In a strategic move set to redefine the future of marketing, WPP and Google have unveiled a five-year expanded partnership designed to harness cloud and artificial intelligence technologies to accelerate innovation across the marketing and commerce landscape.
The collaboration aims to empower brands to design and deploy hyper-relevant, personalised campaigns in days rather than months, marking a decisive shift from traditional efficiency initiatives to transformative growth strategies. The expanded deal includes a $400 million investment by WPP in Google technologies, reinforcing WPP’s ambition to embed AI deeply across its services through WPP Open, its proprietary AI marketing platform.
The agreement was formalised in Mountain View during a high-level meeting between Cindy Rose, CEO of WPP; Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud; and their respective leadership teams.
“I’m incredibly excited about how our evolved partnership with Google will redefine what’s possible for our clients,” said Cindy Rose. “By delivering bespoke AI solutions and enabling hyper-relevant campaigns at unprecedented scale and speed, we’re accelerating innovation across every facet of marketing to drive unparalleled growth and impact.”
Thomas Kurian highlighted the shared vision driving the alliance:
“By enabling WPP to innovate on our AI-optimised technology stack, we are helping to create the future of marketing technology for brands today.”
Lorraine Twohill, Google’s SVP of Global Marketing, added that the partnership builds on years of collaboration in AI tools and Gemini-powered innovations focused on driving “brand love and real business growth through experiences that truly resonate.”
Transformative Impact Across Marketing Functions
The partnership brings a suite of new AI-driven capabilities to WPP clients globally, spanning creative production, media, commerce, and audience engagement:
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Tailored AI Marketing Solutions: By integrating Google’s Gemini models with WPP’s creative expertise, brands can tackle specific challenges with precision. For example, AKQA’s “Generative Store” dynamically adapts retail experiences for individual consumers using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.
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Accelerated AI Model Development: WPP Media is deploying Google DeepMind-powered tools to build bespoke audience models with unprecedented speed, delivering measurable business impact.
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Privacy-First Data Collaboration: Through InfoSum’s Bunkers on Google Marketplace, WPP can unlock deeper insights for AI marketing without moving data, ensuring privacy and compliance.
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Revolutionised Content Production: Early access to Google’s advanced AI models such as Veo and Imagen enables WPP to produce campaign-ready assets in days rather than weeks, achieving up to 70% efficiency gains and 2.5x faster asset utilisation.
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Preferred Access to Advanced AI: WPP gains priority integration of Google’s latest AI research into WPP Open, enabling richer audience development and highly customised campaign activation across all Google Ad platforms.
Building the Future Marketing Workforce
Beyond technology, the partnership focuses on developing next-generation AI talent. Google is now the lead curriculum partner for WPP’s Creative Technology Apprenticeship Programme, which aims to train over 1,000 creative technologists by 2030. Participants will receive world-class training in generative AI, robotics, and creative coding, solving real client challenges for brands such as L’Oréal and Unilever.
Operational Transformation at Scale
Google AI will also be embedded into WPP’s internal operations, powering automated data analysis, resource allocation, and global insights sharing. This integration is expected to enhance speed-to-market, improve team agility, and deliver superior client value worldwide.
Importantly, new solutions developed under this partnership will first be applied and validated within Google’s own marketing operations, providing WPP clients with proven, market-ready innovations.
Illustrative Client Successes
Early implementations have delivered impressive results:
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A global technology company used WPP Open to build an AI-powered content system, testing creative concepts through 10,000 simulation cycles using virtual persona agents.
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A global retailer achieved 98% targeting accuracy and an 80% efficiency increase through AI-driven audience modelling.
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A multinational energy company deployed a custom AI Marketing Agent that automated brief generation and centralised campaign intelligence, enhancing local market responsiveness.
Sustained AI Investment
This initiative forms part of WPP’s wider £300 million annual investment in AI, ensuring the company remains at the forefront of technological transformation. WPP Open, built on WPP’s IP and strategic partnerships, integrates creative, media, data, and technology into a single operating system to drive measurable business growth.
