Mumbai: At CES 2026, Havas announced the upcoming launch of AVA, its global large language model (LLM) portal designed to provide secure, centralized access to the world’s most advanced AI models, while reinforcing the Group’s human-led approach to artificial intelligence.
AVA takes its name from the heart of Havas itself, symbolising the Group’s global connectedness and the evolution of its Village model, which brings diverse expertise together under one roof. Building on Havas’ long-standing legacy of integration in the communications industry, AVA creates a unified AI ecosystem that connects talent and clients worldwide, with human judgment and creativity at its core.
Scheduled to begin rolling out in spring 2026, AVA will progressively extend its capabilities across Havas teams and, over time, to client partnerships globally. The platform is designed to offer trusted access to insights, AI agents and proprietary intelligence, enabling teams to move faster from brief to breakthrough while ensuring safety, governance and compliance. By connecting users to leading models such as GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3, AVA enables teams to select the most suitable AI partner for each task, unlocking sharper insights, faster ideation, scalable solutions and productivity at scale.
The launch builds on the momentum of Converged.AI, introduced in 2024 to align Havas’ teams, tools and capabilities across markets. Converged.AI is supported by a nearly €1 billion investment, including €600 million invested over the past decade and an additional €400 million committed through 2027. The framework enables a flexible, data-agnostic approach focused on faster decision-making, scalability and client-centric outcomes.
The announcement coincided with Havas Chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré appearing alongside brand leader Jim Stengel on the C Space stage at CES, where they discussed the future of advertising and the role of AI in enhancing — not replacing — human creativity and judgment. Addressing senior marketing, media and technology leaders, Bolloré highlighted that generative AI represents not only a technological shift, but also an organisational and cultural transformation. As part of this evolution, AI literacy remains a top priority at Havas, with the Group committed to training and certifying all its talent to use 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,” said Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and CEO of Havas.
As part of its CES 2026 programme, 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. The Group is the only agency represented in this capacity, reflecting its influence at the intersection of creativity, media and technology.
Havas is also showcasing practical AI applications already transforming client work. These include its partnership with Akkio to accelerate agentic capabilities across Converged.AI, the Vermeer platform that combines generative AI with human oversight to deliver brand-safe creative outputs at scale, and innovation in research and health through its investment in Vurvey, an AI-powered research platform that blends real and synthetic data while ensuring regulatory compliance.
To extend access beyond the event, Havas is curating select CES insights and executive perspectives through its thought leadership platform, Havas Superstream, offering a centralized destination for curated views and takeaways from CES 2026.
