The race among the top ad agencies to embrace AI has escalated again with the announcement that WPP has joined forces with chipmaker Nvidia, in a partnership designed to create ads using generative AI.
Unveiled at Computex Taipei, WPP’s new content engine enables creative teams to integrate generative AI, alongside content from Adobe and Getty Images, into advertising campaigns. Nvidia’s Omniverse Cloud platform combines 3D imaging software (capable of creating objects such as cars) with AI-generated video and 2D environments.
The demo saw saw footage of a car driving through a desert, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explaining that the content engine can place the same car on a street in London or Rio de Janeiro. As well as easily changing content for different markets, the technology can adapt campaigns for different digital channels, such as YouTube or TikTok, according to Nvidia.
WPP said the platform allows the creation of ad campaigns “more efficiently and at scale,” with large volumes of advertising content becoming “more tailored and immersive.” The advertising giant added that using AI enables its teams to create campaigns in minutes, where they would previously have taken weeks.
“Generative AI is changing the world of marketing at incredible speed,” said WPP CEO Mark Read. “This new technology will transform the way that brands create content for commercial use.”
Invest to progress
Read has been vocal in the burgeoning role of generative AI in advertising, revealing in February that WPP’s investment in AI has helped the group’s agencies win pitches to clients. “It is fundamental to WPP’s business in the future,” he told The Guardian. “I would say that it has helped us win new business. We have been investing in it for a number of years.”
The same day, WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell (now Executive Chairman of S4 Capital) warned that AI’s impact has been underplayed, calling its use in media planning a “danger signal” for holding groups. And the industry fears a threat to jobs as AI capabilities grow exponentially in the next few years. The efficiencies created by the Nvidia platform certainly suggest the capacity for smaller creative teams.
But investors are bullish on these AI tie-ups, with WPP shares climbing 3 percent in London trading in light of the deal. Last week Nvidia forecast Q2 revenues more than 50 percent above Wall Street estimates, signalling surging demand for its chips that are used to power generative AI systems.
The announcement also follows last week’s news that Publicis has taken full control of its AI research division, Publicis Sapient AI Labs, as agencies ramp up their investments in the rapidly growing technology.
“The world’s industries, including the $700 billion digital advertising industry, are racing to realise the benefits of AI,” said Nvidia’s Huang. “With Omniverse Cloud and generative AI tools, WPP is giving brands the ability to build and deploy product experiences and compelling content at a level of realism and scale never possible before.”
