What you need to know:

• Havas has rolled out a new global AI-powered operating system in addition to a commitment of €400 million to data and tech development over the next four years.
• Havas Media Network Australia chief, Virginia Hyland, said the new platform differs from Publicis Groupe’s Marcel and WPP’s Open in that it's not just a play for internal efficiencies – white labelled platforms will be owned by clients, and access by other agencies partners is welcomed.
• That, per Hyland, protects client data and helps to drive privacy compliance – in addition to meeting European GDPR standards.
• The head of Havas Host  Australia, Gayle While, said the platform will have greater creative capabilities than those belonging to other holding companies. It's a bid for end-to-end delivery that will see the integration of creative ideation and rollout, including adaptations, banners and video. 
• While stopped short of guaranteeing future jobs within the group, but said for now the focus is in equipping staff to use the tools so that they can focus on the good bits of their jobs. It's an approach she reckons is "equal parts human and machine". 

Havas has become the latest of the Holdco cohort to jump onboard the fast-moving AI train, launching its own AI-powered platform in a bid to drive end-to-end integration across creative, media and production capabilities.

‘Converged’, as it’s been coined, represents both a strategic shift and a new operating system for the French holdco, supported by €400 million (A$643m) that has been set aside for data, tech and AI investment over the next four years. It's a solid investment respective to its size, and on par with the €300 million (A$482m) that Publicis Groupe – six times its size on an annual turnover basis – has sidelined for AI investment over the next three years. WPP, by comparison, is funnelling £250m (A$476m) into AI, data and tech, which it describes as an "annual, ongoing investment". 

Announced by Havas global chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré at Cannes last month, the touted “transformative development” has rolled out quietly in the local market. 

The operating system is built on an existing media tool that used AI to provide transparent, cross-platform audience planning. Now, Converged OS divides end-to-end delivery across four steps – Intelligence, Design, Activate, and Measure. It's the foundations that the group hopes will make it future-ready, along with new capabilities and tools and the establishment of international production, customer experience and e-commerce hubs. 

While the new set-up and operating system may draw comparison to that of Publicis' Marcel or WPP's Open, Havas Media Network Australia’s chief executive, Virginia Hyland, claimed it goes well beyond those models.

“This is not something that any of the other groups have done in terms of being able to create an operating system that measures and activates the creative, in the media channel, at the same time.”

That edge might be short-lived, given that WPP and Hogarth last month launched an AI-powered 'Production Studio' that taps into the WPP Open interface – though its not yet clear how directly that technology will integrate with Open's internal media planning capabilities. (But the group has major plans to expand both its AI-powered brand brains and ultimately to deliver "an entirely fluid workforce" allocated via AI according to Satalia CEO & WPP chief AI officer, Daniel Hulme.)

Creativity over efficiency?

Built with Havas’ bespoke Adobe platform, the expanded tool is designed to enable the group’s creative teams to tap data and campaign outcomes to generate insights, creative ideas and aid in the production of high-touch campaign elements, including video content, display and banners, out of home, adaptations and the like. Clients will have full access, and can plug in briefs, first-party data, and give access to external agency partners.

CEO of Havas Host Australia, Gayle While, said the emphasis is on creativity, rather than efficiency.

“Whether that is the intelligence part, where we're looking at the data points and mining them in a different way, analysing them in a different way, through to how we activate, we're using the platform not just for efficiencies, but actually to leap, to accelerate and amplify our creativity.”

Per While, Converged will drive “production at scale really efficiently”, but with “accuracy and craft” as well.

“We get this central intelligence pod of information that both creative strategists and media strategists can use to actually find new opportunities, find new spaces, understand how to really create work that is different, is unusual, but will kind of meaningfully interrupt and create work that is effective versus just more of the same,” added While.

“This isn't about creating work that will be optimised into neutrality, but actually, how do we create work that is truly interesting and effective at the start, and then look at how we make it more efficient over time through media.”

End-to-end

At its core, the move to open up the Converged media tool to creative, production and technology, is a play for cross-capability collaboration – as has become the status quo amongst most major agency groups.

