Reuters
- Ad giant WPP issued a profit warning, sending its shares crashing as much as 18%.Other ad company stocks fell, too.The ad industry faces challenges from AI, affecting its traditional business models.
It's just turned July, but there are all the signs that the advertising industry could be on the cusp of an AI winter.
An unexpected profit warning from WPP sent the advertising agency's shares down as much as 18% on Wednesday. Shares of rival ad groups, including Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, and Havas, were also down.
WPP said a combination of client losses, a slowdown in new business pitches, and pressured marketer caution amid economic uncertainty meant that its performance since the start of the year had been worse than expected. It forecast that its annual 2025 revenue would decline between 3% and 5%.
While some of WPP's woes are specific to the company, analysts and other industry insiders told Business Insider the ad group faces challenges that apply to the broader ad agency market.
Madison Avenue is grappling with the advent of AI. The technology can offer agencies opportunities as they help clients figure out how to apply it to their businesses, but also threatens to streamline many of the services they offer, including the creation and placing of ads. These productivity gains also threaten to upend the traditional agency business model of charging hourly rates.
On Wednesday's trading update, Mark Read, WPP's outgoing chief executive, quoted data from the research company COMvergence, stating new business pitches so far in 2025 were at a third of the level they were at during the same period last year. Read said this reflected a lower level of marketer confidence, given the prolonged macroeconomic uncertainty. He added that the new business opportunities that are out there tend to be smaller than usual. COMvergence didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Independent media analyst Alex DeGroote told BI that the sharp decline in new business pitches could be a sign of corporate clients replacing some agency services with AI solutions they can use in-house.
"The impact of AI on net new business is hard to quantify, but it is a clear downside risk in our view," DeGroote said.
Last month, Barclays analysts downgraded the stocks of WPP, IPG, and Omnicom, citing the immediate risks to the agency business posed by artificial intelligence.
WPP's CEO is leaving, and his successor will inherit a raft of challenges
Ad agencies haven't been letting AI wash over them without a fight. The largest agency groups, like Publicis and Omnicom, have pledged to invest hundreds of millions in AI over the next few years as they adapt their businesses to harness the technology.
"Agencies and adtech companies thrive on complexity and fragmentation. If advertising is seen as hard to do well, they can charge a premium, whether direct or baked into proprietary products," said Brian O'Kelley, founder of the sustainability-focused adtech company Scope3 and whose previous adtech company AppNexus received investment from WPP.
AI interfaces "just work," and that's a problem for advertising companies, O'Kelley added. He added that the rise of AI search is reducing traffic to publishers and brand websites alike, presenting a challenge to brands looking to get their messages across through online advertising.
For its part, UK-headquartered WPP said it plans to invest £300 million, around $407 million, annually in AI and other technologies. It recently announced an investment in Stability AI, the developer of the AI image generator Stable Diffusion. And it's prioritizing WPP Open, an AI-powered platform that helps its employees do market research, spin up media plans, and create assets for campaigns using generative AI.
"WPP has the most advanced strategy of any holding company, but clients and investors aren't waiting for them to finish their transformation," said O'Kelley.
WPP has lost key clients during its recent slump, like Pfizer and Coca-Cola's North America account. The company has undergone waves of restructuring in a bid to become more competitive — like the recent merging of its media agency brands to become WPP Media — but the changes and resulting layoffs have "come with some distraction to the business," Read said on Wednesday.
That's not to mention the distraction of Read himself announcing in June his exit from WPP this year after more than 30 years with the company. A successor has not yet been named.
Meanwhile, Publicis Groupe is flying high, having topped ad agency new business leagues; the Barclays analysts that recently downgraded the other agency groups, maintained their rating on Publicis, citing its recent strong performance.
Elsewhere, rivals Omnicom and IPG are due to merge to create the world's largest advertising group — two seismic industry moves that have resulted in WPP dropping down the pecking order.
"It's clear that more needs to be done to turn WPP's future around, and while the hunt for a new CEO continues, it's unlikely that WPP will regain its crown as the world's biggest advertising agency," said Aarin Chiekrie, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, in a note to clients Wednesday.
