Business

WPP’s CTO says AI is reshaping advertising. But creative judgment needs to remain in human hands

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3 hours ago

January 21, 2026

In the world of marketing, artificial intelligence tends to get the most attention when it is featured prominently in splashy creative advertising campaigns from big brands like Coca-Cola and Nike.

But at WPP—whose client roster includes Google, L’Oréal, LVMH, and Mastercard—Chief Technology Officer Stephan Pretorius says the advertising giant’s big “mic drop” moment has been the soaring adoption of WPP Open, an AI-enabled operating system that’s used by marketers to plan, create, and run campaigns. More than 85,000 of the agency’s 108,000 employees are using WPP Open on a monthly basis today, up sharply from 30,000 in February 2024.

“Getting that balance right and making sure that humans are in control of the output and that they evaluate and apply taste and judgment, but also that the thought process is expanded and augmented—so you don’t become like a passive passenger in the process—is really critical,” says Pretorius.

Pretorius says WPP has embraced three levels of AI training to get the workforce ready for these AI tools. At the entry level, WPP runs a creative technology apprenticeship program, which it recently expanded under the company’s five-year, $400 million partnership with Google. The program aims to train 1,000 creative technology apprentices over the next three years, helping college graduates learn about AI and other technologies before they join one of WPP’s agencies.

WPP also offers AI learning programs for more senior staff, including courses that teach the basics of generative AI and the appropriate use of AI in media planning and creative ideation. At the senior level, executives are expected to take “AI and business diploma” courses.

“You’ve got to do it continuously and you have to do it very purposely,” says Pretorius of the AI upskilling programs that he says need to be conducted on an ongoing basis. “I think it’s a tall order to expect people to know how to work with AI. Everyone’s still figuring it out.”

Ad agencies like WPP have increasingly embraced generative AI capabilities to support creative ideation, research, and to develop of content for their clients, with the hopes that the technology will both speed up production and ultimately lower costs. Three out of four ad industry executives say that their companies are using these tools in 2025, up from from 61% the prior year, according to a survey conducted by research firm Forrester.

But, like most other industries, these AI investments are for now a net cost for agencies. The cost of business—which Forrester defines as generative AI capabilities funded by a creative agency without passing those costs on to clients—grew 83% in 2025. Only 7% were able to sell generative AI capabilities as a separate service outside what these agencies have traditionally offered.

WPP has been making the pitch that its AI tools can generate meaningful savings. WPP Open, which uses technology from multiple providers including OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E, Google’s Gemini family, and Anthropic’s Claude, gives teams of four 14 hours “back,” meaning time saved on the work being done by creatives. That would translate to roughly 90 days of saved “capacity” every year. WPP is also hoping to make WPP Open more alluring to external customers through the October launch of WPP Open Pro, a version of the platform that allows brands to plan, create, and publish their own creative campaigns independently.

The company’s workforce has also created more than 75,000 AI agents by the end of 2025. Pretorius says he’s encouraged experimentation on that front, rather than a top-down mandate dictating which agents should be used across the various business units. That’s allowed teams to build AI agents that even Pretorius says he couldn’t have predicted.

“I think one does have to take a kind of expansive view of this,” says Pretorius. “Empower as many people in the business with general-purpose tools that you teach them how to use. And then, let the collective intelligence flourish.”

The pressure to get AI right comes as major agencies have been shedding jobs. Omnicom cut 4,000 jobs in December, while WPP’s Ogilvy shed 5% of its workforce in June. When WPP reported third-quarter revenue softness and revised its full-year organic growth target to a more bearish outlook, forecasting a decline of 5.5% to 6%, CEO Cindy Rose, called the performance “unacceptable.” The agency has said it would implement a restructuring to make the WPP more streamlined. Investments in technology are expected to be central to help return the business to growth.

Pretorius is an optimist when it comes to the changes AI will bring to advertising. These tools can help marketers generate more content, with greater personalization for different consumer groups, and do so at the same level of investment that was made without AI, he claims.

