Publicis Groupe has marked its 100th anniversary with a new film that uses artificial intelligence to bring its history to life while signalling the company’s direction for the next century.
Founded in 1926 as a small creative agency in Montmartre, Publicis has grown into one of the world’s largest advertising and communications holding companies, expanding across markets and embracing data and technology along the way. Despite that transformation, one tradition has remained unchanged: the Groupe’s annual Wishes.
To mark the centenary, the 2026 Wishes film has been created by Publicis Conseil, the agency established by founder Marcel Bleustein Blanchet. Titled A Lion Never Gives Up, the film blends live-action footage with AI-generated imagery created using Publicis Groupe’s proprietary platforms and tools.
The film retraces key moments from the company’s history, highlighting the resilience and innovation that helped it endure wars, economic crises, technological revolutions and the global pandemic, while positioning the Groupe for its next phase of growth.
Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, said:
“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.”
Publicis described the film as a hybrid production that combines live-action scenes with generative AI–driven 2D and 3D imagery. Around a quarter of the footage was shot with real actors, while the remainder was created using AI trained on archival photographs, films and documents from the Groupe’s own collections.
The scale of the project required extensive management of visual assets, with AI prompt artists and archivists working with more than 4,500 images to produce 150 individual shots. The use of AI also reshaped the editing process, allowing scenes to be regenerated and refined throughout production rather than being locked at an early stage.
The centenary film reflects Publicis Groupe’s broader approach as it enters its second century, with the company positioning artificial intelligence as a central force in shaping the future of creativity, production and communications.
