Agencies

From Cannes Lions, our editorial team discusses the mix of perspectives on the ad industry’s application of AI: the opportunity, the hesitation and the predictions of how it will disrupt marketing.

Expect more ad agency holdco consolidation in the next year; people are starting to talk like ChatGPT; inside the weirdness of matching political funds.

As premium game prices skyrocket and paid subscriptions and cloud-based gaming services take off, marketers sense a chance to defray rising costs with ad revenue – perhaps dispelling some doubts about the value of more ads in games.

In the latest sign of massive change among ad agency hold cos, Mark Read is stepping down as leader of WPP. We unpack the impact of AI on agency hold cos and media, including WPP Media’s prediction that 2025 will be the first year in which the majority of ad spend flows through user-generated content.

Dentsu and Criteo announced a strategic partnership to consolidate their respective retail audience data within Dentsu Connect, the agency holding company’s data and identity product.

Open Intelligence is WPP’s Media’s new solution to help advertisers make sense of their data and use it in more ways, with a longer-term goal of decentralizing data.

For proof of the uncertainty facing marketers in 2025, look no further than the industry’s ping-ponging projections for ad spending. WPP Media’s revised forecast is just the most recent example.

Mark Read is exiting WPP at the end of the year; the CEO of DeepMind is important, we swear; Google’s major SEO swings have changed the game.

Sigma, MiQ’s new AI-powered ad platform, gives advertisers better analytics and attempts to unify the fragmented data landscape.

Michael Komasinski, Criteo’s newly-minted CEO, shares his vision for the company – and swears that Criteo doesn’t regret its huge investment in testing the Chrome Privacy Sandbox.

Sports sponsorships can play well for small brands; Perplexity was first to AI search ads, but advertisers waited for Google; and GroupM officially rebrands to WPP Media.

Former Goodway Group CEO Jay Friedman shares hot takes on everything from curation (“absurd”) to brand safety (“botched”).

No one needs reminding that a recession sharpens the knife on every budget line. Yet the 2025 slowdown is arriving just as media trading itself is mutating.

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

Now that all the dust and confetti has settled after the upfronts, negotiations between marketers, agencies, networks and streamers are only just getting started.

GroupM is restructuring, as AI looms over the business model of agency holding companies, and one-click campaign planning comes for agency jobs.

Jerry Dischler leaves Google; a bunch of marketing execs join AI companies; agency holdcos don’t know which way is up.

WPP’s GroupM is getting a new name; there’s no such thing as a TikTok ban at NewFronts; and Meta’s ad growth prospects might be plateauing.

Atlas Technology Group’s Brian Andersen shares insights on investment trends in the ad tech market and how AI is changing the M&A landscape.

Transparency has become the currency of credibility in advertising. Larger holding companies and black box AI platforms must recognize that their opaque practices are no longer sustainable.

Etsy sellers aren’t feeling great about the US tariff situation. Plus, X’s data licensing and subscription revenue is increasing.

Do Google AI Overviews really bring exposure to more websites?; Meta considered an all-ad Instagram feed; and agencies are cautiously optimistic even as tariff concerns threaten upfronts season.

Temu’s US ad spend grinds to a halt; Publicis posts a strong Q1; and creative personalization tech is back in vogue.

Omnicom Group CEO John Wren told investors during Tuesday’s earnings report that the first quarter represented a “good start to the year” for the ad agency holdco. 

Jason Colon, until recently Publicis’ EVP and managing director of retail media, has taken a new role as EVP of Commerce Media at Horizon’s retail media agency Night Market.

Agencies around the globe weigh in on principal-based buying; live sports are king, but new sports like F1 are having trouble gaining traction; and Adobe gets roasted by Bluesky’s artist community.

WPP has bought InfoSum, a data clean room and collaboration startup. Terms of the deal, announced on Thursday, were not disclosed.

Why is programmatic media buying so dang complicated? That question was an ever-present topic at the 2025 ANA Media Conference in Orlando, Florida this week.

Industry experts agree that the bot activity analyzed in the latest Adalytics report is among the easiest type of invalid traffic to spot.

An Adalytics report released Friday details numerous instances of brands serving ads to known bots that appear on the IAB Tech Lab’s International Spiders and Bots list and TAG’s Data Center IP List.