The news: Publicis Groupe is celebrating its 100th anniversary with its most ambitious annual “Wishes” film yet: A six-minute blend of live action and AI imagery tracing its rise from a 1926 Montmartre shop to a global ad giant.

Titled “A Lion Never Gives Up,” the film took a 10-person Publicis Conseil team one year to produce and features about 4,500 AI-generated images across 150 shots, narrated by an AI-rendered Edith Piaf—a tribute to her ties with founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet and Radio Cité.

Legacy meets future: The film revisits key moments from Bleustein-Blanchet’s work in the French Resistance to the 1972 Champs-Élysées fire and the pandemic’s disruption. It serves as a manifesto for Publicis’ future, framing AI as both a creative tool and a competitive necessity.

President Agathe Bousquet told Adweek that while AI shaped the production, “talent remains the differentiator,” capturing a broader industry tension. With more than half its workforce now in data, engineering, and AI, CEO Arthur Sadoun told The Drum that the coming decade will favor companies that fuse AI into creative and data operations.

Zooming out: The film debuts amid major restructuring across global holding companies. Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG has reshaped the field, leaving Omnicom and Publicis with about 80% of industry billings. Sadoun told Ad Age the consolidation “creates clarity,” calling Publicis “the most valuable” network, if not the largest by revenues. With 73% of operations and 80% of media revenue now AI-powered, Publicis is betting on AI as its edge in a more concentrated market.

Marketers' creative-AI tension: Data show that this transition is not unique to Publicis.

• Workflow automation (55%), performance optimization (48%), and insights/reporting (43%) are the top areas where US marketers expect AI to improve creative work, per a TripleLift and EMARKETER study.
• Agencies already use AI widely for social management (40%), automation (39%), customer engagement (38%), and visual design (37%), MiQ finds—yet 54% of marketers fear AI will diminish creativity and human touch, Ascend2 reports.
• Workers say AI boosts ideation (45%), eliminates extensive research (51%), and speeds writing (50%), per Salesforce—evidence that human creativity increasingly sits atop AI-enabled productivity gains.

Why it matters: Publicis’ centenary film doubles as a message to clients, employees, and rivals about navigating an AI-driven, creatively uncertain market. It presents the company as proof that reinvention need not compromise identity—a theme embodied by its enduring lion symbol. Publicis is effectively telling the industry that the future belongs to those who embrace AI without letting it erode the creative engine at the center of the business.