The advertising agency, formerly the largest in the world, cut its global workforce from 111,000 last year to 104,000 as of the end of June as it struggles with weak spending and the rise of artificial intelligence.

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WPP’s pre-tax profit dropped by 71% to £98m in the first half of its financial year. It has also halved its interim dividend to 7.5p a share before a strategic review that will be led by its incoming chief executive, Cindy Rose. She will take over from Mark Read on 1 September.
For the second quarter, WPP posted its worst quarterly decline in like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs since the Covid-19 pandemic, hurt by client losses and tariff-induced caution among marketers. The metric—a closely watched measure of its top-line performance—fell 5.8% compared with a year earlier.

The company warned of slowing spending by ad agencies, which worsened between April and the end of June. “I have never seen a more volatile market,”
While WPP has increased its annual investment in AI to £300m, it faces intense competition from big tech companies such as the Facebook owner Meta, which has developed AI tools that allow advertisers to fully create and target campaigns on social media sites. These tools are expected to be rolled out by the end of next year.
Last month WPP cut its forecast of revenues and profits for this year, blaming a challenging economic backdrop, which prompted the shares to drop by 19%.