# WPP Media
> New York (3 World Trade Center) and London
- Profile type: Company
- Profile status: baseline
- Last updated: 2026-05-04T00:00:00.000Z
- Canonical URL: https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/wpp-media/
- Also known as: GroupM, Group M, WPP GroupM, WPPMedia, WPP Media Group
## Summary
WPP Media is the world's largest media agency network by billings, managing more than $60 billion in annual media spend across 80+ markets. A subsidiary of WPP plc, it was rebranded from GroupM on May 28, 2025 — retiring that name after 22 years — and now operates as a unified, AI-focused buying network under CEO Brian Lesser. Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom remain as client-facing brands inside WPP Media.

## Company facts

- Founded: 2003
- Headquarters: New York (3 World Trade Center) and London
- Domain: wppmedia.com
- CEO: brian lesser (https://thestateofstreaming.com/people/brian-lesser/)


## Latest metrics

- Revenue: $64.6B in 2025 billings (COMvergence); WPP Media itself does not break out P&L revenue separately from WPP plc segment reporting
- As of: 2026-02-01
- Source: https://www.wppmedia.com/news/latest-comvergence-report-reinforces-wpp-medias-intelligence-advantage-for-clients


## Key facts

- WPP officially launched WPP Media as a "fully integrated, AI-powered media company" on May 28, 2025, retiring the GroupM name after 22 years; Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom continue as brands within WPP Media but report financials as a combined entity by market. — Variety: https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/wpp-media-groupm-rename-advertising-1236411920/
- WPP Media manages more than $60 billion in annual media investment across 80+ markets and works with more than 75 percent of the world's leading advertisers. — Marketing Dive: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/groupm-becomes-wpp-media-as-holding-company-prepares-for-future/749462/
- WPP Media ranked first globally with $64.6 billion in 2025 billings, up 3.6 percent year-over-year and 18.2 percent ahead of the next-largest media agency group, per COMvergence. — WPP Media (citing COMvergence): https://www.wppmedia.com/news/latest-comvergence-report-reinforces-wpp-medias-intelligence-advantage-for-clients
- Brian Lesser was appointed Global CEO of GroupM in July 2024 (effective September 2024), succeeding Christian Juhl; he subsequently became CEO of WPP Media at the May 2025 rebrand. — WPP press release: https://www.wpp.com/en-us/news/2024/07/wpp-appoints-brian-lesser-as-global-ceo-of-groupm
- GroupM was founded in 2003 as an umbrella organization combining WPP-owned media-buying companies Mediaedge:cia and Mindshare; the network later grew to include MediaCom, Maxus, Wavemaker, Essence, m/SIX, Xaxis, and others. — Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPP_Media
- In January 2024, GroupM sunset standalone brands Xaxis, Sightline, and Finecast and consolidated them into GroupM Nexus Media Solutions, the network's performance-marketing division; INCA was previously folded into Nexus following WPP's 2023 acquisition of The Goat Agency. — Campaign Asia: https://www.campaignasia.com/article/groupm-sunsets-xaxis-sightline-and-finecast-brands-as-nexus-reorganises/wy6a03mm5mg53ehw7orlfs9uum
- WPP launched Choreograph in April 2021 as a global data company combining the data units of GroupM and Wunderman Thompson; Choreograph remains WPP Media's data and technology backbone. — WPP press release: https://www.wpp.com/en/news/2021/04/wpp-launches-global-data-company-choreograph
- WPP Media and Google launched YouTube 5K (YT5K) on April 1, 2026, an AI-driven solution that curates a regularly updated inventory of more than 5,000 brand-safe YouTube channels and automates creative versioning into 10-, 15-, and 20-second cutdowns scored against YouTube's ABCD framework. — WPP Media press release: https://www.wppmedia.com/news/wppm-yt5k
- WPP is a founding buy-side member of the IAB Tech Lab's Programmatic Governance Council (PGC), launched April 21, 2026, alongside Omnicom, Dentsu, Disney, Amazon Ads, The Trade Desk, Magnite, PubMatic, Hearst, News Corp, Yahoo, Raptive, and Mediavine. — TV Tech: https://www.tvtechnology.com/business/iab-tech-lab-launches-industry-council-to-address-transparency-in-usd200b-u-s-programmatic-ad-market
- The WPP Media rebrand was paired with a multi-year restructuring strategy called Vision'30 that WPP estimated would impact 40-45 percent of the network's roughly 40,000-person workforce through reorganization, retraining, and AI integration. — Marketing Dive: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/groupm-becomes-wpp-media-as-holding-company-prepares-for-future/749462/


