WPP Media has announced a strategic technology partnership with agentic AI startup Kily to advance a differentiated commerce offering across India’s ecommerce ecosystem, the companies said on July 28, 2026. The tie-up connects Kily’s agentic commerce technology with WPP Open, WPP’s own agentic marketing platform, through what the companies are calling an Integrated Commerce Planner.
Kily, founded by Flipkart and Affle alumni Sankalp Mehrotra and Anurag Singh, builds AI agents that autonomously manage complex commerce operations, including listing, pricing, and advertising decisions across marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms. The partnership is designed to move brands away from siloed, platform-led operations toward a unified system where planning, activation, and measurement are continuously aligned.
How Will the WPP Media-Kily Partnership Change Ecommerce Marketing in India?
The Integrated Commerce Planner aims to let brands align demand forecasting, inventory management, and media investments in a single workflow rather than managing these functions across disconnected tools and teams. For WPP Media’s Commerce Practice in India, the partnership is positioned to deliver a more connected, intelligent, and outcome-driven approach to commerce marketing, with an emphasis on directly influencing gross merchandise value (GMV) and profitability for brands and sellers operating across India’s fast-growing quick-commerce and marketplace channels.
What Does This Mean for Indian Brands and Marketing Agencies?
The partnership reflects a broader shift in Indian digital marketing toward agentic AI systems that can autonomously manage pricing, listings, and ad spend across multiple marketplaces simultaneously, rather than relying on manual, channel-by-channel optimisation. For brands managing complex multi-platform commerce operations across players like Amazon, Flipkart, Blinkit, and Zepto, the tie-up signals that large agency networks are increasingly building or acquiring agentic AI capabilities rather than developing commerce automation entirely in-house.
Industry Reaction and Expert Commentary
WPP Media has framed the Kily partnership as central to strengthening its commerce capabilities in India at a time when quick-commerce platforms are building advertising infrastructure that increasingly competes with established digital ad platforms. Marketing industry observers have noted that agentic AI partnerships like this one are becoming a key differentiator for global agency networks competing for large ecommerce and D2C accounts in India’s crowded digital marketing landscape.
What Happens Next?
WPP Media and Kily are expected to roll out the Integrated Commerce Planner to brand clients in India in the coming months, with further details on specific brand partnerships and measurable outcomes likely to follow. Industry watchers will track whether the partnership expands beyond India to other markets where WPP Media operates significant commerce practices.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the WPP Media and Kily partnership about?
WPP Media has partnered with Kily, an agentic AI startup, to combine Kily’s autonomous commerce technology with WPP’s agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, through an Integrated Commerce Planner for Indian brands.
Who founded Kily?
Kily was founded by Sankalp Mehrotra and Anurag Singh, both alumni of Flipkart and Affle.
How does Kily’s AI technology work?
Kily builds AI agents that autonomously manage commerce operations such as product listing, pricing, and advertising across marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms to improve GMV and profitability for brands.
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