Omnicom-IPG merger creates largest ad holding company and beefs up AI potential

It’s done. Nearly a year after Omnicom announced it would acquire Interpublic Group, the merger completed last week, forming the world’s largest advertising holding company.

The deal comes at a time of seismic change in the ad industry, with AI accelerating the need for innovation and efficiency to compete with tech giants.

Earlier this year, for instance, WPP named former Microsoft executive Cindy Rose as CEO, while Publicis Groupe is eyeing AI-focused acquisitions — moves that underscore the industry’s pivot toward technology.

Omnicom CEO John Wren emphasized AI’s central role in the merger, saying in a statement it would “create a global community of the best and brightest professionals in the industry, all of whom will have access to the most advanced AI tools and Omni, our advanced intelligence platform.”

Stacy DeRiso, global brand president of IPG agency Initiative — now part of the newly formed Omnicom Media division — echoed that sentiment.

“At the heart of the acquisition is some of the technological change that the power of the two holding companies are bringing together,” she recently told The Current.

“That integration of those capabilities certainly empowers and enables us as employees of a new model, a new holdco.”

Could the Omnicom-IPG deal lead to more M&A in the advertising industry? Mergers are certainly heating up in the larger media ecosystem, with Skydance recently acquiring Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery up for sale.

Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré recently denied reports the company was in talks for a deal with WPP, but he also said, “we could consider a larger acquisition aligned with our strategy.”

Beyond scale, the merger also reflects how advertisers’ expectations of agencies have swiftly evolved.

“We’re feeling the pressure that we must be doing something with AI while also being under a level of scrutiny that we’ve never seen before,” Jennifer Laing, senior vice president of operations at Causal, said during a panel during Advertising Week New York in October.

John Kahan, chief AI officer at Stagwell, summed up the mounting pressure on agencies like this: “If you’re a traditional people-oriented company, regardless of the industry, you need to reexamine things. Those that have AI will win in the new world, and those that don’t will be left behind.”

IPG had already been moving in that direction. Ahead of the merger, it had been focusing on how to implement AI into its commerce business and recently launched a new business line, Agentic Systems for Commerce, led by Chief Commerce Strategy Officer Jeriad Zoghby.

“Things are moving so fast that you almost have to act like a startup: transparency, connectivity, speed,” Zoghby previously told The Current.