WPP will apply Kyndryl’s Agentic AI framework in an expanded partnership – Unite.AI

Kyndryl and WPP on October 6, 2026 announced an expanded strategic partnership covering three areas: AI-enabled transformation of WPP’s business platforms and support model through Kyndryl’s Agentic AI Framework, an expanded marketing relationship naming WPP as Kyndryl’s preferred global marketing partner, and strengthened joint go-to-market initiatives.

Dominic Shine, WPP’s Chief Information Officer, said in the announcement that Kyndryl will help WPP accelerate business transformation through AI-powered operations, platform modernization and a simpler technology landscape, while WPP will support Kyndryl’s growth through expanded marketing partnerships and joint go-to-market innovation. “Together, we are investing in each other’s success, creating a relationship built on shared results, trust and long-term value creation,” he said.

Transformation of the business platform

The Kyndryl Agentic AI Framework will be applied to modernize WPP’s application estate with what the companies have described as intelligent support operations, faster problem resolution and reduced technical complexity. A new operating model will bring together workplace, cloud, infrastructure and business services under a common, automated structure. By retiring legacy applications and accelerating the adoption of strategic enterprise platforms, WPP expects to realize cost savings and efficiencies over time, and a portion of those savings will be reinvested in projects that will provide further IT simplification, productivity and operational benefits. The model will also use Kyndryl Bridge, Kyndryl’s AI-powered open integration digital business platform, to integrate, observe and orchestrate WPP’s entire technology environment.

Jonathan Ingram, president of Kyndryl UKI, said the combination of business modernization, AI-enabled operations and client growth capabilities creates a model that helps WPP transform and innovate more quickly.

The companies said the work supports WPP’s Elevate28 strategy, which aims to modernize its business technology environment to help it become a simpler, more integrated and AI-driven company. WPP unveiled Elevate28 on February 26, 2026 as a multi-year plan to transition from a holding company structure to a single company organized into four operating units (WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions) across four regions, unified by the WPP Open agent marketing platform. The plan aims to save £500 million in annualized gross costs by 2028, with total cash costs of around £400 million spread over two years and takes place in three phases: stabilization in 2026, construction in 2027 and acceleration from 2028 onwards. WPP CEO Cindy Rose said at the time that the plan was intended to stabilize the business, return to organic growth and build capacity to invest in the future.

Marketing and go-to-market expansion

Kyndryl has named WPP its preferred global marketing partner, expanding the existing relationship beyond media, brand and creative strategy into a broader portfolio of digital, experiential and integrated marketing capabilities. The expansion also involves enabling an AI-powered marketing operating system powered by WPP Open.

Kyndryl Consult and WPP Enterprise Solutions, formerly VML Enterprise Solutions, will also continue joint go-to-market efforts to drive customer growth through core business modernization and transformation, reinventing how customers interact with brands through artificial intelligence, data and emerging technology. These efforts build on the global partnership between Kyndryl and VML announced on September 12, 2025, which paired Kyndryl Consult consulting services and Kyndryl Vital design and co-creation services with the experience transformation expertise of VML Enterprise Solutions.

Under the 2025 agreement, the companies said they would deploy joint teams of experts including expert designers, artificial intelligence experts, software and infrastructure developers and engineers. Potential use cases stated included financial services, where companies intended to explore using AI agents through Kyndryl’s Agentic AI Framework and WPP Open to orchestrate data for personalized banking services, and retail, where they aimed for AI-driven omnichannel commerce and unified order management and customer relationship systems. Ismail Amla, senior vice president at Kyndryl Consult, said at the time that the partnership aimed to remove friction that slows experience transformation efforts, while Jeff Geheb, global CEO of VML Enterprise Solutions, said the companies were breaking down silos and simplifying the customer journey from initial idea to delivery at scale.

Existing involvement and reported results

The expanded agreement extends an established technology services relationship. In a Kyndryl customer story documenting that effort, Jamie McLellan, WPP’s Creative Chief Information Officer, said Kyndryl worked with WPP on a one-team model, adding, “We see them as an extension of WPP.” According to the client story, WPP Enterprise Technology and Kyndryl have established a partnership charter that associates WPP and Kyndryl with focal points at every level of IT decision making, and the joint team has defined 18 priority projects for the first year.

Documented first-year work included modernizing a fleet of 6,000 servers by decommissioning 4,700 on-premises servers and migrating 1,000 servers to Microsoft Azure private cloud and public cloud, upgrading hundreds of wireless access points, moving the enterprise device fleet to cloud-based management, and opening global service desks with real-time language translation. Kyndryl Bridge AIOps was deployed in the WPP Technology region, with deployment teams using Red Hat Ansible playbooks to automate fixes and deploy them to the broader server region. The joint team also created an ambassador network of more than 100 colleagues to support the cultural transition.

Kyndryl’s customer story reports that after one year the team had taken down more than 5,700 servers with multimillion-dollar savings, resolved 56% of IT incidents without human intervention, and reduced monthly ServiceNow tickets from 40,000 to 5,000. It also reports a customer satisfaction score of 90.5% in the first month of implementation, an average chat wait time of 17 seconds versus 13 minutes, and an estimated 300 tons of CO2 reduced through data center consolidation and cloud migrations.