Publicis Groupe speaks out following The Trade Desk audit ‘fallout’, no plans to create rival self-serve DSP

Singapore – Publicis Groupe has spoken for the first time following previous reports of the advertising giant advising clients to avoid using The Trade Desk’s demand-side platform (DSP).

In the recent earnings call for Publicis Groupe’s for Q1 2026, Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer stated that every vendor is audited by PwC, and that they pass the audit to our clients. In this case, Ebiquity ran the audit and that they found that The Trade Desk did not pass it.

“The only thing we have done, and that we will always do, is that we have informed our clients of the finding, as we believe it is our responsibility, and it is our responsibility,” he said.

Moreover, he noted that they have no intention to build a competitive offer to The Trade Desk, as they want to keep in their position as an advertising holding company.

“We don’t have any competing offer when it comes to self-serve DSP product that could be a direct competitor to The Trade Desk, and we are not planning to build any,” he added.

When asked by an analyst why Publicis Groupe isn’t planning to create its own DSP despite having data marketing firm Epsilon in its portfolio, Arthur said that while they will see some growth over its clients using Epsilon, it is not a priority for them to accelerate in principal media.

“Our number one priority is to build product and services that can help our client growth in this AI world. It’s not by building another platform that we’re going to help our client more. It’s about connecting our capabilities. It’s about bringing new capabilities in place,” he explained.

It should be recalled that The Trade Desk had denied failing the audit, with a spokesperson telling MARKETECH APAC that as a platform that strives to be ‘transparent’ in the industry, their reporting and billing processes are supported by an independent SOC 1 compliance.

“In this case, the request included asks for data that would violate customer and partner confidentiality agreements. We look forward to working with Publicis to provide workable alternatives to this particular request, including information at an even more granular level than requested,” the spokesperson said.

In the same earnings call, moreover, Arthur commented on Publicis Groupe’s recent win of Microsoft’s media pitch, as well as the extension of their strategic partnership since the co-creation of the AI pltaform Marcel in 2016.

“I think what you should take out of this partnership is that it started by us sitting down with Microsoft and looking at how we can offer to our common clients an agentic solution. We have seen how well our capabilities were fitting together. The second reaction of Microsoft was to say, “This looks great. Let’s put it on Microsoft as client zero.” This is why we have been honoured and lucky to start the relationship with them,” he said.

As part of this partnership, Publicis is putting Microsoft 365 Copilot in the hands of all 114,000+ employees worldwide. They have also selected Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud provider. 

By working with Microsoft, which offers the most scalable and secure cloud and AI platform in the industry, Publicis is strengthening its ability to deliver personalization at scale and expanding Marcel’s role from pioneering AI in marketing to powering the next generation of enterprisewide AI.