In the world of marketing, artificial intelligence tends to get the most attention when it is featured prominently in splashy creative advertising campaigns from big brands like Coca-Cola and Nike.
But at WPP—whose client roster includes Google, L’Oréal, LVMH, and Mastercard—Chief Technology Officer Stephan Pretorius says the advertising giant’s big “mic drop” moment has been the soaring adoption of WPP Open, an AI-enabled operating system that’s used by marketers to plan, create, and run campaigns. More than 85,000 of the agency’s 108,000 employees are using WPP Open on a monthly basis today, up sharply from 30,000 in February 2024.
“Getting that balance right and making sure that humans are in control of the output and that they evaluate and apply taste and judgment, but also that the thought process is expanded and augmented—so you don’t become like a passive passenger in the process—is really critical,” says Pretorius.
Pretorius says WPP has embraced three levels of AI training to get the workforce ready for these AI tools. At the entry level, WPP runs a creative technology apprenticeship program, which it recently expanded under the company’s five-year, $400 million partnership with Google. The program aims to train 1,000 creative technology apprentices over the next three years, helping college graduates learn about AI and other technologies before they join one of WPP’s agencies.
WPP also offers AI learning programs for more senior staff, including courses that teach the basics of generative AI and the appropriate use of AI in media planning and creative ideation. At the senior level, executives are expected to take “AI and business diploma” courses.
“You’ve got to do it continuously and you have to do it very purposely,” says Pretorius of the AI upskilling programs that he says need to be conducted on an ongoing basis. “I think it’s a tall order to expect people to know how to work with AI. Everyone’s still figuring it out.”
Ad agencies like WPP have increasingly embraced generative AI capabilities to support creative ideation, research, and to develop of content for their clients, with the hopes that the technology will both speed up production and ultimately lower costs. Three out of four ad industry executives say that their companies are using these tools in 2025, up from from 61% the prior year, according to a survey conducted by research firm Forrester.
But, like most other industries, these AI investments are for now a net cost for agencies. The cost of business—which Forrester defines as generative AI capabilities funded by a creative agency without passing those costs on to clients—grew 83% in 2025. Only 7% were able to sell generative AI capabilities as a separate service outside what these agencies have traditionally offered.
WPP has been making the pitch that its AI tools can generate meaningful savings. WPP Open, which uses technology from multiple providers including OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E, Google’s Gemini family, and Anthropic’s Claude, gives teams of four 14 hours “back,” meaning time saved on the work being done by creatives. That would translate to roughly 90 days of saved “capacity” every year. WPP is also hoping to make WPP Open more alluring to external customers through the October launch of WPP Open Pro, a version of the platform that allows brands to plan, create, and publish their own creative campaigns independently.
The company’s workforce has also created more than 75,000 AI agents by the end of 2025. Pretorius says he’s encouraged experimentation on that front, rather than a top-down mandate dictating which agents should be used across the various business units. That’s allowed teams to build AI agents that even Pretorius says he couldn’t have predicted.
“I think one does have to take a kind of expansive view of this,” says Pretorius. “Empower as many people in the business with general-purpose tools that you teach them how to use. And then, let the collective intelligence flourish.”
The pressure to get AI right comes as major agencies have been shedding jobs. Omnicom cut 4,000 jobs in December, while WPP’s Ogilvy shed 5% of its workforce in June. When WPP reported third-quarter revenue softness and revised its full-year organic growth target to a more bearish outlook, forecasting a decline of 5.5% to 6%, CEO Cindy Rose, called the performance “unacceptable.” The agency has said it would implement a restructuring to make the WPP more streamlined. Investments in technology are expected to be central to help return the business to growth.
Pretorius is an optimist when it comes to the changes AI will bring to advertising. These tools can help marketers generate more content, with greater personalization for different consumer groups, and do so at the same level of investment that was made without AI, he claims.
“If you shy away from it, pretend it’s not existing, and pretend you can work the way you used to work…you will lose the business,” says Pretorius. “And other people will eat your lunch.”
John Kell
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NEWS PACKETS
AI takes center stage at the World Economic Forum. Top executives from the largest AI companies were in Davos this week, opining on how the technology should evolve and what that will mean for economic growth. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his belief that energy will be critical to determining which countries succeed in the AI race, while Meta’s new president and chairman, Dina Powell McCormick, urged the industry to align on “core values” that would make the technology both safe and productive. Mohamed Kandi, global chairman of consulting giant PwC, told Fortune that the CEO job has changed more in the last year than anything he’s witnessed for the past quarter-century. These leaders are still facing big challenges wrapping their heads around AI, with most—56% of the 4,454 CEOs surveyed by PwC—saying they are getting “nothing out of it.”
OpenAI’s 2026 priority: “practical adoption.” OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar shared that the AI startup’s annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion in 2025, more than triple the prior year’s level, and said computing capacity also soared as weekly and daily active users reached all-time highs. Friar also said that the company’s priority will be to close the gap “between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day.” She didn’t expand much on what that would mean practically, but there are some recent reports that point to OpenAI’s direction, at least in terms of how it hopes to generate more money to help it turn a profit. OpenAI is aiming to debut its first hardware device later in 2026, has struck a deal with ServiceNow to integrate OpenAI’s AI models into the latter company’s business software, and is testing how ads can show up within ChatGPT.
