WPP's CTO says AI is reshaping advertising. But creative judgment needs to remain in human hands

(Credit: Courtesy of WPP)

In the world of marketing, artificial intelligence tends to get the most attention when it is featured prominently in splashy creative advertising campaigns from big brands like Coca-Cola and Nike.

But at WPP—whose client roster includes Google, L’Oréal, LVMH, and Mastercard—Chief Technology Officer Stephan Pretorius says the advertising giant’s big “mic drop” moment has been the soaring adoption of WPP Open, an AI-enabled operating system that’s used by marketers to plan, create, and run campaigns. More than 85,000 of the agency’s 108,000 employees are using WPP Open on a monthly basis today, up sharply from 30,000 in February 2024.