WPP bets on privacy-first data collaboration as AI rewrites marketing playbook

The next battleground in marketing may not be who owns the most customer data—it may be who can access the richest intelligence without ever moving that data.

That shift in thinking is at the heart of WPP’s acquisition of InfoSum and reflects a broader transformation underway in the global advertising and marketing ecosystem. As artificial intelligence accelerates demand for richer, real-time consumer signals and governments tighten privacy rules, marketers are being pushed to rethink decades-old assumptions around data ownership.

Speaking to Fortune India, Richard Knott, SVP APAC at InfoSum, and Vishal Jacob, President, Choreograph, WPP Media South Asia, said brands entering the AI era will increasingly compete on their ability to collaborate across ecosystems rather than simply expand proprietary databases.

“The world is experiencing two major changes simultaneously—AI and increasing privacy legislation,” said Knott. “AI requires significantly larger volumes of high-quality data signals than organisations can realistically generate and maintain internally.”

For years, the marketing industry treated first-party data as its most valuable asset. The playbook centred on collecting consumer information, building identity graphs and improving targeting precision. But AI, according to WPP, is changing the equation.

Why are brands moving from data ownership to data collaboration?

Knott argues that companies should start thinking about data the way digital platforms think about assets.

“Uber doesn’t own cars. Airbnb doesn’t own hotels. Yet they achieve scale through collaboration. Data is moving in a similar direction—from ownership towards access,” he said.

That transition is driving interest in technologies such as data clean rooms and federated learning, which enable organisations to combine insights across datasets while ensuring that the underlying information remains secure and under the control of the original owner.

The rationale becomes stronger as AI systems increasingly depend not just on volume, but on the diversity and quality of signals.

Traditionally, marketers identified intent through direct behavioural indicators—such as consumers visiting product pages or searching for specific categories. AI enables brands to go further and interpret adjacent signals that may reveal future behaviour.

Knott illustrated this through an example: a customer purchasing diapers for the first time may indicate a broader lifestyle transition that could later influence spending decisions across categories—from automobiles to insurance and mobility.

“Success in the AI world will be less about identity and more about signals,” he said. “The question becomes not how many consumers you know, but how much meaningful intelligence you can access.”

Jacob said this requires marketers to rethink not only targeting but the entire marketing feedback loop.

“It’s becoming about identifying audiences, activating them, learning from outcomes and continuously improving. The strength of AI comes from how effectively that learning compounds over time,” he said.

At the same time, personalisation ambitions are colliding with consumer expectations around privacy.

According to Knott, privacy regulation has expanded significantly over the last decade, making traditional approaches to data sharing increasingly difficult.

Instead of moving data across advertising supply chains, brands are now prioritising architectures that preserve control while still allowing analysis and activation.

“That’s why privacy by design becomes important,” he said. “The data controller retains control while still benefiting from collaboration.”

What is holding Indian companies back from becoming AI-first?

India presents a particularly interesting opportunity.

Jacob believes most Indian enterprises are still in the early stages of building mature data capabilities despite generating substantial volumes of consumer information.

“A lot of organisations today have data, but it still exists in silos,” he said. “The immediate challenge is bringing those datasets together and creating meaningful use cases across marketing, pricing, distribution and growth.”

He added that ownership structures around data remain fragmented across business functions, slowing adoption.

As advertisers, publishers and platforms increasingly move towards direct intelligence sharing, WPP expects marketing outcomes to become more accountable and growth-oriented.

“The one question every client is asking today is: where does the next phase of growth come from?” Jacob said.

For WPP and InfoSum, the answer lies not in building bigger data pools—but in building smarter connections between them.