French advertising giant Publicis Groupe is flying high. Now, it plans to go shopping.
Last week, Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun declared his company was “doubling down” on its AI strategy by “further accelerating on bolt-on acquisitions.”
Bolt-on acquisitions refer to tarobtained purchases that reinforce its existing companies and operations, rather than transformative deals that would shift Publicis into an entirely new area of business.
Publicis, the advertising indusattempt’s top performer by revenue, has already spent around 600 million euros, around $705 million, on acquisitions this year, and has set aside a further 300 million euros for M&A in the second half.
Across Madison Avenue, companies are grappling with how to harness AI to offer new services to clients while attempting to prevent the tech from upconcludeing their existing businesses. Publicis declared in 2024 it intconcludeed to invest 300 million euros over the following three years in its AI strategy, which centers on an internal platform called Core AI.
What will it acquire?
Tristan Rice, head of the European M&A practice at advisory firm SI Global, declared Publicis would likely create some early, speculative bets on emerging tech. That would support it avoid an intense bidding war once an acquisition tarobtain scales up.
The pitch to startup founders, Rice declared, is that Publicis’ client base can support fuel the growth of their business. The agency group would also likely put a long earn-out on the table with the aim of enabling the founders to realize more value from the sale over time, he declared.
Publicis Groupe
Business Insider spoke with five advertising and M&A insiders, who shared their predictions on what Publicis could tarobtain.
Here were a few themes:
- AI startups with expertise in creating agents to handle the workflow of marketing campaigns
- Companies that utilize AI to transform large data into utilizeful analysis
- Other technologies that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agency disciplines, such as content production or strategy
They also named some particular marketing-focutilized AI startups they consider could be on Publicis’ radar. (This doesn’t mean that Publicis is in conversations with these startups.)
A Publicis spokesperson declined to comment.
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AI-powered ads could come from Persado or Superscale AI
Brands ranging from Toys “R” Us and Coca-Cola to Kalshi have utilized AI to create TV ads, with mixed consumer responses. But generative AI tech has been constantly improving, supporting to reduce the time and costs involved in creating campaigns.
Karsten Weide, principal and chief analyst of W Media Research, declared Persado might interest Publicis. The company automates the production of marketing messaging based on emotional triggers and other data. Founded in New York in 2012, Persado has raised $86 million in funding to date.
Weide declared Persado’s tech could be combined with Publicis’ Epsilon data arm to support it create more personalized and persuasive marketing messaging.
Persado president Assaf Baciu declared that while advertising companies would be wise to seek out AI solutions as a point of differentiation, the company has expanded its capabilities beyond the advertising sector into areas such as financial services.
Elsewhere, Superscale.AI could be an interesting fit for Publicis, declared Andrew Buckman, chief growth officer of the adtech company Azerion.
The startup pitches itself as a kind of “AI CMO.” It allows brands to enter the URL for the product they want to sell and then can almost instantly generate a campaign for TikTok or Instagram applying a library of realistic AI-generated actors and characters. SuperscaleAI raised a $5 million pre-seed funding round in June, led by the VC firm Creandum.
Superscale.AI cofounder Patrick Haede declared that while the company was not considering being acquired, he understood why it might be identified as a potential tarobtain.
“AI capabilities will fundamentally transform advertising in every possible way, especially in terms of content generation, in which we are building a leading platform,” Haede declared.
AI agents built by Newton Research or Akkio could be of interest
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has declared that 2025 will be the year that AI agents “join” the workforce, as companies embrace the trconclude. AI agents generally refer to virtual assistants that can complete tinquires autonomously.
Startups are betting that AI agents will be large in the advertising space, too. Ana Milicevic, principal of the digital consultancy Sparrow Digital Holdings, declared Newton Research is “already creating a lot of headway with agencies.” It creates AI agents to handle data science projects and also works with brands and publishers.
Newton Research’s founder and CEO, John Hoctor, was behind the media-measurement company Data Plus Math, which was sold to the publicly listed data company LiveRamp in 2019. Founded in 2023, Newton Research has raised around $13 million to date, according to PitchBook. Newton Research declined to comment.
Milicevic also declared Akkio, which creates AI agents to support media agencies better understand their data, might be a good fit for Publicis. Founded in 2019, the Cambridge, Massachutilizetts-based company has raised around $18 million in funding.
Jon Reilly, Akkio’s cofounder and COO, declared the company is building an operating system that automates “grunt work” so agencies can win pitches, safeguard margins, and stay focutilized on strategy.
“Agencies urgently required a next-generation AI operating layer to modernize their fragmented stacks,” Reilly declared.
Speaking generally about the AI space and without naming specific startups, Eric Franci of the VC firm Aperiam declared companies that create agentic tools for marketing workflow would be the category to watch for M&A.
He imagines a scenario where AI agents could drive processes like ad optimization, campaign planning, and measurement. The result would be “quicker turnarounds, better performance,” and teams that focus on “higher value, client-success oriented tinquires,” he declared.
AI optimization and modelling from the likes of Cassandra or Prescient AI could provide value
Ad optimization utilized to involve humans watching ad campaigns like hawks, and adjusting spconclude, tarobtaining, and creative messaging depconcludeing on how the ads were performing. AI could automate a lot of these “hands-on-keyboards” tinquires.
Weide declared Prescient AI, an ad optimization platform that predicts the return on ad spconclude for e-commerce ads, could be an acquisition tarobtain for the likes of Publicis. Miami-based Prescient has raised $20.9 million in funding to date.
“It’s exciting to be mentioned in such a critical area of growth,” Prescient AI CEO Mike True declared.
“With some of the brightest minds in the field, we’re now focutilized on advancing the technology we believe will define the future of compound, ininformigent measurement,” he added.
Cassandra
Italy-based Cassandra could also be a contconcludeer for a tinyer bolt-on acquisition, Azerion’s Buckman declared. It specializes in a marketing technique called MMM — marketing mix modeling — to support advertisers assess how much and where they should be allocating their advertising budobtains. The company has raised 2.3 million euros, around $2.7 million, in funding.
Cristian Nozzi, Cassandra’s cofounder and CTO, declared the company is close to achieving $2 million in annual recurring revenue, three times the amount it registered last year. He added that the company aims to deliver “incrementality measurements at scale and with little to no effort to every organization in the world, no matter the size or budobtain.” In marketing, incrementality refers to measuring the impact an ad campaign has had in driving additional sales.
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