Adoption of AI tools within WPP has taken off, with production savings and media campaign automation.
However, the flow of the new technology is still more on the cost side than saving or revenue gain.
WPP posted June quarter like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs came in at -0.5%, and the global advertising group is forecasting flat for the full year.
However, WPP is betting big on AI. The company is spending £250 million (AUD484 million) each year on AI, which the group believes will enhance, not replace, human creativity.
“We are seeing widespread AI adoption across WPP,” said CEO Mark Read when briefing market analysts on the company’s results.
“While we believe that we're still in the early days of AI's impact, we have seen enough to be sure that AI is going to be fundamental to WPP's future, as well as that of our clients.”
Creative Studio, the first part of WPP’s new AI platform, “allows us to get to better creative ideas more quickly”.
“It gives creative help in bringing ideas to life and content instantaneously,” Read said.
“We've added new functionality in the past six months, such as the ability to create Instagram posts for any brand anywhere with just a few clicks.”
Media Studio is also being deployed, integrating tools used by GroupM agencies into a single media suite.
“It allows our planners to design, plan, automate and optimise media campaigns through a single interface,” Read said.
“It brings data about audiences directly into a planners dashboard. We're launching new functionality that allows us to plan media campaigns automatically based not just on live pricing, but on live audience availability.
Monthly active users of Creative Studio is up 74% and media 177%.
“One of the strategic advantages of the platform for WPP and for our clients is its independence from any single foundational model," Read said.
“While Google Gemini is core to the platform, we're constantly adding new large language and image models to give our people and our clients the ability to choose the best model for the best task and enrich it with our and our clients’ proprietary data.
“We've already deployed WPP open across many of our largest clients, where it's proving particularly powerful and standardising and integrating complex, fragmented marketing processes and supporting our clients through their own marketing transformation process.
“I think the area where we're seeing AI as having the most impact in the short term is in production. We're seeing a little what I would call point solutions in the market that are using off the shelf Gen AI image platforms to create basic advertising images, but these models lack brand accuracy and product fidelity, which means they're fine for brainstorming ideation, but not the use of finished work.
“So we needed to find a different solution. A multi year partnership with Nvidia is really bringing our strength to this in two areas.”
One allows the building of production pipelines into WPP’s open production studio, to practically create advertising and other materials incorporating both product accurate visualisations and Gen AI backgrounds.
And recently, working with Nvidia and Shutterstock, WPP developed a 3D design solution with control and flexibility for clients such as the Coca Cola Company in Ford, which require volumes of content permutations.
A slide from Read's market analyst briefing:
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