He said eight in 10 ad dollars from its media business, which makes up 60% of the group’s total net revenue, now come from AI-driven work. That spans everything from how its clients plan and buy media to how campaigns are optimized and measured. The tech is doing the heavy lifting for the group’s biggest business. And it’s able to do that because, as Sadoun put it, AI is helping its media buying deliver better outcomes.
“Today, anyone can deliver cheaper, faster and better content,” he told analysts on the earnings call. “What’s harder is to make that content — what we call ‘intelligent’ — meaning connected to the data so that clients can know whether the content they put out there is working or not.”
Typically, innovation on the media side of the holdco model comes at the expense of creative. This time, it’s lifting it. As AI improves results in media, creative’s share of total net revenue has grown from 20% to 25%, even as media’s share has slipped from 65% to 60%. A third of those creative revenue now comes from Publicis’ fully AI-enabled production platform, according to Sadoun. The two sides are feeding off each other, with AI in media giving creative a lift.
As he explained: “These efforts have completely transformed our model and revenue mix.”
That transformation has been years in the making.
It started with Marcel in 2018 (before AI was en vogue), an internal assistant built to link employees and streamline collaboration. Then came CoreAI in 2023, a data platform tying together insights across the company. Earlier this year, it added Leona, an agentic production system for data-led content creation, personalization and measurement. There’s also Bodhi, its enterprise knowledge engine, and Slingshot which automates software development and coding.
Taken together, they form a kind of AI backbone — one that clients are buying into. Not all of them, to be clear. AI is expensive — both to build (CapEX) and to run (OpEx), leaving some cautious. But Publicis is absorbing that drag better than most. AI investments have made its operations leaner: fewer hours, faster output and sharper targeting. That means cost of work goes down and margins go up — a rare feat in an industry where tech investments often eat into profit.
So much so that the group raised its guidance on organic revenue growth for the year from 5% to 5.5%. And despite industry rumours, that growth isn’t being fuelled by generous payment terms or financial sweeteners, Sadoun was blunt about that. The only thing driving Publicis’ momentum, he said, is that it bet early — and heavily (€12 billion) — on AI and tech.
“The best proof that we are not buying market share is that we have been number one in new business basically for the last six years, while increasing our financial ratios at the same time,” said Sadoun.
What Sadoun was really underscoring was Publicis’ head start — a mix of early investment, steady leadership and coherent execution. Other holding companies have tried to make similar moves but struggled to knit them together in a way that makes sense to clients. Publicis did, and perhaps just as importantly, it learned how to tell that story. In a market driven by confidence as much as capability, that narrative has become one of its strongest assets.
“We have been able to convince very big brands with material accounts to move to Publicis without a pitch for one reason, which is that AI allows us to differentiate even more and leverage our capabilities in a unique way,” said Sadoun.
Coca-Cola in North America was the most notable instance of this. Chances are they won’t be the last. As CMOs grow weary of fragmented tech stacks and inflated AI promises, Publicis’ integrated system offers a rare form of clarity — one where creative, media and data actually talk to each other, For clients chasing measurable efficiency, that coherence is providing harder to find — and harder to walk away from.
“The more demand for AI grows, the wider the gap with competition becomes,” he added. “It was 430 basis points versus our three main holding company peers in 2024. It’s expected to exceed 600 basis points this year. AI gives us a unique opportunity to accelerate even further.”
It shows that AI doesn’t have to be a threat to the agency business. It can strengthen it — at least for now. Because big advertisers are still leaning on marketing to offset tariff shocks, keep pace with cultural shifts and steady their brands through a jittery economy. Publicis, more than its peers, has found a way to make AI work in service of that mission. Whether it can stay ahead as the rest of the industry catches up is another question entirely.
Or as Sadoun put it: “We haven’t seen any slowdown in client demand in general.”
And even if that were to change, the group’s consulting arm Publicis Sapient, which makes up 15% of total net revenue, would likely cushion the blow. Not immediately but if it keeps scaling at its current rate, it could become the company’s next major growth engine.
“We are starting to see the beginning of momentum at Sapient,” said Sadoun. “The very same clients that have posed their capex know that they will need to accelerate in the agentic AI transformation.”
If the Sapient business can’t win growth on ad spend, it can win it on transformation — and that may end up being the more durable bet.
“When clients come to a moment when they are arbitrating between the one [holdco] that can truly help them with material business impact today thanks to AI, and the one that maybe could do it one day, we have seen a couple of pitches that have been stopped and the business going to us,” Sadoun said.
Still, even with Publicis’ lead, its advantage isn’t permanent. The market is anything but fixed, especially as CEOs grow more cautious about how and where they spend on AI. Which is to say, Publicis may be the best test yet of whether AI can truly remake the agency business — or just buy it a little more time.
“But that’s not to say that all hope is lost for Publicis’ competitors,” said Marisa Jones, an analyst at eMarketer. “Those who thrive amid current economic uncertainty will be those who are able to close modernization gaps through AI investments that offer unique value. Emphasizing concrete performance results from these investments and consistently innovating as clients become more budget-conscious will help competitors gain some ground.”