WPP, the beleaguered UK advertising group, has announced a radical restructure to counter the threat posed by artificial intelligence, including plans to sell assets and cut jobs. The London-based company aims to become 'a simpler, lower-cost, AI-enabled business' and achieve £500m of annual savings by 2028, at a cost of £400m over two years.
Chief executive Cindy Rose said the company was 'unveiling a bold plan for a simpler, more integrated WPP that’s fit for the future and built to win'. WPP has struggled to stem a growing exodus of clients and is racing to match the AI and data capabilities of rivals, amid fears that AI will allow customers to bring more marketing functions in-house. Rose said WPP had identified several assets it wanted to shed, without naming them.
A significant proportion of the cost savings are expected to come through reducing jobs. The company did not specify how many roles would be cut from its 100,000-strong workforce but said it would eliminate duplication in finance and support and remove some layers in the organisation. Since its inception in the mid-1980s, WPP's steepest cuts were 7,200 jobs in 2009 and 7,000 in 2020.
A large chunk of the savings will be reinvested into 'high-growth' areas, such as a new division called enterprise solutions to partner with clients on AI transformation, which already employs more than 1,000 people. WPP is reorganising its sprawling business into four main divisions: media, creative, production and enterprise solutions, focused on four regions. Its ad agencies – Ogilvy, VML and AKQA – will be brought together under the WPP Creative umbrella but continue as separate agencies.
Rose added: 'Our recent underperformance has been driven by excessive organisational complexity, a lack of an integrated operating model and inconsistent strategic execution.' Her comments came as WPP reported a 3.6% drop in comparable revenue to £13.6bn for 2025, and a 26% fall in profit before tax to £1.1bn. It slashed its dividend for 2025 by 62% to 15p and forecast like-for-like revenue this year below analysts' expectations.
After a series of profit warnings, WPP fell out of the FTSE 100 in December, having lost its crown as the world’s biggest advertising group by revenue to Publicis Groupe in 2024. The company was valued at £25bn nine years ago but its share price has slumped more than two-thirds over the past year to under £3bn.
