The 2025 global
benchmark report
For Content Production:
In- House, Offshore & Automation
This report unveils a host of industry insight and brings to the surface the latest industry insight and analysis relating to:
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The biggest challenges in content production for in-house and marketing teams.
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Where production budgets are being spent and with whom.
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Challenges around automation and AI and where are they being used most frequently.
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What assets are most commonly produced offshore and the expected savings
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From Creative Ideation to Post Production, where the disciplines are most commonly managed.
Featuring interviews with:
- Three
- Popular Bank
- Ashfield Medcomms (Inizio Medical)
- Cengage
- The Hallway
- Entain
- ManMachine
- In-House Agency Forum
- In-house-agency-review dahling
- Inside Out Community
A sneak peak
In a world of hyper-digitalization, companies are rapidly exploring how best to use AI agents combined with resource models that can scale, in order to create seamless and personalized experiences for customers, and to streamline business processes.
The pace of production is faster than it ever has been, and is unlikely to slow, putting pressure on resource models & lead-times.
The top challenges for brands and in-house agencies producing content in 2024 were:
- Access to lower cost skills and resources.
- Access to additional resources / talent.
- Access to flexible resource models.
- Delivery of shorter lead times.
- Ensuring the brief, creative and production are working together effectively
”Staffing will continue to be a challenge in 2025. We have enough work to employ more, but managing headcount is extremely important.
James MathersHead of Operations, Three, In-House Creative Agency
We need to keep the wheels turning and we need to attract the right talent but also work within the process and respect the procurement framework defined by the business.
Budgets & Cost Savings
- Marketing budgets in 2025 are set to stay relatively stable and in some cases tighten up.
- Over 1 in every 3 companies (37%) are saving 40-60% with an offshore model.
- In some cases offshore savings were as high as 80%, especially for video post-production and web development.
Automation & AI
44% of content producers are automating up to 20% of their total production output. 22% have not yet started to automate production.
The single biggest challenge for any studio adopting automation is a change in culture. 39%
stated this was the single biggest factor.
Digital Banners (32%) is the number one asset that content producers expect to be automated by their production partner.
Top benefits of automation for content production are:
- Speed of production
- Cost efficiency
- Scalability
- Brand consistency
- Data-driven insights
1 out of every 2 companies, doesn’t currently have an AI strategy for content production.
The top ways in which In-House Agencies and Brands are most comfortable using AI are: asset management, creative development, image manipulation/editing & creating briefs.
2025 GLOBAL BENCHMARK REPORT
"The lesson is clear: leverage AI and offshore resources for routine work to free up In-House teams for high-value creative tasks."
