WPP: 10,656 fewer staff in 18 months; 90% use its AI platform

WPP, the advertising group that owns Ogilvy, VML and Burson, had 97,388 staff at 30 June 2026, its [interim results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806968/000165495426007317/a4828p.htm) show. At 31 December 2024 it had 108,044, according to its [2025 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806968/000165495426001583/a4516u.htm): 10,656 fewer people, or 9.9%, in 18 months. Over the same period it rolled out its AI platform, WPP Open, to "around 90% of client-facing staff". Its [annual report](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806968/000162828026019643/wpp-20251231.htm), filed on 19 March 2026, says that for most fee arrangements "the primary input of substantially all work performed under these arrangements is labour".

What the filings show

• People: 108,044 at 31 December 2024, 104,083 at 30 June 2025, 98,655 at 31 December 2025, 97,388 at 30 June 2026.
• Pay bill: staff costs fell from £7,761 million in 2024 to £7,083 million in 2025 (8.7%), then a further 5.9% in the first half of 2026, to £3,469 million. Severance was £141 million in 2025 against £61 million in 2024.
• AI use: "over 70,000 of our people (equivalent to around 90% of client-facing staff)" used WPP Open each month in December 2025, against 33,000, about 40%, a year earlier. WPP puts its 2025 spending on "AI-driven technology" at £300 million. The interim results say the platform is "automating high-volume creative, production and media activation".
• Revenue: what WPP keeps after paying media owners and suppliers (it calls this revenue less pass-through costs) fell 10.4% in 2025 and, on a like-for-like basis, 3.9% in the nine months to 30 September 2026, its [third-quarter update](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806968/000165495426009198/a8875a.htm) of 29 October says. In that quarter its creative agencies fell 5.1%, media grew 0.3% and production grew 2.5%.
• Write-downs: £641 million of goodwill, the premium paid for past acquisitions, in 2025, "primarily relating to Ogilvy and AKQA".
• Plan: £500 million of gross annual savings by 2028, at a cash cost of about £400 million.

What WPP says about AI

The annual report's risk section says: "Clients expect us to use generative AI-driven tools and technologies in our services and deliverables and are increasingly able to purchase and use licences to such tools and technologies themselves." If WPP is slow to change its "commercial model", it adds, that could "allow an opportunity for AI vendors to contract directly with our clients".

Wren's read: no filing says AI caused the fall in revenue or in staff. WPP puts the third-quarter decline down to "client assignment losses from the prior year" and "lower client spending", and the smaller pay bill down to "prior year cost actions" and restructuring. One of the five principles in its interim results is that "AI augments human creativity rather than replacing it".

How the fee is counted

The annual report says revenue "may consist of various arrangements involving commissions, fees, incentive-based revenue or a combination of the three, as agreed upon with each client". Of retainers, the fixed monthly fees many clients pay, it says: "The scope of these arrangements is broad and generally not reconcilable to specific input or output criteria."

The filings give no rate card and no split of revenue by fee type, and do not say whether any client's fee fell when work was automated. The 2025 results list the "launch of WPP Open Pro (self-service)", a version clients use themselves, without a price.

The people

The filings do not say which roles went, in which countries, or what the remaining staff do differently. They do not say who checks AI-made work before a client sees it.

What to do if you pay an agency

• Read the fee clause in each agency contract this week and write down what it counts: hours, named staff, a fixed retainer, a commission on media or a finished deliverable.
• Ask your agency lead for the hours logged on your account by task in 2024 and in 2026, and which tasks its AI platform now does.
• Before renewal, give procurement one condition: where the agency's tools produce the work, either billed hours fall in step or the fee is set per deliverable. Price the same tools on a direct licence for comparison.