Dive Brief:

• Publicis Sapient is expanding its partnership with Google Cloud, creating a dedicated business unit to help clients plan, deploy and manage generative artificial intelligence (AI) projects, according to a press release. 
• The agency, which is establishing an internal Google Center of Excellence as part of the deeper relationship, will enhance its AI usage in areas including retail media networks, customer data platforms, content supply chains and data modernization and monetization. 
• The two companies said they have already worked together on a project for a large banking company that included designing and integrating a comprehensive generative AI framework tailored to the bank’s risk and compliance requirements, with the goal of boosting efficiency by 40%. 

Dive Insight:

Publicis Groupe began 2024 by pledging to invest 300 million euros over three years in beefing up its use of generative AI. Publicis Sapient’s expanded partnership with Google Cloud is almost certainly a part of that pledge.

The dedicated Google business unit and new Google center of excellence will focus on three key areas: aligning sales, marketing and engineering teams to ensure clients have access to the resources they need to deploy and manage AI projects; combining Publicis Sapient’s proprietary generative AI tools with Google’s Gemini models to build new solutions that will enable clients to more efficiently market, sell and modernize their products; and training staff on the latest generative AI technology and solutions.

“As consumer expectations continue to evolve, new business demands are calling for strategic collaboration throughout their AI and digital business transformation journey,” said Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, in a statement. “By tapping into the power of Google Cloud’s technologies, we can help businesses stay ahead of the curve in the age of AI.”

Publicis Sapient’s announcement comes weeks after its parent company announced strong Q3 earnings, including a year-over-year organic revenue increase of 5.8%. Positive results for the period led the company to upgrade its full-year guidance to growth of at least 5.5%.

AI wasn’t a major part of the conversation around the company’s Q3 earnings report but has yielded some wins for the business. Mondelēz International, the maker of Oreo and Ritz, last month appointed Publicis and Accenture to build a new generative AI platform focused on delivering more efficient ad production and insights for the packaged foods giant.