The world has changed a lot since Yannick Bolloré, CEO of Havas, last attended the consumer electronics show.
Last time around he was checking out curved TVs. This year, he has gotten to see robots play ping pong (they are not as good as he is yet, but time will tell).
“To travel the world and arrive in this place with all these brilliant minds investing to create a better future,” said Bolloré during a keynote interview with Jim Stengel at CES on Tuesday. “It’s so energizing, so inspiring.”
Bolloré is at the show to stay on top of the latest in cutting edge tech, as well as to launch a new AI platform called Ava. The platform uses large language models and agentic capabilities to communicate with clients about campaigns and projects and save time and make working together more efficient. He also used the keynote to showcase how quickly a creative can be made. An audience member was chosen at the beginning of the event and by the time the 20 minute talk was over, she featured in a very realistic looking AI movie trailer that played at the end of the conversation.
Bolloré is a fan of AI both personally and professionally. He says it makes him more efficient at work and even a better father to teenage girls. He also sees AI as the next great wave for the industry and said the mix of human ingenuity and innovative tech that will drive success in the future. He is not afraid of jobs being lost. While some jobs may go away, he said others will open. To adapt to new tech, Havas is training its 23,000 employees on AI tools.
“Agencies using AI will replace agencies not using AI,” he said. “I believe agencies will continue to bring value… I believe AI, personally, is an opportunity for industry.”
Founded in 1835, Havas has been through every iteration of communications systems. In fact, when it was founded as a news agency, the company used homing pigeons to deliver messages before the telegraph was invented several years later.
Bolloré himself recalls experiencing AI himself around 15 years ago when he and his wife sat side by side, visited the same website, and were served different ads during the early days of programmatic. While groundbreaking at the time, he suspects the latest wave of AI may be even more so. Noting that the big six holding companies including Havas, Omnicom, WPP, were equal competitors over the past 10-15 years, he noted a shift today.
“If you look at what happened in the past 18 months, honestly, we see a spread of almost 10% between the fastest growing industry players and the lowest when declining,” Bolloré said. “In terms of market share of everything, it might be the most profound disruption of the industry.”
