By Diana Mandia
(Reuters) – French ad group Publicis’ revenues beat forecasts in the first quarter, driven by its digital and data-driven businesses amid a fast-changing market and with the help of artificial intelligence. artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
The company relies on the evolution of its clients’ ad spend towards first-party data management, commerce and business transformation, as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the shift away from traditional advertising.
Publicis’ digital and data-driven businesses Epsilon and Sapient recorded organic growth of 10% and 11% respectively in the quarter.
Net income jumped 7.1% organically to 3.08 billion euros in the first quarter, above a company-wide consensus of 4.5%.
Data and tech account for a third of Publicis’ revenue.
Ad groups such as Publicis and WPP are confident that client spending will continue even as the recent US banking crisis has raised alarm bells.
“At the moment, we can see projects that are a little delayed, because some of the middle banks want to see a little bit of what is happening, but our big clients, who represent the majority of our we, no. stop their change”, chief executive Arthur Sadoun told reporters.
Publicis is also monitoring developments in artificial intelligence, which Sadoun says has been at the center of the group’s operations for years thanks to the Marcel AI platform, created in 2017 from a partnership with Microsoft.
Publicis also signed a partnership with ChatGPT owner OpenAI in 2022, Sadoun said.
“Our data is optimized every nano-second and it’s done through artificial intelligence, so we know that if you’ve already bought a shampoo on Walmart.com, the challenge is not to offer you another shampoo, but after- shampoo”, he said.
Annual organic growth at Publicis should reach the top half of the 3-5% range previously forecast, the group said on Thursday.
(Reporting by Diana Mandiá; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)