WPP to cut up to 1,000 more jobs as part of AI-driven restructuring

British advertising group WPP plans to cut up to one thousand more jobs this year. This latest round adds to over eleven thousand job losses since early twenty twenty-five. The company is also offloading non-core businesses and surplus office space. Advertising industry-wide slowdown has seen eighteen thousand jobs cut across agencies. Executives say restructuring plans are increasingly designed with artificial intelligence tools in mind.

British advertising group WPP is planning to cut up to 1,000 more jobs by the end of this year as part of an accelerated restructuring drive under new chief executive Cindy Rose, according to a report by the Financial Times (FT).

The plan also involves offloading non-core businesses and surplus office space, the report said.

Also read: Media measurement must shift from outputs to business outcomes: WPP Media’s Navin Khemka

Latest round adds to over 11,000 job losses since 2025

According to FT, which cited people familiar with the plans, WPP has already cut about 11,000 jobs since the start of 2025, bringing its overall headcount down to 97,388 as of June 30, 2026. The new round of cuts, expected in the second half of the year, will take the total higher still.

Live Events

The company is also looking at trimming its property footprint. Sources close to the discussions told the FT that WPP's three separate buildings on the south bank of the River Thames in London are likely to be consolidated into two.

Advertising industry-wide slowdown

The report placed WPP's cuts in the context of a broader contraction across the advertising sector. At least 18,000 jobs have been cut at agencies including Omnicom, Dentsu and WPP over the past 18 months, according to the FT's own calculations, with the publication noting that the real number is likely higher since many cuts go undisclosed to the market.

While few of the job losses across the industry are directly attributed to artificial intelligence, executives say restructuring plans are increasingly being designed with AI tools in mind. AI-based systems can now generate advertising content and campaign plans quickly and at scale, reducing the need for certain roles.

Omnicom cut 4,000 jobs at the end of last year following its merger with US rival IPG, with both companies having already trimmed staff ahead of the deal. IPG separately cut about 2,000 jobs globally from the start of 2025. Omnicom chief executive John Wren has said he wants to bring total combined headcount down to about 105,000, from 128,000 across both companies at the end of 2024. The company's most recent stock market filing, in July, disclosed $51.1 million in costs since the start of the year linked primarily to severance related to the IPG acquisition, though it did not give specific job numbers.

Japanese agency Dentsu has said it will cut about 3,400 jobs from its international operations under a turnaround plan, and had cut around 3,000 roles as of June 30, 2026.

WPP eyes asset sales alongside job cuts

Beyond job cuts, the FT reported that WPP is expected to sell non-core businesses as Rose works to simplify the London-listed group's operations and improve margins. WPP has forecast at least £200 million in asset sales this year, a figure that could be exceeded significantly if the company brings its PR agency Burson to market, which could fetch a price in the high hundreds of millions of pounds.

Also read: India’s E&M industry resilient on strong user engagement, ad push

Rose also told journalists at the company's results briefing in August that WPP would consider selling its 40 per cent stake in market research firm Kantar. "We've identified a number of assets that we believe are great assets but do not need to be owned by WPP," Rose said, according to the FT.

WPP shares rose about a quarter in August after its results suggested that Rose's turnaround plan was beginning to show results, the report added.

Leadership change and prior restructuring

Cindy Rose took over as WPP's chief executive on September 1, 2025, succeeding Mark Read, who had led the company for seven years. Read had announced his departure in June 2025 following a period of pressure on WPP, including the loss of Coca-Cola's North American media account to rival Publicis and a sharp decline in the company's share price during his tenure. Rose joined WPP from Microsoft, where she had served as chief operating officer for global enterprise, and had also been a non-executive director on WPP's board since 2019.

Since taking charge, Rose has been conducting a strategic and operational review of WPP's business. Last year's job cuts came partly from restructuring plans initiated under Read and partly from the early stages of Rose's review.