Publicis Groupe brings its past to life with AI and innovation, to celebrate its first century

From its beginnings in 1926 as a creative hot shop in Montmartre, to its international expansion, embrace of data and technology, and its position today as the industry’s leading holding company, the least we can say is Publicis has gone through some transformations over the past 100 years.

But one tradition hasn’t changed: the annual Wishes.

And to ring in the new century, who better to create them than Publicis Conseil, the agency built by our founder, Marcel Bleustein Blanchet?

Blending live action and real actors with the latest in AI production, from the Groupe’s proprietary platforms and tools, they tell the story of the pioneering spirit, endless innovations and resilience that enabled us to withstand war, fire, economic downturns, technological revolutions and a global pandemic during our first hundred years and positions us to continue to lead and reinvent the industry as we enter our next century - whatever it may hold.

Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO Publicis Groupe commented: "2026 will be a very special year for us, as we end our first century. A century where we have turned a small hot shop from Montmartre into the industry’s largest holding company over the last two years. A century that has seen the Groupe rise from the ashes - sometimes literally - three times and reinvented itself many more. It is this spirit of resilience that has defined us for 100 years and that is captured in our Wishes: a lion never gives up.

2026 will also be the year where we enter our second century, the beginning of which will undoubtedly be defined by the rise of AI. This film is a human, historical and technological odyssey, that blends our best creative minds with our unmatched capabilities in AI production to embody our belief that the future of AI is our people."

A quarter of the film is live action footage, with the rest created by AI, drawing on photos, films and documents from Publicis’ own archives.

A huge volume of visual assets

AI prompt artists and AI archivists managed, sourced and catalogued both the volume of real images needed for a project of this size - 4,500 for 150 individual shots - and the AI-generated ones.

A reinvented editing process: