WPP has been chosen as the global trusted growth partner for JLR, the British luxury automotive group behind Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar, in a groundbreaking partnership that moves beyond the traditional agency-client model to create a fully integrated, co-located team powered by artificial intelligence.

The partnership, announced by WPP, brings together WPP’s global talent, AI expertise, data and technology capabilities with JLR’s own in-house marketing creative specialists in a structure designed specifically to drive growth for JLR’s portfolio of British modern luxury brands.

What makes the arrangement particularly distinctive is its remuneration model. Unlike conventional agency contracts, this partnership is built on an outcome-based structure that directly aligns WPP’s commercial success with JLR’s growth performance, meaning WPP’s financial reward is tied to the results it delivers rather than to the services it provides.

At the heart of the partnership is WPP Open, the company’s agentic marketing platform, which will power the integrated team’s end-to-end delivery across marketing creative, media, production, customer experience and strategic counsel.

The co-located team will draw from across WPP’s entire global talent pool combined with JLR’s own marketing creative experts, creating what both companies describe as a single AI-powered modern luxury marketing organisation.

Lennard Hoornik, Chief Growth Officer at JLR, said the partnership was designed to resolve what he described as a fundamental contradiction in modern marketing.

“To supercharge the growth of our modern luxury brands, we needed to think differently. Together with WPP we want to resolve the traditional contradiction between scale and intimacy. Our joint vision for a single, AI-powered modern luxury marketing organisation is the solution,” he said.

He described human ingenuity accelerated by AI as the foundation of the collaboration. “Through unique access to all of WPP’s talent coupled with JLR’s pool of brilliant creative minds, the set-up of the joint co-located team and the outcome-based business model, we have the exclusive pillars of our modern luxury centric partnership,” Hoornik added.

Cindy Rose, Chief Executive Officer of WPP, described the appointment as a direct expression of the company’s new strategic mission.

“Our new mission at WPP is to be the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands in the era of AI. We are thrilled to embark on this journey with JLR, reimagining growth for their iconic brands,” she said.

Rose framed the partnership as a convergence of human creativity and artificial intelligence at scale. “By combining the brilliance of human creativity with the transformative power of AI on WPP Open, we will help JLR create customer experiences of unparalleled intimacy and luxury, at scale, while writing a new playbook for growth. This is a partnership of kindred spirits, built to deliver transformational growth,” she said.

The unified team will be responsible for fully integrated services spanning marketing creative, media, production, customer experience and strategic counsel, with the mandate of helping JLR navigate market change, capture growth opportunities and strengthen its position across its four iconic British luxury brands.

The deal positions WPP’s AI-powered operating model at the centre of one of the automotive industry’s most prestigious marketing briefs and signals a broader shift in how major global brands are beginning to structure their agency relationships in the AI era.