WPP has launched Hex, a studio inside WPP Production designed to help clients and internal teams close practical AI skills gaps in creative and marketing execution. The studio starts with about 50 creative technologists drawn from WPP’s Creative Tech Apprenticeship program, with many coming from backgrounds outside traditional advertising.
The company outlined the studio’s remit in its official newsroom post, positioning Hex as a blend of production studio, R&D lab, and consultancy that can embed with clients for months to assess problems, build custom solutions, and train teams on AI workflows.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- What Hex is and where it sits inside WPP
- What Hex plans to deliver for brands
- The business context behind WPP’s AI talent bet
- What this means for marketers
What Hex is and where it sits inside WPP
Hex operates within WPP Production’s content production and innovation teams, and is set up to function as three things at once: a creative production studio, an R&D lab, and a consultancy. Its initial team is made up of approximately 50 creative technologists from WPP’s Creative Tech Apprenticeship, a nine-month paid program launched in 2022.
WPP frames the studio as a response to an AI skills gap that is less about access to tools and more about hands-on capability to apply them in real work. The talent profile is intentionally non-traditional, with experience spanning areas like architecture, gaming, fine art, and robotics, alongside core creative and technical skills.
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What Hex plans to deliver for brands
Hex’s service mix spans both familiar production needs and newer interaction formats. On the production side, WPP highlights using generative AI to create assets for TV advertising and broader campaign work. On the experimental side, Hex is positioned to build interactive games, immersive experiences, and robotics-linked concepts.
A key operational detail is the “forward-deployed” model: Hex teams can embed with clients for monthslong periods to diagnose challenges, design custom solutions, and train internal teams to run AI workflows independently. WPP also says Hex will work with partners including Adobe, Google, and NVIDIA to test emerging technology and explore real-world applications.
WPP’s newsroom post also points to prior examples of the kind of work this talent base can support, including combining AI coaching with real-time motion capture for an activation at SXSW 2025 for Unilever’s Dirt Is Good, and prototype development work such as reimagining Britain’s national rail clock through a hardware prototype.
The business context behind WPP’s AI talent bet
Hex arrives as WPP continues to reorganize how it delivers production and technology-led services. The company has consolidated production capabilities under a single umbrella and is emphasizing AI as part of its Elevate28 turnaround plan, alongside an operating model that includes WPP Open and expanded AI know-how.
The launch also ties to a broader talent and enablement problem on the client side. WPP cites findings from DataCamp (in partnership with YouGov) that 88% of company leaders view AI and data literacy as a fundamental skill, but fewer than half provide basic training. WPP also references a 2026 Deloitte report that only 25% of companies successfully move AI pilots to production, framing skills and operational capability as constraints on ROI.
Financially, the move lands during a difficult stretch: WPP reported like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs declining 6.7% year over year to 2.3 billion pounds (about $2.9 billion) in Q1, with losses expected to continue through the first half of the year. In that context, Hex reads as both a capability investment and a differentiation play for winning and retaining accounts that want applied AI support, not just experimentation.
What this means for marketers
Hex is a signal that large agency groups see “AI readiness” as a services problem, not just a tooling decision. For marketing leaders, the practical implications are about how AI capability gets built, governed, and translated into production output.
- AI enablement is becoming a deliverable, not a side benefit
If agency teams are embedding for months to train internal staff, marketers should expect future SOWs to include explicit enablement outcomes (training, workflow design, handoff criteria), not just campaign outputs. - Production is widening beyond assets into interactive and physical formats
With specializations that include gaming, immersive experiences, and robotics, the competitive set for “creative production” expands. That raises the bar for briefing and measurement, since the output is not always a standard ad unit. - Talent pipelines may matter as much as model choice
WPP is tying Hex directly to its apprenticeship program and non-traditional recruiting. For brands, the question becomes whether partners can consistently staff teams that blend creative direction with applied engineering and rapid prototyping. - Partnership stacks are becoming part of the agency proposition
WPP’s stated support from Adobe, Google, and NVIDIA suggests that access to platforms and compute is being packaged alongside creative services. Marketers should clarify what is included (tooling, IP ownership, security posture, deployment environments) before assuming the “stack” is turnkey. - “Pilot-to-production” is the core promise to pressure-test
The Deloitte figure WPP cites (25% moving pilots to production) highlights the real risk: proof-of-concept work that never becomes a repeatable operating capability. Marketers should ask how teams will operationalize learnings into processes, templates, and governance, not just one-off demos.
Over time, studios like Hex can change what marketers expect from agency relationships: less separation between strategy, production, and technical implementation, and more emphasis on repeatable systems that keep creative output moving at speed.
That shift can also make agency selection more concrete. Instead of evaluating partners on “AI vision,” brands can evaluate staffing models, training methods, and the ability to deliver measurable production throughput improvements.
If the embedding model works as described, marketers may increasingly treat AI capability-building as a structured change program, with agencies acting as temporary internal accelerators rather than only external campaign vendors.
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