WPP has acquired the data collaboration and clean-room startup InfoSum in a deal aimed at bolstering WPP’s AI tools.
InfoSum sells services related to privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), like clean rooms, which are aimed at helping advertisers and their agencies share data in a secure and privacy-focused way, and clients have included Disney Ad Sales, Samsung Ads, and Netflix. The company was valued at $300 million in 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal; the financial details of the acquisition, which WPP described as a “major investment,” were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, InfoSum will become part of WPP-owned GroupM.
In a statement, GroupM CEO Brian Lesser, who was the chairman and CEO of InfoSum from 2020 until September of last year, said the acquisition will allow clients to better use their own first-party data when making advertising decisions. Clients’ AI models will also be trained on a larger corpus of data, Lesser said.
WPP CEO Mark Read, meanwhile, said in a statement that the acquisition “will give our clients a unique competitive advantage in the AI era.”
“Bringing InfoSum into WPP is a major step forward for our data capabilities and the results we can deliver for our clients,” Read said. “It allows clients to stay in complete control of their first-party data, while also giving them access to vastly greater quantities of high-quality, privacy-compliant data and pioneering technology that is not available anywhere else in the market today.”
Take two: The acquisition is the second data-agency tie-up in as many months after ad-tech investors predicted some consolidation in the space in 2025. In March, Publicis purchased the data platform Lotame for an undisclosed amount, touting the access to “more than 1.6 billion IDs,” or in other words, heaps of customer data for advertisers.
AI on the prize: Agencies have been investing heavily in building out AI-powered tools—including AI agents, AI-assisted creative, and even AI-operated agencies—to help give them a competitive edge. Last year, WPP pledged to invest $318 million annually in investments in the technology.
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