“If you shy away from it, pretend it’s not existing, and pretend you can work the way you used to work…you will lose the business,” says Pretorius. “And other people will eat your lunch.”

John Kell

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NEWS PACKETS

AI takes center stage at the World Economic Forum. Top executives from the largest AI companies were in Davos this week, opining on how the technology should evolve and what that will mean for economic growth. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his belief that energy will be critical to determining which countries succeed in the AI race, while Meta’s new president and chairman, Dina Powell McCormick, urged the industry to align on “core values” that would make the technology both safe and productive. Mohamed Kandi, global chairman of consulting giant PwC, told Fortune that the CEO job has changed more in the last year than anything he’s witnessed for the past quarter-century. These leaders are still facing big challenges wrapping their heads around AI, with most—56% of the 4,454 CEOs surveyed by PwC—saying they are getting “nothing out of it.”

OpenAI’s 2026 priority: “practical adoption.” OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar shared that the AI startup’s annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion in 2025, more than triple the prior year’s level, and said computing capacity also soared as weekly and daily active users reached all-time highs. Friar also said that the company’s priority will be to close the gap “between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day.” She didn’t expand much on what that would mean practically, but there are some recent reports that point to OpenAI’s direction, at least in terms of how it hopes to generate more money to help it turn a profit. OpenAI is aiming to debut its first hardware device later in 2026, has struck a deal with ServiceNow to integrate OpenAI’s AI models into the latter company’s business software, and is testing how ads can show up within ChatGPT.

Geopolitics intertwine with chipmaking between the U.S. and Asia. Last week, Taiwan agreed to invest at least $250 billion in production capacity in the U.S. and a government guarantee of $250 billion in credit for the companies that make those investments, according to a new trade deal struck between the nations. In exchange, the U.S. has agreed to limit its “reciprocal” tariffs on Taiwan to 15%, down from 20%. The announcement reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to bring chipmaking back on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, in China, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on imports of some advanced semiconductors, including the H200 AI processors made by Nvidia, before they are shipped to China.

Anthropic poised to raise another $25 billion or more. AI startup Anthropic is reportedly in talks with investors for fresh funding that would value the company at $350 billion, more than double its valuation from just four months ago, the Financial Times reports, saying the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital may invest in the company for the first time. This news comes days after Anthropic launched Claude Cowork, which is an AI agent that can manipulate, read, and analyze files on a user’s computer, and also create new files.

ADOPTION CURVE

CEOs are again steering AI implementation. In the immediate wake of the debut of ChatGPT in late 2022, the pressure to set a clear strategy on AI sat on the desk of the CEO. But soon after, it became clear that the top technologists—CTOs, chief information officers, chief digital officers, etc.—were empowered to drive AI adoption for employees across enterprises. They’ve been busy organizing their data to take full advantage of large language models, setting up security protocols, training employees, building partnerships with AI hyperscalers, and launching new AI tools.

But beyond the lower-stakes productivity tools, humans keep getting in the way of further progress, and that may explain why the AI playbook is back with the CEO. Seventy-two percent of CEOs say they are now the main decision-maker on AI, twice the share from a year ago, according to a survey of 2,360 executives conducted by consulting firm BCG.

“I think CEOs are realizing they need to step in and help drive the organization change,” says Vlad Lukic, the global leader of BCG’s tech and digital advantage practice, in an interview with Fortune.

They’re also feeling the pressure: half of them believe they have to get their AI strategy right if they want to keep their jobs, the survey showed. But CEOs are also more optimistic about AI’s potential for a return on investment in 2026 than last year (82% agree with this sentiment). They are also spending more. Corporate AI efforts will account for about 1.7% of revenue in 2026, more than twice the increase last year. All 10 industries BCG tracked are projected to spend more on AI this year.

Courtesy of BCG

JOBS RADAR

Hiring:

– Xponential Fitness is seeking a CIO, based in Irvine, California. Posted salary range: $350K-$450K/year.

