Ogilvy has launched ECHO, a proprietary AI platform designed to help brands scale campaign content while protecting talent consent, digital likeness rights and intellectual property. Developed in partnership with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and powered by WPP Open, the platform aims to bring greater speed and flexibility to content production without compromising talent control.
Led by Carol Reed, Global Chief Innovation Officer of The Ogilvy Group, ECHO can transform a single celebrity or brand ambassador shoot into multiple campaign assets tailored for different markets and platforms. A traditional production that generates approximately 8–10 assets can be expanded to around 30–50 media-ready versions, potentially reducing the average cost per asset by 65–75%.
The platform arrives at a time when the advertising industry is confronting growing concerns around unauthorised deepfakes and the use of synthetic media. Through the strategic partnership between WPP and CAA, ECHO combines Ogilvy’s creative activation capabilities with verified talent scans stored in The CAA Vault. This enables brands to develop localised and platform-specific content using approved digital likenesses, supported by contractual safeguards and mandatory talent consent.
ECHO incorporates automated checks against talent usage agreements and brand safety guidelines. No asset can be released without final approval through a secure portal accessible to agents and talent. Its AI models are trained using verified scans from The CAA Vault, while approved consumer-facing assets carry the watermark: [Talent Name] Approved | Recreated with AI.
Laurent Ezekiel, Global CEO of The Ogilvy Group, said: “Ogilvy has always delivered iconic work by combining creative ambition with commercial impact. With ECHO, we are solving the fundamental tension between speed, scale, and trust in the AI era. By pairing Ogilvy’s creative ingenuity, CAA’s world-class clients and leadership in responsible AI, and WPP’s enterprise scale, we are giving our clients unprecedented competitive advantage – allowing them to lead culture in real time with total trust and uncompromised craft.”
Carol Reed, Global Chief Innovation Officer of The Ogilvy Group, said: “We are witnessing the ‘NIL moment’ between advertising and entertainment. Instead of fearing AI or using it to produce cheap volume, building ECHO in partnership with CAA proves that technology can protect artists while setting storytellers free. Our global research confirms that consumers don’t want AI to sideline the artist; they want explicit proof that the talent is in control. By embedding talent consent, machine-readable contracts, and creative craft directly into the platform, we’ve created a system where the biggest stars can license verified digital replicas safely—unlocking unprecedented agility for brands and assured control for talent.”
Alex Shannon, Head of Strategic Development at CAA, said: “We built The CAA Vault to ensure that talent owns, controls, and can safely monetize their digital likeness on their own terms and only with their consent. By connecting The CAA Vault to Ogilvy’s ECHO platform, CAA is giving many of the world’s leading brands a secure, consent-first activation layer, delivering full visibility and protection for talent and high-craft, verified creative at the speed of culture for brands.”
David Raichman, Executive Creative Director and Global AI Creative Lead for The Ogilvy Group, said: “Trust in advertising has always come from two things: someone you believe and an idea worth believing. AI has challenged both. ECHO puts them back together: the talent’s consent on every asset, and a creative idea strong enough to deserve it. That’s the next frontier of content: More of it, faster, and – for the first time – more trusted, not less.”
To understand consumer attitudes towards AI-generated advertising, Ogilvy surveyed more than 1,200 respondents across the US, UK and India. The research found that over 80% of consumers across the three markets recognised talent-approved messaging as a clear signal of consent. Explicit talent approval also strengthened advertising appeal among more than 76% of respondents globally.
The study further indicated that talent sign-off increased trust, credibility and reassurance among 62% of consumers in India, 45% in the UK and 43% in the US. These findings highlight the importance of transparency and talent control as AI-generated advertising becomes more prevalent.
Integrated with WPP Open and standard post-production tools, ECHO is commercially available across the WPP network from November 2026. The launch signals a move towards AI-assisted campaign production in which content scalability is supported by clear permissions, verified digital identities and creative accountability.
