Why WPP and Vercel are doubling down on web innovation

WPP’s global network has quietly been partnering with Vercel on large-scale digital builds for years. Now, the two companies are making that collaboration official and strategic, pooling resources on an AI-first approach for digital experience, shared processes for building on Next.js and Vercel, and access for WPP brands and select customers to early product roadmap milestones. Launch customers shared with Vercel include the International Olympic Committee, James Hardie, Fluor, and Country Road Group.

It’s a stack-level, co-development arrangement, not just a reseller deal. But anyone who buys technology knows cost and speed are the actual deciding factors. So Tech Report spoke to a few WPP chief technology officers and technical directors about which trends they're betting on. Their returns, they say, fall into two buckets: better economics and a faster, more personal web.

AI is pressuring legacy tech into the open

Across sectors, the WPP people we talked with said AI's emergence is exposing slower-moving, often older, digital foundations. Build teams can't ship models or modern experiences if they are chained to a dated CMS.

"With several portfolio clients using legacy digital technology, they couldn't move forward with the latest advancements or cooler technologies—notably AI," says a studio lead. "Next.js enabled those teams and clients to adapt and modernize their experiences, building faster, with the adaptability needed to keep up with changing consumer needs."

Al Nolan and Robert Pettique · Bottle Rocket Studios

The cost-reduction math prompts a migration

Engineering leads told us the shift away from hardened virtual servers is trending toward managed infrastructure, and specifically toward what Vercel bills as "framework-defined infrastructure." With it, and with Next.js taking work off an internal ops team, agencies expect to have developers writing code that drives revenue rather than ConfigMap files.

"Next.js and Vercel help to bring relevant content closer to global customers, ensuring continuous scalability and availability while minimizing maintenance costs and mitigating infrastructure failures," says a WPP CTO. "On a recent client engagement, we estimate cost reductions of up to 30% while increasing availability into the high 90s."

Jaison Manian · Chief Technology Officer

Content teams "configure less" through that same infrastructure layer. Tags are a legacy concern; a strong default stack just runs. That reverses the old equation where teams defined infrastructure on their own and spent the rest of their sprint taming it.

"The 'framework-defined infrastructure' approach lets creative experience teams focus on features with real business value instead of configuring infrastructure," says an engineering director at AKQA. "Brands get a platform that scales on demand, a way to comment on changes using Previews, and the app performance metrics Vercel exposes in Speed Insights."

Bennor McCarthy · MACH Technology Director

Previews and feature flags derisk aggressive launches

Testing on truly global retail, the agencies shepherded gradual architecture changes, putting "new flags and tests at runtime" policies in front of wide audiences by defaulting off.

"We led a global retail client through an incremental migration to a new architecture powered by Next.js and Vercel," recounts an AKQA technology lead. Through feature flags on Next.js Middleware, "the retail leader has the authority to roll new features out in isolation. This enabled test-and-learn across all sites, significantly reducing risk."

Eric Orton · Executive Technology Director

One brand-side story from fitness device maker Hydrow matches that internal experience. Hydrow’s site transitioned off a tightly bound legacy CMS to a headless one sitting on Next.js, letting in-house and agency teams keep themselves out of critical-path bottlenecks.

Ranks shift when search, scale, and speed align

A recurring theme from WPP teams is performance data handed to clients straight from the build tool's runtime metrics. Time to first byte anchors both revenue growth and SEO strategy, directly correlating to Core Web Vitals scores's search position.

"Page load speeds, time to first byte, and other speed metrics factor directly into Google Vital search ranking scores. Both are high priorities for the CMO and CIO focused on a lower total cost for high-performing experiences," says one CTO.

Adam Wolf · Chief Technology Officer

Outside racing for the largest possible storefront again pops that same scalability dial. Performance couples with language logistics as an almost immediately-consumed “build once, run for all locales” property of the rendering setup. A regional WPP team claims support for all customer sites in one platform.

"Next.js allows us to develop scalable commerce solutions at enterprise level for clients," says another lead. So far, their group handled stores "for several premium brands, running eight languages across 50 digital properties. Our teams deploy separately from designers and content people, freeing better ownership."

Glen Burson · Chief Technology Officer

By what numbers you end an upgrade narrative

For anyone actually paying commercial benchmarks, the best value case has already happened. WPP’s collaborative retail entity with athletic rowing venture Hydrow signed off on headless with a tier of up-front gains.

  • Site updates accelerated from long lead to minutes per patch
  • Core Web Vitals risen from a modest baseline to the top quartile for e-commerce site environments
  • Release authoring time shifting from multiple-days process to instant drafting