– MIT Lincoln Laboratory is seeking a CIO, based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.

– Hunterdon Health is seeking a CIO, based in Flemington, New Jersey. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.

– Scholar Rock is seeking a CIO/VP of IT, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $300K-$400K/year.

Hired:

– Coca-Cola has appointed Sedef Salingan Sahin to serve in the newly created role of chief digital officer. Sahin joined the beverage giant in 2003 and most recently held the role of president of the Eurasia and Middle East operating unit. Sahin will oversee the digital strategy efforts that were previously overseen by President and Chief Financial Officer John Murphy.

– Adobe has appointed Lucius DiPhillips as CIO, joining the design software company after most recently serving as CIO at Airbnb. Prior to his eight-year career at the home-rental platform, DiPhillips held senior leadership roles at eBay, PayPal, Bank of America, and GE.

– Skillsoft announced the appointment of Bernard Barbour as chief technology and product officer, joining the educational technology firm after most recently serving as CTO at agricultural technology company Indigo Agriculture. Before Indigo, he spent more than a decade at customized goods producer Cimpress, where he led a global platform team of more than 700.

– ACI Worldwide has appointed JP Krishnamoorthy as chief innovation and technology officer, joining the payments software company after most recently serving as EVP of engineering, AI, cloud operations, and cybersecurity at software firm Coupa Software. He also previously held technology leadership roles at Oracle.

– DigitalOcean announced Vinay Kumar as chief product and technology officer, joining the cloud infrastructure provider from Oracle, where he most recently served as SVP of cloud engineering. Kumar spent 11 years at Oracle and also previously served as a manager at Amazon Web Services.

– IonQ announced the appointment of Katie Arrington as CIO and has expanded the scope of work for Leslie Kershaw, who will now serve as chief information security officer and report to Arrington. Prior to joining the quantum computing company, Arrington served as CIO for the War Department. She is also a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives.

– Komodo Health has appointed Amit Sangani as CTO to lead the medical data analytics company’s technology, engineering, and AI platform strategy. Sangani joins Komodo after 11 years at Meta, where he most recently worked with the tech giant’s Superintelligence Labs on large-scale AI systems. Prior to Meta, Sangani co-founded and served as CTO of messaging software provider MightyText.

– Yesway named Robert Hampton as CTO, where he will lead the IT strategy and all aspects of enterprise technology for the Texas-based convenience store operator. Hampton joins Yesway from convenience and fuel retailer Jacksons Companies, where he served as CIO. He also held previously held technology leadership roles at infrastructure firm AECOM.

– RLDatix appointed Richard Jarvis as CTO, where he will oversee platform architecture, engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, and data for the healthcare software provider. He previously served as CTO for electronic patient record systems for EMIS Health. He also held senior leadership roles at HP Enterprise , BAE Systems, and Detica.

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Business

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Published

18 minutes ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

Nestled in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown, the Ong Ang Canal served as a vital trade artery in the 18th century. Over time, it became heavily polluted, and even earned a reputation as the city’s dirtiest canal.

Last month, as part of a broader government effort to revitalize the canal, Siam Cement Group (SCG), Thailand’s oldest cement firm, unveiled the country’s first 3D-printed pedestrian bridge across its waters.

The bridge is part of SCG’s drive to bring new construction materials to Southeast Asia, Surachai Nimlaor, who helms its operations in cement and green solutions, tells Fortune in a Jan. 20 interview.

The company first started applying 3D printing tech to construction in the early 2020s, including the 2023 construction of the world’s first 3D printed medical center in Saraburi, Thailand.

“When we use 3D printing, we can shorten construction time and create buildings with unique shapes that conventional builders may not be able to achieve,” says Nimlaor.

The process involves creating a digital model, slicing it for the 3D printer, and then allowing the printer’s robotic arms to set down concrete, layer-by-layer, to form structures. By removing the need for traditional molds or formwork, it enables freeform architecture which includes sculptural curves and undulating walls. SCG’s 3D printed medical center, for instance, has fluid facades that would be difficult to execute with conventional cast concrete.

