WPP Media has partnered with AI commerce startup Kily to strengthen AI-driven ecommerce capabilities for brands in India, marking another step in the advertising network's broader strategy to embed artificial intelligence across media planning, commerce and marketing operations. The collaboration aims to help brands manage increasingly fragmented marketplace and quick commerce ecosystems through AI-powered automation and decision-making.
As part of the partnership, Kily's AI commerce platform will be integrated with WPP Open, the group's AI-enabled marketing operating system. The integration is expected to provide advertisers with a unified platform for managing marketplace operations, enabling brands to automate and optimise key ecommerce functions such as product listing management, pricing decisions, advertising, inventory visibility and campaign execution across multiple digital commerce platforms.
Kily was founded by former Flipkart and Affle executives Sankalp Mehrotra and Anurag Singh. The company has developed AI agents designed specifically for commerce operations, allowing brands to automate repetitive marketplace tasks while generating real-time recommendations based on consumer demand, platform signals and competitive activity. The startup's technology is built to support India's growing multi-marketplace environment, where brands often operate simultaneously across ecommerce marketplaces, quick commerce platforms and direct-to-consumer channels.
According to WPP Media, the collaboration is intended to create a more connected commerce ecosystem by combining planning, activation and measurement within a single AI-enabled workflow. Rather than relying on disconnected datasets and manual interventions, the integrated platform seeks to continuously analyse signals from multiple touchpoints and convert them into actionable recommendations for advertisers.
Ashwin Padmanabhan, Chief Operating Officer, WPP Media South Asia, said ecommerce has evolved into an environment shaped by fragmented platforms, shifting consumer demand and multiple data signals. He noted that the Integrated Commerce Planner developed with Kily is designed to align planning, activation and measurement while embedding AI into everyday decision-making, enabling brands to move towards a more predictive and outcome-driven approach to growth.
Sankalp Mehrotra, Co-founder and CEO of Kily, said the company is focused on bringing greater autonomy to commerce management. He added that India's fragmented marketplace landscape requires AI systems capable of supporting judgement, decision-making and operational execution at scale, allowing brands to respond faster and improve performance across marketplaces and quick commerce channels.
The partnership aligns with WPP's wider AI strategy, which has seen the company continue expanding WPP Open and introducing AI-powered services across creative production, media planning, commerce and enterprise transformation. Over the past year, WPP has announced multiple AI-focused collaborations aimed at helping clients adopt agentic AI and data-driven marketing capabilities across customer engagement and business operations.
The announcement also comes as India's ecommerce and quick commerce sectors continue to witness rapid growth, prompting brands to invest more heavily in automation, retail media and AI-enabled commerce solutions. Industry analysts expect conversational AI, predictive analytics and autonomous commerce agents to play a growing role in helping marketers manage increasingly complex digital retail ecosystems while improving operational efficiency and campaign performance.
For WPP Media, the partnership strengthens its commerce technology portfolio as advertisers increasingly seek integrated platforms that combine media intelligence with commerce execution. By bringing Kily's AI agents into WPP Open, the company is positioning itself to offer brands a more connected approach to managing digital commerce, with AI supporting faster decision-making, improved marketplace visibility and more efficient campaign optimisation across India's expanding ecommerce landscape.