Weber Shandwick inks multimillion-dollar deal with Google for custom AI platform

State of play: Weber's investment in these agentic tools is "grounded in the reality that our clients are getting more and more C-suite pressure to show efficiency, automation and unlock new budgets," says Dustin Johnson, global chief commercial and innovation officer at Weber Shandwick.

• "That demand carries over to us as their agency. Clients now expect — as they should — precision, speed and scale, and the only way to deliver that is through technology and infrastructure."
• As such, 90% of Weber's client-facing employees are using these AI agents to support their daily work.

Details: The platform, called HALO, is built on Google's infrastructure and incorporates data partners like Blackbird, Infegy, Memo, Morning Consult, Peak Metrics and Talkwalker.

• Weber's own proprietary frameworks, methods and strategic knowledge are also fed into the platform.

Zoom in: Weber created an agentic crisis system that automates 75% of traditional crisis response workflows.

• For example, the agents can create crisis scenarios based on the level of risk and the likelihood of that crisis happening. It can then identify key audiences that need to receive communication during the crisis and draft responses in real time.
• The platform can create an infinite number of crisis scenarios, which allows communication teams to have a plan in place and react quickly.
• HALO agents are used to generate specific synthetic personas to message test against and can be deployed to monitor and track conversations across social media and traditional news to identify cultural trends and predict what's next.
• The agents can also be used to produce creative content quickly and at scale.

The big picture: A recent Boston Consulting Group report found that more than 80% of corporate affairs work can be aided by AI.

• AI integration could generate up to a 47% increase in productivity gains and reduce costs by more than 20% within three years.
• Agentic AI creates the most cost savings across operational, planning and analytical tasks (28%-39%), followed by external and media communications (22%-31%) and ESG and community comms (21%-30%), per the report.

What they're saying: "The partnership with Weber Shandwick represents a significant step in how AI is being applied within the communications industry," says Granville Valentine, Google Cloud managing director of AI GTM.

• "Together, we are building a transformative platform ... where specialized agents, orchestration layers and secure institutional memory work together to redefine how Weber teams create, collaborate and deliver for clients."

Between the lines: At a minimum, agentic tools will enable PR agencies to work faster and at a greater scale, says Jim O'Leary, Weber Shandwick CEO, North America, and global president.

• "But what you more likely have, and more often have, is the ability to do the same thing that you were doing before, faster and at greater scale, with anywhere from 25% less people to 75% less people, depending on the particular use case," he said.

Yes, but: That doesn't mean AI is replacing people. Instead, it means teams will be able to support more clients with the assistance of agents.

• "I think that you can ideally do more work with the same number of people that you currently have," says O'Leary. "I would love to have twice as much revenue with the same number of people."

Follow the money: AI integration poses a threat to the billable hours model used by many professional services firms.

• "The entire profession needs to figure out a new pricing model," O'Leary says. "But we are increasingly pricing things based on value. And so a system like that — price based on value — would be much different than price based on time and materials."
• Many in-house teams are prioritizing budget for AI tools, but whether that translates into money for agencies that incorporate AI tools remains to be seen.

What to watch: Weber Shandwick's owner, Interpublic Group, is in the process of being acquired by Omnicom Group. The merger is likely to lead to consolidation at the agency level.

• "We set the wheels in motion on this long before we found out that we were being acquired by Omnicom," O'Leary says. "I'm thinking about differentiation in the marketplace, and so we're building this for our position in the marketplace and for the benefit of clients."
• "I look at this in the context of where are we in the industry vis-à-vis large, globally integrated agency competitors, and how are we bringing more sophisticated solutions to our clients than they are."

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