WPP And AWS Turn Agentic AI Into A Business Operating System

For the past three years, marketers have enthusiastically embraced artificial intelligence. They have tested chatbots, generated content, experimented with image creation and marvelled at AI-powered customer journeys.

But many of those initiatives have remained exactly that—experiments. Now, WPP believes the industry is entering a very different chapter.

The advertising giant’s Enterprise Solutions business has signed a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), heralding a shift away from isolated AI pilots towards embedding agentic AI into the everyday operations of global brands.

Rather than asking what AI can do, marketers are increasingly asking how AI can become part of the business itself.

According to Gartner, by 2028, around 60% of brands are expected to use agentic AI to deliver personalised one-to-one customer interactions.

Unlike conventional generative AI, agentic AI can independently complete tasks, make decisions within defined parameters and execute complex workflows with minimal human intervention.

For marketers, that means AI moving beyond content generation into campaign execution, commerce, customer service and marketing operations.

From Creative Ideas to Business Infrastructure

The partnership positions WPP Enterprise Solutions as the engineering arm that helps brands deploy AI into production rather than leaving it inside innovation labs.

Its role extends well beyond strategy consulting.

Its engineers build the code, deploy AI agents and manage enterprise-scale AI systems across commerce and customer experience platforms running on AWS. The collaboration introduces several production-ready solutions.

These include an Amazon Marketing Cloud Centre of Excellence that links audience intelligence with creative performance, a Composable Content Engine that allows franchisees and local markets to generate brand-approved creative assets at scale, and a suite of agentic customer experience accelerators designed to help organisations move rapidly from proof-of-concept to enterprise deployment.

One of the most striking results comes from the content platform itself. Enterprise clients have reportedly reduced creative production times by as much as 90%, while lowering content production costs by approximately 40%.

Those are the kinds of operational metrics boards increasingly expect to see from AI investments.

AI That Solves Real Business Problems

Perhaps the strongest proof point comes from equipment rental giant United Rentals.

Working alongside WPP Enterprise Solutions and AWS, the company developed Equipment Agent, an AI-powered recommendation engine that helps customers identify the right equipment for their projects.

Powered by Amazon Bedrock and Amazon OpenSearch, the solution is already live across the company’s digital channels.

Internal testing suggests it improves customers’ ability to locate suitable equipment by around 70%, demonstrating how AI can directly improve commercial outcomes rather than simply enhance customer engagement.

It also reflects a broader evolution in enterprise AI.

Instead of asking customers to adapt to new technology, businesses are increasingly embedding AI into the channels customers already use.

The New Competitive Advantage

Jeff Geheb, CEO of WPP Enterprise Solutions, believes enterprise leaders have already moved beyond experimentation.

“Enterprise leaders are past the pilot stage,” he said. “They need AI that ships, scales and delivers measurable ROI with the rigor that boards and C-suites now demand.”

AWS shares that view.

Ruba Borno, Vice President of Global Specialists and Partners at AWS, described AI as becoming “the operating layer for commerce and customer experience”, with the partnership combining enterprise transformation expertise and cloud infrastructure capable of supporting AI at scale.

Together, the two companies are betting that competitive advantage will no longer come from simply adopting AI. It will come from operationalising it.

For marketers, that may be the most important takeaway.

The race is no longer about who uses AI first. It is about who can make AI work every single day, across every customer interaction, with measurable business results.