrate AI into their operations. In this period of change, we saw previous innovators, even developers form their own building their own AI agencies to help businesses with AI implementation and even existing digital agencies start to offer a new vertical of AI services.
There's an emerging demand from small and large business owners to build AI-powered tools, optimize their current processes, minimize repetitive tasks, and meet the specific needs of their customers using AI. The gap is how to do this and do this well. There is where agencies can bring their AI expertise to help these businesses not only build these tools, but help with the decision-making of their ever changing technology. This new trend has created plenty of AI business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue and meet the demand for AI.
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The speed of AI adoption is unlike anything we’ve seen before. While it took nearly a decade for web adoption to grow from 50% to 75%, AI adoption among businesses made that same leap in just one year. Despite the rapid growth, many small, medium, and mid-market businesses struggle with the bandwidth and expertise to experiment with AI—creating an opportunity for agencies and solopreneurs to step in.
As Conner—founder of Umbral AI shares:
“The growing demand in this space has led to multiple full-time job offers and long-term consulting opportunities for me.”
As AI workflows become mission-critical, other agencies on the panel have even seen companies hire for “Chief Automation Officers” (CAOs) or fractional AI consultants to lead their internal AI initiatives.
These early indicators represent a turning point. Whether you’re an agency, consultant, in-house specialist—having the expertise to develop AI workflows (in tools like Voiceflow, n8n, make.com) will be high in demand.
Whether you're just starting out, working with your first client, or looking to scale your AI agency, here are five key strategies to help you build, grow, and future-proof your AI agency.
One of the biggest challenges when starting an AI agency is proving ROI to potential clients. Especially as you’re starting out without case studies or testimonials—it’s difficult to persuade businesses to invest in AI solutions.
When you’re just starting out, build an AI agent that’s tailored to your prospect’s use case and pain point. Show a clear outcome that your agent will help them drive. You ultimately want to use this opportunity to collect data points, key metrics, and testimonials that you can leverage with future clients.
“I worked with an e-commerce client and helped them drive web traffic. And I used the results of this project to get a testimonial and forecast results and expectations when speaking to new potential clients." — Axel Flerén, AgentFlow
Sometimes companies lack the necessary traffic, infrastructure, or resources and won’t see significant value from AI solutions. That’s why it’s critical to target businesses that align with your proven use cases and that you can drive value for. In this discovery process with clients, make sure you truly understand their goals and what pain points you’re solving for them. Your solution should tangibly help them save money, time, or increase revenue.
From Coko’s experience, each client you work with can have entirely different focuses:
“There are several types of clients. You might have one who wants everything—a super chatbot. But they are not educated on the cost or time it takes to build their desired project. In this scenario, you have to educate them and walk them through the project step-by-step.
Other clients might’ve already tried other AI solutions, but their agent doesn’t work. Then the focus becomes helping them identify why it’s not working, and showing examples of other functioning demos to build trust.”
By focusing on defining who you’re targeting, what they’re trying to achieve, and why they should hire you—you’re building trust and credibility between yourself and your client.
One of the main points of resistance for companies is the fear of losing money. Offer a pricing structure that minimizes risk, such as performance-based fees, or commission . This value-based selling approach reassures clients and increases their likelihood of becoming long-term customers.
When you’re just starting out, focus on building credibility. It’s crucial to back up your claims with tangible proof—whether it’s a Youtube channel, testimonials, case studies, etc. Try to remove the risk for your clients to work with you and offer them a chance to see your capability before they commit.
Agencies should explore a mandatory monthly pricing model to ensure ongoing support, maintenance, and tool costs are covered. This prevents clients from constantly requesting new add-ons without proper compensation.
It’s also worth offering structured pricing for six months to one year contracts to help stabilize your agency’s revenue and ensure clients commit. This also lets you better project your monthly revenue and allocate resources effectively.
"I always include a mandatory monthly pricing model because clients constantly come up with new ideas and feature requests. By setting up a structured monthly plan—whether for one, six, or twelve months—I ensure my team has dedicated time for ongoing support. This way, everything from tools to maintenance is covered, and the client doesn’t have to worry about additional costs. It’s a non-negotiable structure that keeps projects running smoothly while guaranteeing long-term revenue for my agency." — Corentin Pinel, Chattinov
Many of our panelists wish they had documented their journey sharing builds, sales calls, and business insights to establish credibility and trust. Content creation has also been an effective channel for our agencies to find leads. Here are quick tips when it comes to content creation for AI agencies:
"When I first started, I was just making content for e-commerce, leveraging a testimonial from a friend. But everything changed when I created my first Voiceflow tutorial on YouTube. That video started bringing in discovery calls almost every week, and eventually, it led me to my first major client. Through that, I built momentum and later connected with my first growth partner—someone with 30 years of experience in the high-voltage power industry but no clue about AI. With my AI knowledge and his industry expertise, we secured deals I could never pull off alone. His solutions start at a $50,000 setup fee with $20,000 monthly. That’s when I realized the power of sharing knowledge online—clients and partners come to you because they see you as the expert." — Mani Kanisani, AI Growth Creators
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Building a successful AI agency requires a mix of hands-on expertise, strategic client-focused solutions, and the right opportunities to demonstrate your value. By following the expert strategies outlined in this article, you can position your agency for growth and long-term success.
With Voiceflow you can build bespoke solutions for your clients and offer customization across every use case, workflow, front-end and technology stack. If you're ready to take your AI agency to the next level, join our Partner Program. Get rewarded for bringing on new clients, and connect with a thriving community.
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