IPG’s latest appointment confirms AI chiefs are the latest holdco must-have

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It’s the latest top AI position created by an agency group in recent months. Last week, IPG’s crosstown rival Stagwell appointed IBM and Microsoft veteran John Kahan as its chief AI officer (CAIO), while Monks (formerly Media.Monks) recently made founding exec Wesley ter Haar, already the challenger group’s tech pointman, its own CAIO.

Speaking to Digiday, Sarig said his ambition was to create an AI “backbone” throughout IPG’s agency portfolio, with a particular focus on agentic applications of the tech. Previously Sarig co-founded and led e-commerce tech company Aterian, until 2023.

Agency groups have historically struggled to attract and retain top tech talent. Before AI specialists, agencies and tech giants competed to pull in data scientists, for example. According to Jeriad Zoghby, IPG’s head of commerce strategy, the holding company offered Sarig his new position following a stint consulting with the holding company, as a means of keeping him in the building. “We created the role basically to put him in place,” he said.

AI chiefs are becoming table stakes at companies competing for the kinds of big ticket accounts that make or break balance sheets. They’ve been enlisted variously as figureheads for client appeal, boardroom lieutenants driving internal change, or group-wide visionaries.

Stagwell’s Kahan said AI technology would be key for Stagwell to meet its new goal of increasing its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to $1 billion by 2030. “You don’t do that with people. You do that with technology,” he said.

According Gartner analyst Nicole Greene, “the surge in appointing ‘head of AI’ roles across agencies reflects the industry’s need to bring a holistic approach to AI.”

The positions held by Sarig and Kahan are designed to “spearhead AI initiatives … ensuring that agencies remain competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape,” she added.

Despite the grand titles, Sarig and Kahan will function day to day as ministers without portfolio within their respective agencies. Kahan’s role is a strategic one attached to the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, its counterpart to IPG’s Axciom or Publicis Groupe’s CoreAI units. He’ll initially lead the division until its longtime CEO Elspeth Rollert returns from maternity leave, and then focus on advising and guiding the group’s AI approach. AI agents and agentic systems are among his early priorities.

“If I’m successful, I enable our agencies to do more with less,” Kahan added.

Sarig and Kahan’s emphasis on agentic AI matches the marketing industry’s current obsession with the tech. ”Agentic AI tools carry the potential to help agencies realize their vision for generative AI to increase productivity,” said Greene.

In IPG’s case, the role is married to a practical focus on commerce. Sarig is set to operate across its agency roster, but for now is working closely with performance media shop Kinesso on a food and beverage brand and a personal care advertiser (he declined to name the clients).

In Sarig’s case, IPG’s tasked him with leading projects applying AI tech to clients’ e-commerce strategies, while integrating Intelligence Node, an e-commerce data company acquired in December, into its day-to-day marketing apparatus. 

The company is able to capture vast troves of data about a brand’s e-commerce presence, that of its competitors, and user behavior on the web, Sarig said. It collects so much data that analysing and effectively using it to optimize a client’s approach would be impractical without machine assistance. 

“The only way they’re going to deal with that scale is with agentic systems,” said Zoghby.

Agentic AI, Sarig said, would enable agency staffers to make decisions about client search and retail media investments faster. “The ability to have eyes on the market and make decisions about your performance in real time,” he said, “as opposed to in the rear view mirror, [is] going to change the game in my opinion.”