WPP CEO Mark Read: ‘No doubt’ there will be ‘fewer people involved’ in work due to AI

SXSW London 2025

WPP CEO Mark Read admitted there is “no doubt” that for media companies to “do the work we do today, there will be fewer people involved” thanks to AI-driven efficiencies.

“But I think there will be many many more and many many different things that people will do that will bridge that gap,” he added.

Read’s comments came during an on stage chat with Times tech business editor Katie Prescott at the inaugural SXSW London conference in Shoreditch just weeks after WPP began conducting widespread layoffs at its media agencies. The holding group has consolidated its media agency brands and rebranded its media buying arm GroupM to WPP Media, “a fully integrated AI company”.

Earlier this week, WPP Media launched what it calls a “large marketing model” called Open Intelligence, part of WPP marketing suite WPP Open, which is aimed at automating and assisting media planning efforts.

“We see AI touching every element of what we do,” Read told Prescott, though he was careful to say AI will “augment” all aspects of the business rather than supersede their efforts.

Given the efficiency gains the holding group is already seeing, Read indicated WPP will “start to charge [clients] more for the impact of what we do as well as the number of hours”.

The future of planning?

When asked how AI will impact jobs at media and creative agencies, Read responded by playing a short video demonstrating how an average planner might use AI to make their job more efficient. In the video, a planner named Trish is tasked with creating a TikTok campaign for a chocolate brand to take advantage of Galentine’s Day (an informal holiday celebrating female friendship the day before Valentine’s Day).

Using WPP Open, Trish asked the AI tool: “My client needs ideas for a Galantine’s Day promotion. Can you give me some background on the trend and relevant insights?” The tool responded by noting Galantine’s Day tends to include themed celebrations that involve food-centric experiences rather than gifts.

The planner then indicated the chocolate brand “prioritises multi-cultural audiences”, asking the tool to suggest a few TV shows that might be relevant. The AI tool responded by recommending shows like HBO’s Like Water for Chocolate.

WPP unveils AI-led ‘large marketing model’ Open Intelligence to boost brand performance

In a further back-and-forth, Trish asked for recommendations for relevant markets with single latina women for the camapign, as well as popular latino food influencers that could be appropriate to work with, which the AI tool delivered.

The last step? “Put together a proposal for a Galentine’s Day watch party series for Like Water for Chocolate, hosted by these influencers in these markets. Include event details and how our chocolate will be featured in every food category, from cocktails to desserts.”

Trish then sent the plan to her boss without checking it further.

A WPP spokesperson later clarified that the video “depicts only part of the full process of developing work for clients, and that teams using WPP Open typically follow additional steps”, including checking work produced by the AI model.

Demonstrating efficiencies

In another example, Read showed a TV ad for cloud computing company CoreWeave that WPP created entirely with AI; WPP Open, he claimed, was used to generate ideas, identify target audiences, create images and create a 30-second TV spot.

While he admitted the ad might not “win an award at Cannes”, the whole project took just six weeks from start to finish — substantially less time than it otherwise would have.

“When we think of every television ad we see on TV in the future, there’s no reason why it won’t be using AI,” he added, going so far as to predict it might not be long before AI could win an Oscar.

When demonstrating WPP Open’s capabilities to clients, Read continued, he is able to create a finished Instagram ad from a brand idea — a process that used to take two weeks — in just four minutes.

WPP officially relaunches GroupM as ‘AI-powered’ media company

The holding group has also created 29,000 agents on its Open platform, tailored for specific clients to take advantage of. Read referred to the tool, in the case of Unilever, as a “Unilever market researcher”.

Such research has become even more necessary as clients seek to positively bias large-language models (LLMs) in reaction to relevant user queries in AI search. According to Read, clients are increasingly asking: “How do I influence what an LLM says about my brand?”

While Read suggested the best way to do so is to improve the service you’re selling so people speak more highly of the brand, he implied there is a “nascent industry” starting up to influence LLMs that scrape information from social media platforms like X and Reddit.

AI isn’t Monet

Despite greater efficiencies and the digital nature of using WPP Open, Read was steadfast in his commitment to require staff to work in the office four days per week.

“People are happier when they’re in the office,” Read said to loud, dismissive laughter from the crowd, which included junior WPP employees.

He added: “Human productivity and human collaboration is what makes all creative output special.”

Indeed, while Read was happy to tout the creative potential of AI, he expressed caution about the limits of AI tools for creativity.

Not only did he suggest the government must find a solution to copyright “that allows creatives to get paid for creative”, but he argued AI is fundamentally incapable of being creative in the same way humans can.

“If Monet can come up with a Monet, a machine can come up with 100 things that look like Monet”, he said, noting that “machines can imitate” but not be “truly creative”.

Beyond pitfalls in creativity, for AI to be socially useful, according to Read, it must result in not just efficiency gains, but effectiveness gains; not just job cuts, but job creation.

“One of the dangers of AI is if it’s just seen as an efficiency, productivity, cost-reduction tool,” he continued. “It has to be something that can create new experiences, new jobs. […] “It’s going to be very disruptive, and it’s going to disrupt things faster than it’s going to create things”.

“You can see why people are terrified about it,” Prescott remarked candidly.

She had spoken to business leaders at SXSW who indicated they were anxious AI could tip economies into a recession due to mass job loss in white collar industries.

But Read was dismissive: “Innovation does ultimately create jobs.”

The future of branding: Influence LLMs to protect your share of market

Editor’s note: This article has been updated after publication to add further comment from a WPP spokesperson and embed the ‘Galentine’s Day’ planning video.