WPP Media partners Kily to strengthen AI driven commerce in India

MUMBAI: Shopping carts are getting smarter, and this time they’re making decisions too. WPP Media has partnered with AI startup Kily to strengthen its commerce capabilities in India, betting on agentic artificial intelligence to help brands navigate the country’s increasingly fragmented marketplace and quick commerce ecosystem.

The strategic technology partnership integrates Kily’s autonomous commerce AI with WPP Open, WPP’s agentic marketing platform, allowing WPP Media’s Commerce Practice in India to offer brands a more connected and data-driven approach to commerce planning, execution and optimisation.

Kily develops AI agents capable of autonomously managing key commerce functions including product listings, pricing and advertising across online marketplaces and quick commerce platforms. The company says the technology is designed to improve both gross merchandise value (GMV) and profitability by automating complex operational decisions.

The collaboration aims to move brands away from managing individual commerce platforms in isolation towards a unified system that connects planning, activation and measurement. By bringing together commerce signals across multiple platforms, WPP Media expects clients to respond more quickly to changing consumer demand, optimise media investments and improve business outcomes.

Founded by Flipkart and Affle alumni Sankalp Mehrotra and Anurag Singh, Kily has built its platform specifically for India’s multi-marketplace environment, where brands increasingly sell across ecommerce platforms alongside fast-growing quick commerce channels.

The integration also supports WPP Media’s broader push towards autonomous advertising, with AI-powered planning and optimisation helping brands align demand forecasts, inventory management and media investments more effectively.

Sankalp Mehrotra, Co-founder and CEO of Kily, said India’s fragmented commerce landscape makes autonomous decision-making increasingly important, adding that the partnership is intended to help brands operate more efficiently while improving performance across marketplaces and quick commerce platforms.

Ashwin Padmanabhan, Chief Operating Officer, WPP Media South Asia, said ecommerce has become increasingly complex as consumer journeys span multiple platforms and touchpoints. He noted that the integrated commerce planner developed with Kily is designed to connect planning, execution and measurement, enabling brands to shift from reactive campaigns to more predictive, AI-led growth strategies.

The announcement reflects the advertising industry’s growing focus on agentic AI systems capable of making decisions and executing tasks with minimal human intervention. As brands look to manage increasingly complex digital commerce ecosystems, agencies are turning to AI not just to generate insights, but to automate decisions that directly influence sales and marketing performance.