Geopolitics intertwine with chipmaking between the U.S. and Asia. Last week, Taiwan agreed to invest at least $250 billion in production capacity in the U.S. and a government guarantee of $250 billion in credit for the companies that make those investments, according to a new trade deal struck between the nations. In exchange, the U.S. has agreed to limit its “reciprocal” tariffs on Taiwan to 15%, down from 20%. The announcement reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to bring chipmaking back on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, in China, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on imports of some advanced semiconductors, including the H200 AI processors made by Nvidia, before they are shipped to China.
Anthropic poised to raise another $25 billion or more. AI startup Anthropic is reportedly in talks with investors for fresh funding that would value the company at $350 billion, more than double its valuation from just four months ago, the Financial Times reports, saying the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital may invest in the company for the first time. This news comes days after Anthropic launched Claude Cowork, which is an AI agent that can manipulate, read, and analyze files on a user’s computer, and also create new files.
ADOPTION CURVE
CEOs are again steering AI implementation. In the immediate wake of the debut of ChatGPT in late 2022, the pressure to set a clear strategy on AI sat on the desk of the CEO. But soon after, it became clear that the top technologists—CTOs, chief information officers, chief digital officers, etc.—were empowered to drive AI adoption for employees across enterprises. They've been busy organizing their data to take full advantage of large language models, setting up security protocols, training employees, building partnerships with AI hyperscalers, and launching new AI tools.
But beyond the lower-stakes productivity tools, humans keep getting in the way of further progress, and that may explain why the AI playbook is back with the CEO. Seventy-two percent of CEOs say they are now the main decision-maker on AI, twice the share from a year ago, according to a survey of 2,360 executives conducted by consulting firm BCG.
“I think CEOs are realizing they need to step in and help drive the organization change,” says Vlad Lukic, the global leader of BCG’s tech and digital advantage practice, in an interview with Fortune.
They're also feeling the pressure: half of them believe they have to get their AI strategy right if they want to keep their jobs, the survey showed. But CEOs are also more optimistic about AI’s potential for a return on investment in 2026 than last year (82% agree with this sentiment). They are also spending more. Corporate AI efforts will account for about 1.7% of revenue in 2026, more than twice the increase last year. All 10 industries BCG tracked are projected to spend more on AI this year.
Courtesy of BCG
JOBS RADAR
Hiring:
- Xponential Fitness is seeking a CIO, based in Irvine, California. Posted salary range: $350K-$450K/year.
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory is seeking a CIO, based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.
- Hunterdon Health is seeking a CIO, based in Flemington, New Jersey. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.
- Scholar Rock is seeking a CIO/VP of IT, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $300K-$400K/year.
Hired:
- Coca-Cola has appointed Sedef Salingan Sahin to serve in the newly created role of chief digital officer. Sahin joined the beverage giant in 2003 and most recently held the role of president of the Eurasia and Middle East operating unit. Sahin will oversee the digital strategy efforts that were previously overseen by President and Chief Financial Officer John Murphy.
- Adobe has appointed Lucius DiPhillips as CIO, joining the design software company after most recently serving as CIO at Airbnb. Prior to his eight-year career at the home-rental platform, DiPhillips held senior leadership roles at eBay, PayPal, Bank of America, and GE.
- Skillsoft announced the appointment of Bernard Barbour as chief technology and product officer, joining the educational technology firm after most recently serving as CTO at agricultural technology company Indigo Agriculture. Before Indigo, he spent more than a decade at customized goods producer Cimpress, where he led a global platform team of more than 700.
- ACI Worldwide has appointed JP Krishnamoorthy as chief innovation and technology officer, joining the payments software company after most recently serving as EVP of engineering, AI, cloud operations, and cybersecurity at software firm Coupa Software. He also previously held technology leadership roles at Oracle.
- DigitalOcean announced Vinay Kumar as chief product and technology officer, joining the cloud infrastructure provider from Oracle, where he most recently served as SVP of cloud engineering. Kumar spent 11 years at Oracle and also previously served as a manager at Amazon Web Services.
- IonQ announced the appointment of Katie Arrington as CIO and has expanded the scope of work for Leslie Kershaw, who will now serve as chief information security officer and report to Arrington. Prior to joining the quantum computing company, Arrington served as CIO for the War Department. She is also a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives.
- Komodo Health has appointed Amit Sangani as CTO to lead the medical data analytics company’s technology, engineering, and AI platform strategy. Sangani joins Komodo after 11 years at Meta, where he most recently worked with the tech giant’s Superintelligence Labs on large-scale AI systems. Prior to Meta, Sangani co-founded and served as CTO of messaging software provider MightyText.
- Yesway named Robert Hampton as CTO, where he will lead the IT strategy and all aspects of enterprise technology for the Texas-based convenience store operator. Hampton joins Yesway from convenience and fuel retailer Jacksons Companies, where he served as CIO. He also held previously held technology leadership roles at infrastructure firm AECOM.
- RLDatix appointed Richard Jarvis as CTO, where he will oversee platform architecture, engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, and data for the healthcare software provider. He previously served as CTO for electronic patient record systems for EMIS Health. He also held senior leadership roles at HP Enterprise , BAE Systems, and Detica.
