Credit: Ana Garnica via Unsplash
Global advertising groups are using AI as both a growth tool and a cost lever, with staff levels as a whole sliding, according to the latest financial results from holdcos.
The headline competition is between data and technology platforms and the ability to demonstrate measurable business outcomes for clients.
Creativity is still a key differentiator but returns, at least those acknowledged above the line (and many argue that this is almost given away to clients), are smaller.
For example, Omnicom, now the world's biggest advertising player with its combined IPG takeover business, puts creative at 20% of its business.
AI is making the marketing landscape more complex and fragmented.
Publicis Groupe, which says it is investing in talent as well, is the only one with a mature AI setup, recording strong organic growth and industry-leading profit margins.
Everyone else is playing catch up.
Analysis of the Publicis, Omnicom, WPP, dentsu and Havas December quarter 2025 results, released in February, show heavy investment in AI, aiming to improve productivity and cut overheads.
Publicis is the most operationally mature, with an eight-year head start on AI dividends via its Marcel platform and a data advantage through Epsilon.
Havas is investing at a disciplined, stable rate and claiming production savings of up to 50%.
Omnicom is using AI as a central rationale for its $1.5 billion IPG integration synergy target. Staff levels are falling hard.
WPP is betting a GBP 300 million-plus annual platform investment on WPP Open as part of its turnaround plan, seeking a return to growth. Again, employee numbers are down and going further south.
Dentsu is rebuilding its international business, with AI standardisation and automation at the core of 750 internal transformation initiatives.
On headcount, WPP, dentsu and Omnicom are all shedding.
Publicis, reporting industry leading organic growth of 5.9% in the December quarter, currently has 114,000 and likes to keep headcount growth below its organic revenue growth rate.
In 2025, net recruits for the full year was about 5,100, an increase of 4.8%, below organic revenue growth. There was a slowdown in the December quarter with 500 net recruits.
CEO Arthur Sadoun said his results are driven by the growth model built for a new AI-driven world. He described it as “a way for us to expand our margin” and Publicis started very early in that game.
“Since the rise of GenAI three years ago, we have consistently demonstrated that artificial intelligence is not a headwind for Publicis,” he told analysts in a briefing. “For us, it is actually a strategic driver of growth and margin expansion."
Over those three years, Publicis’s net revenue increased in organic terms by EUR 2.3 billion, close to 20%, and its operating margin by about EUR 0.5 billion, also close to 20%.
“We have also proven the differentiation of our model by significantly widening the gap versus our peers,” Sadoun said.
“On net organic growth growing more than twice as fast as the second best performer.
“It's really going to be about who has the best model, who has the best talent, who again can differentiate with our capabilities which we are again making the demonstration this year.
“And there is a very strong new business pipeline coming in 2026. We have good opportunities for Publicis, and we feel very confident that we're going to gain market share again.”
Client expansion contributed about three percentage points to 2025 organic growth, explicitly attributed to spend toward AI-powered products and services.
"Our ability to leverage AI to truly deliver business outcome is the reason why so many clients arbitrate in our favor, as visible in our widening outperformance,” said Sadoun.
Havas, with its positive organic growth rates, was the only advertising holding group to deliver a keynote at CES 2026, the consumer technology trade show held in Las Vegas, focused on the impact of AI on advertising.
"We see savings on production for video between 10% and 50% so far,” said CEO Yannick Bolloré.
"But with no impact, no negative impact on us — because in the past, we were externalising or outsourcing production... and now, thanks to AI, it's coming in-house."
Havas held headcount flat at 22,600 last year despite 3.1% organic growth.
However, excluding acquired businesses, organic headcount fell 1.2%, generating an effective productivity gain of about 4.3%.
The company aims to continue growing revenue with the same staff numbers, relying on AI-driven productivity rather than hiring.
"Our vision on the next five years is to continue to grow with the same number of headcounts,” Bolloré said in a briefing of market analysts.
“So, we are training our people with AI, we are finding efficiencies everywhere."
Omnicom's AI future can’t be separated from the IPG acquisition.
The talk is about cutting costs, now doubled from a planned $US750 million to $US1.5 billion.
The next-generation Omni platform, combining assets from both Omnicom and IPG, is the primary client-facing AI tool.
Omnicom didn’t break out AI investment when releasing December quarter numbers but this is embedded in the three of the major cost saving areas: $1 billion in staff costs (automation and offshoring acceleration); $240 million in real estate (enabled by remote working and digital workflows); and $260 million in administration, IT, and procurement.
Thousands of jobs have gone in the takeover of IPG and more of the same is coming in 2026. Details are expected when Omnicom outlines its strategy later this month.
"Across every area of our business, we are evaluating and deploying automation and AI to improve how we service our clients and run our operations,” said CEO John Wren.
WPP's AI strategy centres on WPP Open, an agentic marketing platform that the company has been building for several years and in which it invested more than GBP 300 million in 2025.
New CEO Cindy Rose, with a background in large-scale enterprise technology transformation, has positioned WPP Open as the single most important competitive differentiator and the enabler of its Elevate28 recovery plan, which aims to return the company to growth.
The advertising group, once the world’s largest, posted full year 2025 revenue of £13.55 billion, down 8.1% on a reported basis and down 3.6% like-for-like.
Staff now number 99,000 after an 8% reduction last year, and fewer freelancers contracted, with more cuts ahead with GBP 500 million in savings planned,
The company is committed to maintaining investment in AI even while cutting costs elsewhere under Elevate28.
"We invested more than GBP 300 million in this area, and we will protect this investment to ensure continued enhancements to our technology platform and our AI capability,” said Rose.
An AI-linked commercial example involves JLR (Jaguar Land Rover), which was won in the December quarter of 2025 and is being contracted on an outcome-based model.
The pitch was described as built around WPP Open's ability to build audience without traditional ID matching and to connect that data intelligence with creative and production in an integrated workflow.
Dentsu is using AI and automation as foundational tools in its international business restructuring rather than as a growth driver.
The company has 750 internal transformation initiatives underway, with standardisation and automation as two of the three major themes, alongside headcount cuts.
Its Dentsu.Connect platform is the primary client-facing AI and data tool, with an emphasis on interoperability that the company believes differentiates it from closed-platform competitors.
A workforce reduction of 3,400 employees is in progress. About 2,100 are out and the rest are due to go this year.
Takeshi Sano, the long time head of dentsu’s profitable domestic Japan business and now global CEO, has made fast changes to the management structure of the global advertising group.
Dentsu, recording extraordinary losses and failing to hit forecasts, changed CEOs after writing down the value of its troubled international business by billions of dollars.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.