Publicis Groupe partners with Microsoft to introduce Marcel, a disruptive AI powered platform

Microsoft appears to be racing into the future guns a blazed with the prospect of becoming the first big software provider of industry applicable AI solutions. To aid in Microsoft’s journey to AI solution supremacy, the company recently partnered with Publicis Group to form the Marcel AI platform.

The two will leverage their strengths, Microsoft being AI compute and Publicis 80,000 employees, will rely on one another to power this new “industry-first” platform.

The Marcel platform will use cognitive services and AI to empower Publicis Groupe’s people, clients, and business to seamlessly collaborate in three ways:

• First of all, by identifying relevant connections amongst the organization’s 80,000 employees. If there is someone out there in one of Publicis Groupe’s agencies who can help an employee, Marcel will find her or him.
• Second, by collecting, organizing and curating Publicis Groupe’s collective knowledge Marcel will enable employees to take full advantage of the combined experiences and insights that exist around its group.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by giving every employee the power to participate and create more, beyond their immediate boundaries. Through the M-Labs, the incubator for the Marcel platform, Publicis Groupe has been testing new collaborative models that are already driving results for some of its major global clients.

Despite being an internal project thus far, the implications of applying Microsoft’s AI solutions to more broader consumer-facing interest should be upon the horizon. Microsoft itself, may not be leading the charge but its partners should definitely be looking forward to seeing a return on their big data investments in Azure soon