WPP cuts out the agency to help brands generate their own AI ads

By Matthew Griffin Intelligence and the Senses 6th November 2025

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

As more companies start using AI to generate adverts and video content for next to no money WPP is being forced to rethink its business model.

Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and trends, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog.

As we continue to see the rise and rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated content and synthetic media British ad group WPP said on Thursday it was letting brands access its AI-powered marketing platform to plan, create and publish their own campaigns.

DARPA invests hard cash to bring telepathy to the masses

WPP Open Pro, a new edition of its AI platform WPP Open, has been designed for smaller brands that do not use full-service agencies, it said, as well as to provide new capabilities to existing clients.

Advertising groups are facing the challenge of brands starting to use AI to do more of their own creative and planning work, reducing the fees they pay to agencies.

WPP has appointed Cindy Rose to turn it around after it lost its crown as the world’s biggest ad group to French rival Publicis last year and its shares more than halved this year.

The company, which owns Ogilvy, AKQA and WPP Media, said it was the first of its peers to provide a range of integrated, AI-powered delivery models, including directly to clients.

Anthropic's CEO says AI will obliterate most entry level jobs

Rose, who took over from Mark Read last month, said WPP’s creative and strategic talent would always be at the heart of what it did for the world’s biggest brands, such as Coca-Cola. But technology was fundamentally reshaping the industry, she said, and the new platform would put its AI capabilities into the hands of a much wider array of brands and businesses.

“This is about transforming how marketing is delivered, expanding our total addressable market, and giving more brands the tools they need to lead in the AI era,” she said.

The platform will enable brands to create channel-specific ads in seconds, it said. For example, a coffee shop chain could combine brand-approved imagery with content generated by AI to create a campaign for a new store opening. The ad could then be dropped into WPP’s Open Media Studio to be published or it could be published directly to major platforms, WPP said.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.