Client work
Publicis says most of its revenue is AI. Stop hiding yours
Results for the first half of 2026 are in, and the data is surprising.
What happened
Publicis reported its first half results and told the market that most of its revenue now runs through AI-enabled work. In the same week Meta started adding a disclosure tag to ads it detects as made or edited with AI, including work that came out of third-party tools.
Between the two, the quiet phase ended. The largest holding company is selling AI as the reason to buy, and the largest ad platform is labelling it whether you mention it or not.
What clients can already see
Clients can see disclosure tags, their own tool subscriptions and software costs. They cannot see who checked the work, what was rejected or why the final version shipped.
What they still cannot see
What they still cannot see: Who checked the work, what was rejected, and why the version they got is the one that shipped. That is what the invoice is actually for.
Why it matters here
A ten person agency competing on "we use AI" is competing on the one thing a client can buy for €20 a month. The value moved to judgement and accountability. Name it out loud, or it reads as overhead.
The proposal is where that gets decided. Not a line saying you are AI-enabled, but a short section saying which parts AI handles, who reviews them, and what happens when it is wrong.
Do this by Friday
Rewrite one section of your standard proposal so it names the AI in the process. An hour, once, and it carries into every pitch after it.
01
Pick your most-used proposal, the one that goes out three times a month.
02
Name what AI does, in plain words a client can picture.
03
Name who checks it, by job title, at a named point in the process.
04
Say what the client is paying for: judgement, accountability and control.
Try it now
Here is the scope section of our standard proposal. Rewrite it so it names which steps use AI, who reviews each one, and what the client is paying us for. Under 200 words, no jargon.
Also in that Monday’s email
Worth watching: Meta will label your AI ads for you.
Worth watching: Figma puts small website fixes in designers' hands.
Worth watching: AI users are checking your work twice.
Run it properly
The Client Report Playbook
The full job, stage by stage, if this week’s steps open a bigger conversation.
Members get every briefing four weeks earlier.
They had this one while there was still time to act on it. In AI, a month is a long time: this week’s briefing is already with them.
