The news: Publicis Groupe beat its 2025 growth estimates, with Q4 net organic revenue growth at 5.9% and full-year growth at 5.6%. Previous guidance estimated gains between 5% and 5.5%.
The holding company is anticipating another strong year in 2026, projecting organic growth between 4% and 5%. But growth couldn’t offset investor concerns: Publicis’ stock price fell 7% in midday trading and was down over 3% at market open Wednesday—indicating concerns over AI investments and industry competition.
Publicis’ strategy: The results emphasize Publicis’ bet on AI, not scale, to drive future growth as it faces rivals like Omnicom, which became the largest holdco globally when it merged with IPG in 2025.
- Chairman and CEO of Publicis Arthur Sadoun commented that, since the emergence of genAI, “the growth model [Publicis] has built means artificial intelligence is not a headwind… but a strategic driver of growth and margin expansion,” highlighting the holdco’s confidence in its AI investments.
- 2025 was a year of heavy AI investment for Publicis, with the company reinforcing its CoreAI platform and integrating AI into media planning, targeting, and execution. Publicis highlighted that 73% of its operations and 80% of its media revenues are now AI-powered.
- Contrasting with Omnicom, Sadoun told The Drum that Publicis is "not aiming to be the largest [holdco]... we are aiming to be the most valuable partner for our clients, our people and our shareholders.”
The flip side: Agency AI technology is nascent, leading to unease about which holdco’s AI investments will drive measurable growth and which will fail to meet expectations.
- Agency professionals remain mixed on AI. Professionals cite skill gaps and training needs (60.7%) and technology integration hurdles (44.6%) as barriers to adoption, while 73.2% point to staff upskilling as a need to succeed with widespread genAI adoption, per AI Digital.
- Agencies are rapidly adopting AI tools—34% report full-scale deployment—without the results to back up investment. Nearly half of agencies (46.4%) don’t measure ROI for AI yet, and an equal amount only measure based on time savings and efficiency metrics.
Implications for marketers: Advertisers should expect agency relationships to hinge less on scale and more on which holdcos can prove AI-driven gains across planning, activation, and outcomes.
Publicis’ ability to restore investor confidence will depend on demonstrating tangible returns from its AI investments in coming quarters and clearly articulating how its human-plus-AI model can deliver durable, long-term growth.