Omnicom Grew Core Revenue 7.2% in Q3 — and Defended Itself Against AI Agents

By Elena Vasquez

Omnicom grew core revenue 7.2% organically in the third quarter, and its leadership spent part of Thursday's earnings call defending the holding company model against a question raised by agentic AI (software agents that can autonomously plan and execute tasks such as media buying).

Tim Nolan, an equity analyst at independent research firm SSR, asked Omnicom's leadership how the role of a large holding company must change in the agentic AI era. The question targets the core of the business. If AI agents can plan and buy media, the traditional rationale for a holding company weakens. Omnicom is building its own AI-driven marketing intelligence platform, Omni, but walled gardens and independent ad tech firms are building competing end-to-end platforms of their own.

Why Omnicom says complexity helps it

CFO Phil Angelastro did not concede the point. Market complexity makes Omnicom's offering "more central," he said.

"[That's] in terms of the platform we're building out," Angelastro said, "and in terms of the ease in which both Omnicom employees and client employees can come together on a platform and execute certain statements of work."

CTO Paolo Yuvienco explained the mechanism. "We orchestrate that complexity on behalf of our clients," he said, pointing to Omni as the enabling tool. "[It] helps facilitate the work that our people are actually delivering for our clients every day."

Yuvienco said agentic AI completes work faster, more efficiently and more effectively, and simplifies "the entire marketing lifecycle." He did not address how Omni compares with the end-to-end solutions Nolan described.

Where the growth came from

Integrated media — a unit spanning media, commerce, data, CRM, consulting and content automation — produced 53% of Omnicom's $6 billion in core revenue and grew more than 10% organically. Much of that work, from media buying to content production, is precisely what AI agents are being built to take on.

CEO John Wren said Omnicom is gaining share and holds the resources and cash to keep investing in its platform and agentic AI capabilities.

Separately, Omnicom's tech consultancy Credera signed a five-year collaboration agreement with AWS earlier this week. Yuvienco told investors the partnership is "meant to drive joint growth." Omnicom will stand up a more dedicated unit to sell AWS-centric cloud AI solutions to clients. The company already does similar work for many clients, he said, but the deal formalizes the focus.

The IPG integration and what follows

Omnicom's largest bet remains IPG, which it closed in late November, just shy of one year ago. This quarter marks the first Q3 for the combined company.

The numbers behind the headline:

• Core revenue, which excludes businesses Omnicom has sold or plans to sell, rose 7.2% organically.
• The US market grew 10% and accounts for 60% of core revenue.
• The World Cup and, to a lesser degree, the midterm elections boosted quarterly growth, Wren said.

Wren warned investors that neither the World Cup nor the midterms will repeat in 2027, but added: "next year we'll be looking forward to the '28 Olympics."

Next year's reporting should also get simpler. Omnicom has reported divested businesses separately from the rest of revenue. Wren said the company is "substantially through" those sales, with only "a handful" still in the talking-with-buyers stage. Angelastro set a Dec. 31 target for completion, though some closings could slip into early 2027.

After that, Omnicom can stop splitting out those numbers and return to dealmaking. "We've been entertaining some discussions with potential targets," Angelastro said — a signal that the post-IPG acquisition pipeline is already forming before the portfolio cleanup even ends.