WPP partners with Nvidia to use generative AI in advertising

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WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising groups, has partnered with chip maker Nvidia to use generative AI in producing large-scale advertisements for their clients.

The new technology platform, to be announced by Nvidia boss Jensen Huang in Taiwan on Monday will allow it WPP extension use AI to create campaigns in minutes that previously would have taken weeks.

The platform combines 3D imaging software that can be used to produce a fully accurate photorealistic image, for example of a car, which can then be inserted into a video or 2D advertisement generated by the AI ​​engine.

In the case of a car, it could be placed on a desert or rainy street, with the car adapting to its surroundings – shimmering wet or reflecting glare – in processes that would have taken days using a traditional green screen or filming in real life.

THE production speed means that advertising campaigns can be quickly adapted to different markets or countries, for example by placing the car on the streets of Hong Kong or New York, and will be able to create personalized advertising for different digital channels such as YouTube or TikTok and their specific user groups.

Stephan Pretorius, chief technology officer at WPP, said his customers were starting to ask to use generative AI. “We are able to use generative AI to personalize and . . . personalize [advertising] in any environment in the world: you can create 10,000 versions in a couple of minutes.”

Many in the advertising industry worry that AI will replace their jobs given its ability to replicate familiar creative content. Advertising agencies are already using AI in media planning and buying.

WPP Chief Executive Mark Read said: “It is much easier to identify the jobs that AI will disrupt than it is to identify the jobs that AI will create. We’ve applied AI a lot to our media business, but very little to the creative parts of our business.”

Read, who said the technology will be “critical” to WPP’s business, added that “customers are seeing ways to rapidly reduce production costs to meet the needs of new channels.”

The tech links up with Getty Images to ensure copyright is protected too, addressing a major concern over the use of AI given the risk it could “scrape” and use images illegally.

WPP has been working on trials of this technology with Nvidia for several years. Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Omniverse and simulation technology at Nvidia, whose the stock price skyrocketed last week on the heels of its AI technology, it told the Financial Times that it was time to use generative AI in advertising.

“We had the ChatGPT moment. Everyone understands now how transformative AI will be – you see it now in our stock price. WPP understood this early on.

Nvidia’s Huang said, “The world’s industries, including the $700 billion digital advertising industry, are racing to realize the benefits of artificial intelligence,” said Huang, adding that WPP would now be able to offer brands “compelling content and product experiences at a level of realism and scale never before possible”.