PARIS, FRANCE — Havas has unveiled the upcoming launch of AVA, its global large language model (LLM) portal, at CES 2026, reinforcing the Group’s commitment to a human-led AI vision that scales creativity, technology, and client value together.
On the C Space stage at CES, Havas Chairman & CEO Yannick Bolloré and brand leader Jim Stengel discussed the future of advertising and innovation, highlighting how technology and human ingenuity can work in tandem to deliver greater impact for brands.
discussed the future of advertising and innovation.
AVA is built to provide secure, centralized access to the world’s most advanced AI models. Taking its name from the heart of Havas itself, the platform reflects the Group’s global connectedness and the evolution of its Village model, which brings together a wide range of expertise under one roof. Building on Havas’ legacy of pioneering integration in the communications industry, AVA creates a unified, human-led AI ecosystem that connects every talent and client worldwide.
The platform will begin rolling out this spring, progressively extending its capabilities across Havas teams and, over time, to client partnerships worldwide. Designed to provide trusted access to insights, agents, and proprietary intelligence, AVA empowers teams to move faster from brief to breakthrough while ensuring safety and compliance. By connecting users to top-tier models such as GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3, AVA enhances creativity, strategy, and collaboration, enabling teams to unlock sharper insights, faster ideation, scalable solutions, and productivity at scale.
The launch of AVA builds on Havas’ continued momentum with Converged.AI, introduced in 2024 to align teams, tools, and capabilities across markets. Supported by nearly €1 billion in investment — including €600 million over the past decade and an additional €400 million committed through 2027 — Converged.AI enables a flexible, data-agnostic approach designed to support faster, smarter decision-making and scalable, client-centric solutions.
The announcement coincided with Bolloré joining Jim Stengel on stage for a keynote on the future of advertising, where artificial intelligence enhances, rather than replaces, human creativity, judgment, and cultural insight. Addressing senior marketing, media, and technology leaders, Bolloré emphasized that generative AI represents not only a technological shift, but also an organizational and cultural transformation. Central to this vision is AI literacy, with Havas committed to training and certifying every talent across the organization to harness AI responsibly and creatively.
“At Havas, technology amplifies human creativity, it doesn’t replace it. We’re building an AI-driven, human-powered future where innovation and imagination work hand in hand to grow our clients’ brands in an increasingly complex world. In this context, AVA securely unifies leading AI in one portal for our teams and clients, driving efficiency, consistency, and innovation. It turns briefs into on-brand creative solutions, optimizes strategic planning, and accelerates production, all under enterprise-grade security so teams can innovate without risk. AVA is a catalyst for reinventing collaboration and creativity,” Bolloré said.
As part of its CES 2026 program, Havas is engaging clients and partners through an enhanced on-site presence at ARIA, including participation in key mainstage programming and a dedicated Havas space within the Storyteller environment. Havas was the only agency represented in this capacity, reflecting its role in shaping conversations at the intersection of creativity, media, and technology.
The Group is also showcasing practical AI applications that transform client work, including a recently announced partnership with Akkio to accelerate agentic capabilities across Converged.AI. In creativity, Havas is leveraging its Vermeer platform, pairing generative AI with human oversight to deliver brand-safe outputs at scale. Innovation in research and health is also highlighted through its investment in Vurvey, an AI-powered research platform combining real and synthetic data while ensuring regulatory compliance.
To extend access to these conversations, Havas is curating select CES insights and executive perspectives through its thought leadership platform, Havas Superstream, offering a centralized destination for timely, curated views from the show.