Havas, with its village model and 'Together Strategy' in action since 2014, would argue that it was an early consolidation adopter – it claims to be "the most integrated" agency group of the lot. 

"Marketers have been telling us for ages, 'simplify the complicated, how do I really engage with audiences? Tell me how I'm going to drive growth for my business'," said Hyland. "When we work in silos, we're only part of the solution, and we're never the full whole solution for marketers. So this is kind of answering the marketer's needs."

Per Hyland, the former media tool already simplified the buying process – meaning Havas could "activate campaigns against audiences right across the digital spectrum ... We didn't have to buy in-platform for Facebook, Meta, Google and YouTube, we could cut down all the walled gardens". Now, those efficiencies and insights can feed into creative ideation and activation. 

"What this is doing is integrating, in a simpler way, all of that thinking and allowing the system and the way we operate to find [out things like] when do we have creative burnout from from consumers? When should we iterate or change certain text, images, backgrounds, at speed to then help clients get another kick up in terms of driving greater sales results?"

The other big groups are building out similar capability but Havas thinks it goes a step further.

Internally, it has also made way for a new centralised client structure, with the appointment of client champions to see to the seamless integration of end-to-end services, as enabled by the new tech. Havas is also enabling external agencies to plug in to the system.

"Marketers are challenged because agencies aren't built to work together and collaborate with the same KPIs ...The upside of us building a platform that the client owns is that at least we can have other partners coming into that platform to really upgrade the knowledge and the way we operate," said Hyland. 

'Privacy first'

Hyland argued that Havas’ now takes a late mover advantage when it comes to privacy.. 

“Havas was probably one of the last innovating in this space a few years ago, but the lessons were learned … It was a gift to see what happened with other platforms.”

Timing meant that the original converged media tool was introduced years after the advent of the Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework was introduced in 2018 – a framework to which the Converged platform is globally compliant, thanks to Havas’ French ownership.

Hyland said the group has had the luxury of time to “plan and develop a platform that is considered” and delivers “best practice in terms of data security”. That includes anonymising all data – whether first-party, second-party or third. 

While Publicis is similarly French headquartered and the UK, where WPP is headquartered is also governed by GDPR, Havas argues the difference is in platform ownership – and with Australia's privacy overhaul fast approaching, the white-labelled model also shifts some of the responsibility for data-management back onto the agency’s clients.             

“We might build the platform, but the client owns it, so we don't control it on behalf of the client … They have to allow us access in and permissions in, so that they know that their data is still protected,” says Hyland. “I don't know any other of the big globals that are allowing the client to actually own the platform.”

Headcount dilemma

While all businesses are working out how to boost efficiency and productivity via AI, Gayle While is firm that the new operating system isn’t about “replacing roles or anything like that”.

She “can’t predict the future” as to how agency headcount might be affected in future, but said Havas' focus for now is on upskilling staff on the tools to help them focus on “the better parts of their roles” i.e. the creative ideation.

“Our approach is that it will be about equal parts human and machine, because we do believe that it's going to make us better, it's going to push us more, it's going to help us be smarter, it's going to help us get to different creativity and different ideas… but we still need the intelligence, we still need the insights," she said. "We still need a lot of that interpretation to be different.”

So far, While's been pleasantly surprised by the reception in the agency’s strategy teams – “we always thought they would be the hardest people to get across it, but it's enabling them to digest information so much quicker”.

Hyland also weighs into the ‘robots taking our jobs’ debate, stating the AI capability will save juniors from menial admin tasks, boredom and crushed ambition.

“We've got jobs that we're asking university students to do that are way below their grade … After three years of uni, you come and work with us and we say, right, the next six months, you’re just going to do material deadlines – that’s horrendous, it’s archaic, it has to change.”

Beyond the junior levels, Hyland is of the view that AI will “reshape the type of roles” on offer, but that ultimately the advertising industry will “continue to expand as the population around the world” does, because there’ll be “more products to sell”.

Which is true – provided people have the money to buy them.