In the marketing sector, artificial intelligence often captures the spotlight when it is a central feature of high-profile, flashy advertising campaigns from major brands.
However, at WPP—which counts clients such as L’Oréal, LVMH, and Mastercard—Chief Technology Officer Stephan Pretorius states that the advertising behemoth’s most significant achievement has been the rapid uptake of WPP Open. This AI-powered operating system is utilized by marketers for campaign planning, creation, and execution. Monthly usage of WPP Open has surged to over 85,000 of the agency’s 108,000 employees, a sharp increase from 30,000 in February 2024.
“Achieving the correct balance is essential, ensuring that humans oversee the output, evaluating and applying their taste and judgment, while also expanding and enhancing the thought process to avoid becoming a passive participant,” says Pretorius.
Pretorius explains that WPP has implemented a three-tiered AI training strategy to equip its workforce for these new tools. For entry-level staff, the company operates a creative technology apprenticeship program, recently expanded through a five-year, $400 million partnership with Google. The initiative’s goal is to train 1,000 apprentices over the next three years, preparing college graduates in AI and other technologies before they begin at one of WPP’s agencies.
WPP also provides AI learning initiatives for more experienced employees, covering fundamentals of generative AI and its proper application in media planning and creative brainstorming. At the executive level, leaders are required to complete “AI and business diploma” courses.
“The upskilling must be continuous and deliberate,” Pretorius remarks about the AI training programs, emphasizing their need to be ongoing. “It’s a significant challenge to expect people to inherently know how to collaborate with AI. The entire industry is still learning.”
Advertising agencies, including WPP, are increasingly adopting generative AI to aid in creative brainstorming, research, and content development for clients, anticipating that the technology will accelerate production and reduce expenses. A Forrester study indicates that 75% of advertising executives reported their firms used these tools in 2025, up from 61% the previous year.
Yet, similar to other sectors, these AI investments currently represent a net expense for agencies. The cost of business—defined by Forrester as generative AI capabilities absorbed by the agency rather than billed to clients—increased by 83% in 2025. Merely 7% of agencies successfully sold generative AI services as a standalone offering beyond their traditional portfolio.
WPP promotes its AI tools as a source of substantial efficiency gains. WPP Open, which integrates technology from providers like OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, reportedly returns 14 hours of time to teams of four, representing hours saved on creative tasks. This equates to approximately 90 days of reclaimed capacity annually. To attract external clients, WPP launched WPP Open Pro in October, a platform version enabling brands to independently plan, create, and publish their own campaigns.
By the end of 2025, the company’s employees had developed more than 75,000 AI agents. Pretorius notes he has encouraged bottom-up experimentation rather than imposing a top-down directive on which agents to use, enabling teams to create AI solutions he admits he could not have foreseen.
“A broad perspective is necessary,” says Pretorius. “Equip as many people as possible with versatile tools and train them. Then, allow the collective intelligence to thrive.”
The urgency to successfully implement AI coincides with major agencies reducing their workforce. Omnicom and WPP’s Ogilvy both announced job cuts. After WPP reported weak third-quarter revenue and adjusted its full-year organic growth forecast downward to a decline of 5.5% to 6%, CEO Cindy Rose described the performance as disappointing. The agency stated it would implement cost-cutting measures to streamline operations, with technology investments seen as key to returning to growth.
Pretorius remains optimistic about AI’s impact on advertising. He asserts that these tools enable marketers to produce more content with enhanced personalization for different consumer segments, all within the same budget previously allocated for non-AI campaigns.
“If you avoid it, act as if it doesn’t exist, and continue working in old ways…you will lose business,” warns Pretorius. “And your competitors will take advantage.”
John Kell
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