The holding company model has never had a precise definition, which is fortunate for the companies that would rather not be held to one.

Ndidi Oteh, who took over as global chief executive of Accenture Song a year ago, made clear in a recent interview that she has no interest in being compared to the traditional advertising holding companies, even as her organization competes with them for many of the same assignments.

"We're not a traditional agency," Ms. Oteh told Adweek. "We never have been, and we don't want to be."

What Accenture Song wants to be, it seems, is the company that clients call when they are ready to let artificial intelligence talk to their customers. The parent company, Accenture, disclosed at an investor presentation this month that its pipeline for what it calls "agentic commerce" — the business of preparing brands to communicate with AI assistants rather than humans — grew from zero in January to $1 billion.

(Whether consumers are ready to let AI assistants do their shopping is, perhaps, a separate question.)

Ms. Oteh succeeded David Droga, the founder of Droga5, who remains as executive chairman. She said she took the job on the condition that she could pursue her own strategy, and she has moved quickly: In July, Accenture Song completed its acquisition of Whalar, an influencer marketing company that manages some $600 million in creator campaigns annually for clients including Nike and Ikea.

Accenture Song, which began life as Accenture Interactive in 2016 and has acquired more than 70 agencies since, no longer breaks out its revenue separately. Brian Wieser of Madison & Wall has estimated that revenues directly generated by Song's business are in the low single-digit billions — roughly in line with Havas.

Ms. Oteh acknowledged that Accenture Song has begun building media buying capabilities in Australia and New Zealand, and recently appointed Melissa Fein to oversee media in the United States. But she was careful to note that whatever the company does in media "will not be in the traditional forms."

The traditional forms, one gathers, are someone else's problem.

Original story published in Adweek: "Agents and Creators: Ndidi Oteh's Growth Plan for Accenture Song"