WPP CEO Mark Read is stepping down at the end of 2025 amid mounting AI-driven disruption in advertising.
The London-listed ad giant is doubling down on AI, spending £300m yearly on data, tech, and machine learning. It rolled out AI-created campaigns like Cadbury’s Bournvita with cricket star Rahul Dravid and a Shakespeare-inspired robotic arm for Bic pens.
Read called AI “fundamental” to WPP’s future but warned of big changes to the agency workforce. The departure comes as heavyweights like Meta and Google push AI tools that threaten to sideline traditional agencies. 
Meta plans to let advertisers fully create and target campaigns with AI by 2026. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this will make “creative” and “targeting” obsolete, raising alarms over job losses and “death of creativity.”
The WPP firm VML used AI for the ‘One Bic, One Book, Two Classics’ campaign in Brazil.
Agencies like WPP, Publicis, and Omnicom are investing in their own AI to keep clients. But they face pressure as clients demand cheaper, faster work enabled by automation.
An unnamed agency CEO noted AI will “disintermediate a large number of jobs,” especially in production and idea realization. Still, strategy and insight roles may stay safe.
At a recent media conference, WPP’s Stephan Pretorius said AI “replaces tasks, it eliminates tasks, it doesn’t eliminate jobs.” He added that commercial models, incentives, and structures will all have to shift.
Meta promises AI tools for advertisers to fully automate campaigns.
WPP Media (formerly GroupM) already announced undisclosed layoffs globally this year. Agencies are caught in a dilemma, forced to invest millions in AI while clients push fee cuts.
Industry data shows UK agencies employed a record 26,787 people last year, up from a low point in the 1990s. UK ad spend is forecast to top £45bn in 2025.
Still, there’s skepticism about AI’s creative chops. One agency chief said pure AI ads can look “glossy” but “plasticky.” Still, AI’s creative potential is expected to improve with fine-tuned prompting.
The classic Cadbury’s gorilla ad remains a gold standard for creativity.
Zuckerberg later clarified AI tools target small and medium businesses mostly, and big brands will likely keep working with creative agencies.
Mark Zuckerberg stated recently:
“In the future, if you were working with a creative agency to make creative, you’ll probably keep doing that,” he said. “If you aren’t and you’re just hacking something together and throwing it into Meta’s ad system, well now we’re going to be able to come up with 4,000 different versions of your creative and just test them and figure out which one works best.”
Big tech claims to have “democratized” advertising, but agencies push back, calling it a “smokescreen” as platforms grab two-thirds of UK ad spend.
Marketing veteran Sir Martin Sorrell once called Meta and Google “frenemies” — partners and threats at once. AI is the latest wave forcing the industry to evolve or risk irrelevance.
Patrick Garvey, co-founder of We Are Pi, on AI’s impact on agencies:
“Meta’s new promise to ‘auto-generate your ad in seconds’ is the clearest sign yet that the production sausage factory is about to be fully mechanised.
It’s not the death of agencies. It’s the death of outdated agency models.”He called Meta’s AI approach the “fast food of advertising,” a tough change for traditional ad firms.