## Related

- wpp (Parent company (WPP plc, LSE: WPP)) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/wpp/
- alphabet inc (Strategic partner — co-developed YouTube 5K AI activation tool (April 2026)) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/alphabet-inc/
- infosum (Acquired 2025 for ~$150M; data-clean-room capability folded into WPP Media stack) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/infosum/
- brian lesser (Global CEO (named GroupM CEO Sept 2024; transitioned to WPP Media CEO May 2025)) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/people/brian-lesser/


## External coverage

- WPP Media: WPP Media (official site) (https://www.wppmedia.com)
- WPP Media: WPP Media Newsroom (https://www.wppmedia.com/news)
- 2025-05-28 — WPP plc: WPP Media launches as fully integrated, AI-powered media company (https://www.wpp.com/en-us/news/2025/05/wpp-media-launches-as-fully-integrated-ai-powered-media-company)
- 2025-05-28 — Variety: WPP Erases 'GroupM,' One of Madison Avenue's Most Influential Names (https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/wpp-media-groupm-rename-advertising-1236411920/)
- 2025-05-06 — Ad Age: WPP to rebrand GroupM as WPP Media — industry leaders react (https://adage.com/agencies/media-agencies/aa-wpp-rebranding-groupm-as-wpp-media/)
- Adweek: GroupM CEO Brian Lesser Lays Out His Plan for the Agency Giant's Future (https://www.adweek.com/agencies/groupm-brian-lesser-lays-out-plan/)
- 2025-02-27 — VideoWeek: The Future of Media is Based on AI, Not IDs, says GroupM CEO Brian Lesser (https://videoweek.com/2025/02/27/the-future-of-media-is-based-on-ai-not-ids-says-groupm-ceo-brian-lesser/)
- 2026-04-01 — WPP Media: WPP Media Launches YouTube 5K to Accelerate AI-Powered YouTube Activation (https://www.wppmedia.com/news/wppm-yt5k)

## Profile
WPP Media is the media-investment arm of London-listed WPP plc and, by billings, the largest media agency network in the world. The unit was known as GroupM from its 2003 founding until [May 28, 2025, when WPP retired the GroupM name](https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/wpp-media-groupm-rename-advertising-1236411920/) after 22 years and relaunched the business as a "fully integrated, AI-powered" company under CEO Brian Lesser. Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom continue as client-facing brands inside WPP Media but the network now reports financials as a combined entity by market rather than along agency lines.

The scale is the story for buyers and sellers. WPP Media manages more than $60 billion in annual media investment across 80+ markets — [$64.6 billion in 2025 billings per COMvergence](https://www.wppmedia.com/news/latest-comvergence-report-reinforces-wpp-medias-intelligence-advantage-for-clients), 18.2 percent ahead of the next-largest media agency group — and works with more than 75 percent of the world's leading advertisers. Choreograph, the data unit launched in April 2021, sits across the brands as the network's data-and-technology backbone; the 2025 acquisition of InfoSum folded a clean-room capability into the same stack. Standalone units Xaxis, Sightline, Finecast, and INCA were sunset between 2023 and early 2024 and consolidated into GroupM Nexus, the network's performance-marketing division.

For The State of Streaming's audience, the relevant frontier is what Lesser is doing with that scale on CTV and AI. He has staked the network's strategy on AI rather than identity — pushing 100 percent adoption of WPP Open and Media Studio, the holding company's AI-enabled marketing platform — and has paired the platform bet with a Vision'30 restructuring that WPP says will affect 40-45 percent of the roughly 40,000-person workforce. The April 2026 launch of [YouTube 5K with Google](https://www.wppmedia.com/news/wppm-yt5k) — an AI-curated 5,000-channel brand-safety inventory plus automated creative versioning into 10/15/20-second cutdowns — is the first concrete CTV-adjacent product to come out of that strategy. WPP also sits as a founding buy-side member on the IAB Tech Lab's Programmatic Governance Council, [launched April 21, 2026](https://www.tvtechnology.com/business/iab-tech-lab-launches-industry-council-to-address-transparency-in-usd200b-u-s-programmatic-ad-market) to write transparency rules for the $200 billion U.S. programmatic market.
## Coverage on The State of Streaming
- [Machine Cognition Hits Programmatic Ads: 30 Autonomous Campaigns Live on PubMatic](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/05/machine-cognition-programmatic-ads-agentic-ai/) — 2026-05-03
- [Agentic AI Just Crossed Into the Workflow, Six Weeks Before NY's Disclosure Cliff](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/04/agentic-ai-creative-production-adobe-deepdub-2026/) — 2026-04-27
- [Agentic AI Just Crossed Into the Workflow, Six Weeks Before NY's Disclosure Cliff](https://thestateofstreaming.com/advertising-adtech/2026/04/agentic-ai-creative-production-adobe-deepdub-2026-2/) — 2026-04-27

## Tags

- media-agency
- holding-company-subsidiary
- wpp-subsidiary
- programmatic
- addressable-tv
- ai-powered-media
- private-subsidiary
- formerly-groupm

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