WPP is the world’s biggest advertising group. It is open to acquire companies in India to strengthen its AI capabilities. They are after AI talent. India has both creative and technological talents. WPP’s workforce consists of 10 per cent people from technology background.

In August 2021, WPP acquired Satalia, a tech company offering AI solutions. WPP wants to strengthen its capability in solving supply chain problems. The supply chain of WPP includes creation of content, production and dissemination. Each component of this process has AI applications.

AI has introduced data-driven decisions in the advertising industry. There is an excitement about the application of generative AI to produce content ideas which can be pushed across multiple channels to maximise the desired advertising goals. As we know, generative AI generates text, sound and image content, and will soon extend to video. The process of idea generation and production can be expedited with the use of generative AI. Generative AI can also be used to assess how the audiences perceive the content.

Despite the benefits of generative AI, there are issues of IP, its infringement and data privacy. It is necessary to create walled gardens around the data to make it secure. The models have been trained on the clients data. The same data then becomes available to others.

AI may replace the bulk of manpower in the US advertising companies (Forrester Analysis). It is to be appreciated that manpower will be free from performing mundane and routine tasks, and such manpower can be exploited for creative and strategic work.