WPP's AI Push: Key Points
Editor’s Note (Updated September 25, 2025): This article now includes WPP’s launch of Open Intelligence to highlight how the agency is expanding its AI-driven data strategy.
WPP has just acquired InfoSum, giving clients instant access to AI-driven, privacy-safe campaign intelligence without moving or exposing sensitive information.
Announced on Thursday, the move embeds InfoSum into GroupM, which is now WPP Media.
It enables clients to train custom AI models and optimize campaigns faster across the marketing ecosystem.
The deal also gives WPP clients access to the industry’s largest privacy-enhanced data infrastructure, capable of connecting first-party data with media and data partners.
WPP acquires @InfoSum the world’s leading data collaboration platform: https://t.co/r8HEH6ZWq2pic.twitter.com/PVW7c16Ayg
— WPP (@WPP) April 3, 2025
InfoSum’s cross-cloud technology and federated learning methods are central to the integration, allowing secure, real-time audience insights and campaign deployment.
WPP CEO Mark Read emphasized the importance of combining control, scale, and cutting-edge technology in a press release.
“Bringing InfoSum into WPP is a major step forward for our data capabilities and the results we can deliver for our clients.
It allows clients to stay in complete control of their first-party data, while also giving them access to vastly greater quantities of high-quality, privacy-compliant data and pioneering technology that is not available anywhere else in the market today.”
GroupM CEO Brian Lesser said the integration unlocks new value from client data and sets the stage for AI models that grow smarter with every campaign.
“Our approach recognizes the importance of identity data to today’s marketing strategies while allowing us to take advantage of the limitless opportunities for growth we can create by moving beyond them."
Lauren Wetzel, CEO of InfoSum, expressed excitement about the partnership, highlighting the shared vision for revolutionizing data-driven marketing.
“InfoSum’s mission has always been to reimagine how data powers marketing in a secure, privacy-first, and, most importantly, impactful way for advertisers and consumers.
WPP and GroupM are the perfect partners to help us accelerate our impact on a truly global scale.”
This buyout highlights how artificial intelligence is becoming central to modern marketing, helping brands turn their data into real performance advantages.
Smarter Data, Stronger Strategy
The acquisition reflects WPP’s “Intelligence Beyond Identity” strategy, which shifts away from reliance on legacy identity systems.
Instead, it promotes tapping into a broader network of high-quality, interoperable data.
As third-party cookies continue to deprecate and platform fragmentation accelerates, this model positions WPP ahead of traditional marketing.
Alongside the InfoSum deal, WPP has launched Open Intelligence, its new data solution and the industry’s first Large Marketing Model.
The model pulls in data from hundreds of partners across 75 markets, giving WPP reach that covers as many as 5 billion people.
It's built to keep learning from cultural, geographic, and behavioral signals to sharpen audience targeting and campaign performance over time.
Instead of relying only on identity data, Open Intelligence mixes first-party information with wider patterns to create models tailored to each client.
These models can be optimized in real time without moving or copying data, a privacy-by-default design built on InfoSum’s federated technology.
WPP says this allows brands to maximize ROI, reduce wasted spend, and deliver campaigns that are personalized and compliant.
The global creative agency has also framed Open Intelligence as the universal model powering its wider AI-enabled platform, WPP Open.
The idea is to link its teams and tools under one intelligence layer that runs through the whole process, from planning to measurement.
Early partners include Google, Microsoft Advertising, Meta, Snap, and TikTok, each adding scale, data, or media access.
Open Intelligence will roll out in stages through 2025 as more partners come on board and the system expands across formats.
