We catch up with Google Cloud CMO Alison Wagonfeld and WPP’s chief technology officer Stephan Pretorius to learn more about how Big Tech is doubling down on AI, even as investor confidence wavers.
Google Cloud CMO Alison Wagonfeld’s visit to WPP in London last week seemed particularly timely. She was in town as part of a wider European tour, as her partner company Alphabet, together with Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, doubled down on their AI investment strategy by announcing a combined $320bn on AI infrastructure this year, which is up from around $220bn last year.
The boost comes despite growing scrutiny over whether these massive outlays will yield a return fast enough to satisfy shareholders. Recent weaker-than-expected earnings from cloud divisions at Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet have fuelled speculation that AI adoption isn’t happening as fast as anticipated.
Meanwhile, the arrival of DeepSeek, a lower-cost AI model from China, has raised new questions about whether proprietary AI platforms from US tech giants will retain their pricing power in the long run.
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Wagonfeld was keen for The Drum to take a close look at how WPP is using AI and capitalizing on a partnership with Google, which was first announced at its Cloud Next conference last April. She sees the developing WPP Open AI system as a great use case as to why the investment is justified.
Seated in a conference room at WPP’s headquarters in London’s Sea Containers House, with views of St Paul’s Cathedral looming in the background, Wagonfeld directly addressed the market concerns surrounding AI’s commercial viability.
Last year, she points out, “Google Cloud grew 30% – that’s over $40bn. So, I think a 30% growth rate is showing that there is a lot of interest. We have thousands of companies that we’re working with and different use cases – everything from our workspace customers who are using Gemini in Workspace, all the way to the largest enterprises that are using Google Cloud. So, we see a tremendous amount of growth and opportunity.
“Google isn’t slowing down. We have thousands of companies actively using our AI tools and 90% of AI unicorns globally use Google Cloud.”
She dismisses the idea that emerging AI models such as DeepSeek would derail investment. “We expect that there will be innovation within Google and within other companies. I think that’s going to make everybody more excited to know what’s possible.”
Stephan Pretorius, WPP’s chief technology officer who is setting up WPP Open, believes the premise of the DeepSeek debate is flawed. “I think I’m sort of keen that the debate moves away from model one-upmanship and into application and use of value. Because I can’t think of another era where the general population has been so fascinated by really arcane technical details that they don’t understand. The far more interesting discussion is, what are people using it for? How is it changing work?”
A $300m AI bet that is reshaping WPP
There is no doubt that WPP has, so to speak, moved into an era of asking what time it is rather than debating how the clock works. While some companies are still in proof-of-concept mode with AI, WPP has gone all in. Over the past year, it has invested more than $300m in its AI-powered marketing platform, WPP Open, making it the foundation of its entire business model.
The scale of the transformation is striking. More than 3,500 people are working on the development of WPP Open and the platform is updated 30 times a day – a pace that is more like a tech company than a traditional agency. The number of active monthly users has reached 27,000.
What has been created is a largely proprietary AI-powered marketing platform designed to unify WPP’s entire business, integrating creative, media and production into a single system. While Google Cloud is a key partner, the platform is not tied to any single provider – it incorporates AI and cloud solutions from Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, IBM WatsonX and Adobe Firefly, among others. This allows WPP Open to continuously evolve, ensuring access to the best AI models and infrastructure while embedding proprietary tools such as AI Performance Brain and Brand Brain to drive efficiency, creativity and brand consistency at scale.
“This isn’t just a project,” says Pretorius. “WPP Open is the operating system of our business.”
The biggest change isn’t just the adoption of AI tools – it’s how AI is breaking down traditional silos between creative, media and strategy. “The way that we’ve always worked in marketing has been based on different functions – creative, media and strategy,” explains Pretorius. “What’s happening now is those functions are blurring.”
AI is no longer just automating existing tasks – it’s restructuring how the agency operates. “Creative teams can now use AI to test ideas in real-time, planners can upload massive amounts of research and have AI summarize key insights, while media teams can generate and optimize campaigns instantly,” says Pretorius.
WPP Open also enables companies to encode marketing personas into AI systems.
“You can create an agent that represents your Gen Z male audience. Then, you can upload a piece of content and ask, ‘How would this audience react to this ad?’ You get measured feedback – essentially, a synthetic focus group that lets you test ideas much faster than before,” says Pretorius.
Wagonfeld, who sees WPP as a poster child for AI integration, says a big part of Google Cloud’s AI investment is to ensure that companies such as WPP have access to enterprise-ready tools that integrate AI at scale. “WPP is a great example of a company that isn’t just experimenting with AI – it is putting it into action.”
AI is changing what marketing jobs look like
For decades, marketing roles were rigidly defined – strategists shaped the brief, creatives designed the campaign, media buyers handled placement. But AI is eroding those divisions. “The biggest shift is that we’re no longer thinking in silos,” says Pretorius. “Creative, strategy and media used to be distinct functions. Now, they are all converging within a single AI-driven system.”
This is forcing a rethinking of talent. “As you start building sophisticated applications of AI into your business, the right balance between humans and machines gets figured out,” he says.
Wagonfeld believes this shift will make marketing jobs better, not worse. “The common complaints that people have – ‘I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough resources’ – those are the exact things that AI can help solve. It’s about freeing people up to do higher-value work. Marketers are going to be able to spend more time with their customers, rather than getting buried in logistics.”
Advice for the next generation of marketers
If AI is rewriting how marketing works, what does that mean for the next generation of talent?
Wagonfeld believes that AI fluency will be the most valuable skill. “If I were 21 today, the most important thing I could do would be to learn how to work with AI,” she says. “Just like 20 years ago, when people who were internet-native had an edge, being AI-native is going to be a huge advantage.”
She encourages young marketers to embrace AI as a collaborator. “AI isn’t about replacing people; it’s about extending their capabilities. It allows you to brainstorm faster, iterate better and make decisions with more data.”
Why WPP Open could be a blueprint for Big Tech’s AI bet
As Wall Street questions the short-term return on AI, WPP Open provides a tangible case study for how AI investment can transform a business. In just a few years, WPP has evolved from a traditional agency network to an AI-powered marketing technology company.
“The whole business will run on WPP Open,” says Pretorius. “Clients will use it directly. Agencies will operate through it. It’s not just a tool. It’s the company.”
As Big Tech bets billions on AI, WPP is proving that the investment will pay off – not just in efficiency but in reshaping an entire industry.