Publicis announced on Thursday that it will invest EUR300 million in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next three years, with the aim of placing AI at the center of its operations to become the advertising industry's first "intelligent system".

Ahead of the publication of its 2023 results in February, the French group announced that it intended to invest 100 million euros in AI this year thanks to "internal savings".

"This investment will therefore have no impact on the group's operating margin in 2024, and will contribute slightly to that of 2025," it said in a statement.

Publicis also said that, according to preliminary data, its organic growth last year was 6.3%, above the 5.5%-6% target range announced last October.

Strategically, "it was important for us to show the financial market that we are starting from a position of strength", said the group's CEO, Arthur Sadoun, at a press conference, while Publicis' recent strong results run counter to the slowdown experienced by the advertising industry.

In its press release, Publicis says AI is being placed at the heart of its platform organization to bring together all its proprietary data in a single entity, CoreAI, whose development began in the second half of 2023 and whose capabilities will be rolled out progressively in the first half of 2024.

Half of the 100 million to be invested in AI this year will be used to train and recruit teams, the press release states, while the other half will be dedicated to the purchase of licenses, software and cloud infrastructure. (Written by Stéphanie Hamel and Jean Terzian)