MAM
Havas unveils Ava, its new human-led AI platform
LAS VEGAS: Havas made a confident play at CES 2026, lifting the curtain on Ava, a global large language model portal designed to put artificial intelligence firmly in human hands.
Unveiled on the C Space stage by Havas chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré alongside brand veteran Jim Stengel, Ava is Havas’ latest step in blending cutting-edge technology with creative instinct. The message was clear. AI should scale imagination, not sideline it.
Set to roll out from spring, Ava will offer Havas teams and, eventually, clients secure, centralised access to the world’s most advanced AI models, including GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3. Rather than betting on a single brain, Ava lets users choose the right AI partner for the job, from strategy and insight to ideation and execution.
The name is symbolic. Ava draws from the heart of the Havas Village model, reflecting how the group connects diverse talent under one roof. In practice, it becomes a single gateway for insights, agents and proprietary intelligence, helping teams move faster from brief to breakthrough while staying safe, compliant and on brand.
Ava builds on the momentum of Converged.AI, Havas’ group-wide AI strategy launched in 2024. Backed by close to one billion euros in investment, including a further 400 million committed through 2027, the programme is designed to keep data flexible, decisions smarter and client solutions scalable.
Speaking at CES, Bolloré struck a balanced note on the future of advertising. Generative AI, he said, is not just a tech upgrade but a cultural shift. One that works best when guided by human judgement, empathy and creativity. AI literacy sits high on the agenda, with Havas committed to training and certifying every employee to use these tools responsibly.
“Technology amplifies human creativity, it doesn’t replace it,” Bolloré said. “Ava brings leading AI together in one secure portal, helping our teams and clients innovate with confidence.”
Beyond the announcement, Havas made its presence felt across Ces with an expanded base at Aria and a dedicated space within the storyteller environment. It was the only agency represented in this way, underlining its ambition to shape conversations where creativity, media and technology meet.
The group also showcased AI in action. Highlights included its partnership with Akkio to boost agentic capabilities, the Vermeer platform for brand-safe creative output at scale, and investment in Vurvey, an AI-powered research tool blending real and synthetic data within regulatory guardrails.
For those not in Las Vegas, Havas is sharing select insights and executive perspectives via its Superstream platform, offering a curated take on CES without the crowds or the noise.
At CES 2026, the takeaway was refreshingly human. In a world racing towards automation, Havas is betting that the smartest future is one where people stay firmly in the loop.
Digital
India ranks second globally for ransomware detections in 2025
Acronis report warns of surging AI-powered attacks, phishing dominance, and high lateral movement in Indian networks.
MUMBAI: India’s cybersecurity defences are getting a serious stress test, hackers aren’t just knocking on the door anymore, they’re moving in, redecorating, and throwing a ransomware party before anyone notices. Acronis, the global cybersecurity and data protection firm, dropped its biannual Cyberthreats Report for H2 2025 (titled “From exploits to malicious AI”) on 18 February 2026, drawing from telemetry across over one million endpoints via its Threat Research Unit and sensors.
The standout alarm for India: it claimed second place worldwide for ransomware detections trailing only the US with a hefty 31 per cent of all global detections. It also cracked the top 10 for publicly identified ransomware victims, logging 129 cases where organisations went public. More worryingly, India topped charts for lateral movement and mass infection activity, including the planet’s largest internal propagation incidents. Attackers aren’t content with breaching the perimeter; they’re spreading like wildfire inside networks, amplifying disruption and business pain.
Globally, cyberattacks kept climbing in 2025. Email-based threats rose 16 per cent per organisation and 20 per cent per user year-on-year, while phishing stayed king, driving 83 per cent of email threats in the second half and serving as the entry point for 52 per cent of attacks on managed service providers (MSPs). Attacks on collaboration platforms exploded from 12 per cent in 2024 to 31 per cent in 2025, turning tools like Teams and Slack into prime secondary vectors.
Other red flags from the report:
Powershell abuse ruled as the most misused legitimate tool, especially in Germany, the US, and Brazil.
All MSP-platform CVEs disclosed in 2025 earned High or Critical ratings.
AI turned operational for crooks: used for reconnaissance, ransomware negotiations (e.g., Global Group automating chats across victims), data exfiltration (GTG-2002 style), and even chilling social engineering like AI-generated “proof of life” images in virtual kidnapping scams.
Hotspots included India, the US, and the Netherlands for mass infections and lateral hops; South Korea led malware hits at 12% of users affected.
Ransomware favourites targeted manufacturing, technology, and healthcare sectors crippled by uptime demands. Top groups: Qilin (962 victims), Akira (726), Cl0p (517). Nearly 150 MSPs and telcos hit directly; over 7,600 public victims worldwide, with the US suffering 3,243. Newcomers Sinobi, TheGentlemen, and CoinbaseCartel joined the fray in H2.
Supply-chain woes persisted too, RMM tools like AnyDesk and TeamViewer got exploited, affecting over 1,200 third parties globally, with the US taking 574 hits. Akira and Cl0p led here again.
Acronis CISO Gerald Beuchelt summed it up bluntly, “As cyber threats evolve at an accelerated pace, 2025 has shown that attackers are not only scaling traditional methods like phishing and ransomware, but are leveraging AI to act faster, more efficiently, and at greater scale. This shift requires organisations to anticipate threats, automate defences, and build resilient systems capable of withstanding both traditional and AI-driven attacks.”
For Indian businesses, the message is clear: the threat landscape isn’t just heating up, it’s gone full inferno, with AI fanning the flames. Time to upgrade those digital fire extinguishers before the next breach burns brighter.
