The news: Mark Read will step down as CEO of WPP at the end of 2025, closing out a 30-year tenure marked by aggressive AI investment, agency consolidation, and attempts to modernize one of advertising’s largest holding companies.

• Read’s departure comes amid ongoing operational strain within the agency world. WPP recently announced significant restructuring under Read’s leadership, which reportedly includes a rebranding of GroupM.
• Agencies are grappling with the rapid pace of technological innovation. Inefficiency tops senior ad professionals’ list of concerns: 56.1% of agency leaders identify inefficient processes as their biggest challenge, according to Basis Technologies research.
• Rising costs and shrinking profits followed closely at 42.7% each, while 42.1% pointed to siloed or disconnected systems.
• These figures underscore the pressures weighing on both WPP and its peers. Despite Read’s efforts to simplify operations and introduce AI tools like WPP Open—now used by tens of thousands across the company—WPP saw a 1% decline in organic revenues in 2024, losing key accounts like Coca-Cola, and a stock price that hit a four-year low.

Why it matters: Read’s resignation is an inflection point for an agency model under pressure.

• While WPP retains substantial revenues and marquee clients, internal tensions and missed expectations have kept morale low and shareholders cautious.
• Many of the issues cited in the Basis report—operational drag, disconnected systems, and cost inflation—mirror challenges WPP has faced under Read’s leadership.
• Agencies across the board are struggling to prove that tech investments can translate into tangible improvements. Holding companies are being squeezed from all sides: Clients are pulling more work in-house, AI is automating previously billable tasks, and newer, leaner competitors are pitching faster, cheaper solutions.

Our take: Efficiency is the metric that matters most now. As nearly six in 10 senior agency leaders rank inefficiency as their top issue, WPP’s next CEO will be tasked with translating tech investment into daily relief. AI alone won’t fix a bloated system—what agencies need is workflow simplification, data cohesion, and business models that reward flexibility.

Read helped position WPP for modernization, but the next phase must deliver clarity, not complexity. The agency world can’t afford more visionary restructures that fail to cut through the operational noise.