Courtesy of Siam Cement Group

This technology could be especially valuable for Thailand, where an aging population and a workforce wary of construction jobs is shrinking the sector’s pool of available workers. Nimlaor explains that the industry has been forced to turn to foreign workers from neighboring countries like Cambodia and Myanmar. (According to 2025 data from Cambodia’s Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, there are over 1.2 million Cambodian workers in Thailand, many of whom are employed in construction.)

Still, 3D printed buildings are often only one or two storeys tall, Nimlaor admits, as taller buildings introduce “material constraints around structural loads and stability.”

Thailand’s first cement firm

SCG was founded in 1913 to build Bangkok’s first cement plant, under the orders of then-King Rama VI. In the century that followed, the company expanded to focus on three core businesses: cement and building materials, chemicals, and packaging.

Today, SCG is Thailand’s largest building materials company, with a 2024 revenue of $14.5 billion. It ranks No. 21 in Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500 list, which sorts the region’s largest companies by revenue. SCG has also expanded to other parts of Southeast Asia, including packaging businesses in Malaysia and a petrochemical plant in Vietnam.

Greening the construction industry

Beyond 3D printing, SCG is also developing low-carbon cement, tackling an industry that accounts for roughly 8% of global carbon emissions, according to the World Economic Forum.

SCG is trying to formulate cement produced using biomass, like wood. This cuts the carbon emissions from the production process by as much as 20% per ton, Nimlaor claims. SCG now exports its low-carbon cement to the U.S. and Australia, where developers now prefer materials that meet ESG standards.

“ESG has become a very strong driver in the global market,” he explains. “Many companies now have clear carbon-reduction targets and sustainability commitments.”

SCG hopes to launch the third-generation of its low-carbon cement, which would cut carbon emissions from production by up to 40%, but Nimlaor has hopes that they can eventually cut emissions by up to 90%.

Looking forward, SCG hopes to continue pushing the boundaries in creating greener construction materials. “Sustainability and business growth must go together,” he concludes.

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Business

Fortune Article | Fortune

Published

49 minutes ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

Bitcoin is one of the world’s most battle-tested pieces of software. Launched in early 2009, the network has run continuously without being hacked, and today feels more secure than ever. There is, however, a threat on the medium-term horizon that threatens not only Bitcoin but every other type of software that relies on current encryption technology. That threat is quantum computing and, on Wednesday, Coinbase announced it has created a board of outside experts to prepare for its eventual arrival.

The board includes academics from Stanford, Harvard, and the University of California with specialties in fields like computer science, cryptography and fintech. Formally known as the Coinbase Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain, it is also composed of experts in blockchain and security from the Ethereum Foundation, the DeFi platform EigenLayer and from Coinbase itself.

In an interview with Fortune, Coinbase Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Lunglhofer explained how the arrival of quantum computing could defeat current encryption mechanisms, including the ones employed to protect the wallets and private keys held by Bitcoin owners.

“In simple terms, modern cryptography relies on hard math problems that would take thousands of years for a modern computer to solve,” he said. “But when we have a million times the horsepower [with quantum computing], that will provide the computation power to solve them.”

While the security threat of quantum computing is real, it is unlikely to be an urgent issue for at least a decade, according to Lunglhofer. His view is consistent with other experts who note that, while companies like Google and IBM have been building quantum computers for years, the current generation of these machines can only operate at a small scale and are not close to being able to crack the algorithms that protect Bitcoin and other networks.

The purpose of the new Advisory Board, says Lunglhofer, is to explore the coming impact of quantum computing in a “non-hype based way.” This will include promoting efforts by the blockchain industry, which are already underway, to update Bitcoin and other networks so that they are resistant to quantum-based attacks.

