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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
WPP Group unveils plans to invest $314-million in AI this year
By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2024
CEO of the global advertising and communications giant says AI is set to enhance, not replace, human creativity.
UK-based WPP, the multinational communications and advertising firm, has announced plans to invest US$314-million in artificial intelligence (AI) during 2024.
The group has already made several investments in the field, having acquired European-based AI specialist Satalia in 2021, and formed partnerships with the likes of Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft and OpenAI.
Photo by Tara Winstead via Pexels
WPP also aims to expand the reach of artificial intelligence tools through WPP Open, a business platform used to share data across the company.
“AI is transforming our industry and we see it as an opportunity not a threat,” says Mark Read, CEO of WPP.
“We firmly believe that AI will enhance, not replace, human creativity. We are already empowering our people with AI-based tools to augment their skills, produce work more efficiently and improve media performance, all of which will increase the effectiveness of our work.
“We also see opportunities to sell new AI-driven products and services to our clients and to capture more growth in areas like production.”
Speaking at the time of the Satalia acquisition in 2021, Read said: “Advances in technology are revolutionising how people live, work and shop, how brands go to market, and how products and services are delivered.
“Clients are looking for end-to-end solutions that harness these technologies to grow their business.”
WPP expects revenue growth of under 1%
In addition to announcing the AI investment, WPP pre-released its 2023 earnings, with full results due for release in mid-February. The company expects to report 2023 revenue growth of 0.9%.
“While we had to navigate a more challenging environment in 2023, we see strong future demand for our services and are confident we can accelerate our growth over the medium-term,” Read says.
As part of a cost-savings drive, WPP merged the advertising agencies Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R in late 2023 to form a new business, VML.
More recently, it merged its public relations agencies, Hill & Knowlton and BCW, to form a new PR business called Burson. It has 6,000 staff in 43 markets.
WPP likes to call itself a “creative transformation company”. The businesses within its portfolio also include creative agency Ogilvy and media planner GroupM.
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