Currently, the Bitcoin network secures wallets by means of private keys, which are long strings of random numbers and letters that are visible to their owners, but that can only be guessed by means of an impossibly long series of trial-and-error attempts. When the quantum computing era arrives, it will be possible to guess a private key using trial-and-error. In response, Lunglhofer says, blockchain experts anticipate that Bitcoin and other networks will respond by creating larger keys and, at the same time, introducing “noise” to make the location of the key harder to detect in the first place.

All of this will require blockchain networks to introduce and deploy these defensive upgrades, a process that is likely to take years. In the interim, the new Advisory Board will begin publishing research papers and issuing position statements to help the crypto industry prepare for the arrival of quantum computing. The group plans to publish its first paper, which will focus on quantum’s impact on the consensus and transaction layers of blockchain, in the next month or two.

“Quantum computing is both a technological opportunity and a security challenge. By bringing together the foremost experts in the world, Coinbase is ensuring that the blockchain ecosystem is prepared, not just reactive,” said Yehuda Lindell, Head of Cryptography at Coinbase, in a statement.

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Business

The Walmart C-suite reshuffle shows how the retailer sees itself now: as a tech company

Published

1 hour ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

When Walmart last week announced that David Guggina, its U.S. e-commerce chief executive, would become CEO of its nearly $500 billion U.S. division, one thing stood out in his résumé: Unlike his predecessors, Guggina has no experience running stores and has never held a merchandising role, at Walmart or elsewhere. These are two classic job requirements in retail. Incoming Walmart CEO John Furner, for example, who has run U.S. operations since 2019, began his Walmart career as an hourly associate in 1993, and held roles in merchandising, operations, and sourcing.

But there’s another realm of experience that Guggina does have in spades: e-commerce, automation, and supply chain. And by putting him atop the division that generates 69% of company revenue, Walmart is signaling that it now sees itself as a tech company, as well as a retailer. Guggina has spent eight years at Walmart, after nine years at arch-rival Amazon.com. In its announcement, Walmart touted Guggina’s work in building delivery capabilities to serve 95% of U.S. households in under three hours, and said his appointment “positions him to continue to drive our goal of being America’s favorite place to shop.”

In the last decade, after years of fits and starts, Walmart has emerged as a formidable e-commerce player, with U.S. digital sales of almost $100 billion a year—still far behind Amazon, but well ahead of any other U.S. retailer. In its most recent quarter, Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce rose 27%. That has been the result of billions in investments to integrate Walmart’s 4,600 stores with its e-commerce operations. This work has helped ensure faster shipping while also integrating technology more effectively into things like inventory management, supply chain, and in-store customer service. Guggina was instrumental in those achievements, working under Furner, who will become Walmart Inc’s new CEO next week.

“This is a unique moment in retail,” Guggina said in a LinkedIn post about his appointment. “AI is changing how people shop, and customer expectations are higher than ever. But no one is more prepared to usher in the next era of retail.”

The timing of Guggina’s promotion was fitting: It came soon after Walmart moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq exchange, where tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft list their shares. In December, Walmart said the move underscores its “technology-forward approach.”

Guggina isn’t the only techy whose star is rising at Walmart. The company also appointed Seth Dallaire chief growth officer for Walmart U.S., charging him with pushing Walmart U.S. further beyond traditional retail into tech-heavy lines of business—including its booming advertising, media, and online marketplace ventures. Dallaire is a veteran of Instacart and Amazon.

Walmart is considered by analysts to be well ahead of other retailers in AI-assisted shopping. In October, it announced a partnership with OpenAI to allow shoppers to browse and buy Walmart products directly inside ChatGPT, using a built-in instant checkout feature. Last week, Walmart and Google announced their own shopping tool. Also last week, Walmart’s executive vice president for AI acceleration, product and design, Daniel Danker, suggested at a conference that the company was developing auto-ordering for the replenishment of staples.

Bolstering Walmart’s tech and AI aura has had the additional benefit of lifting the company’s stock: In the last year, Walmart shares have risen 27%, double the S&P 500’s growth and trouncing Amazon’s 1% increase.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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