July 17 (Reuters) - French advertising firm Publicis

on Thursday raised its full-year organic growth

forecast following stronger-than-expected second-quarter

results, as CEO Arthur Sadoun dismissed concerns over Meta's

AI-powered ad creation system.

"When Meta comes along and says that they can do everything

themselves, I think that they are completely underestimating the

intelligence of our customers, who, moreover, are not fooled,"

he said during an earnings call.

Sadoun highlighted clients' reluctance to entrust their data

to single platforms.

"None of our customers want to leave their data in the

world of 'walled gardens.' None of our customers want to work

with a single platform," he said, adding that customers wanted

to measure the impact of their spending "which obviously cannot

be offered by those that do it within their own walls."

Publicis said it has completed its $12 billion, decade-long

tech transformation and will now focus on executing its

strategy. The company highlighted its proprietary platform,

which leverages in-house AI and big data capabilities to track

consumer behavior and target individualized ads for over 4

billion internet users globally.

"I've been hearing for nine years that the platforms are

going to 'eat us for breakfast.' Honestly, I think it's time to

stop talking about how platforms are going to replace us,

because it's not a reality," Sadoun stressed.

The company upgraded its 2025 organic growth forecast to

close to 5%, up from the previous range of 4% to 5%, after

reporting 5.9% net revenue organic growth in the second quarter.

Publicis cited a "unprecedented new business run" in the first

half of 2025, including wins with Coca-Cola, Nespresso,

Lego, Paramount, and Spotify ( SPOT ).

Second-quarter revenue rose 10%, with growth across all

regions: 5.3% in the U.S., 4.6% in Europe and 5.7% in

Asia-Pacific. The company reported $5.2 billion in net new

business wins for the first half of 2025, outpacing flatlining

competitors such as WPP ( WPP ), Omnicom ( OMC ), Dentsu ( DNTUF )

, and Interpublic, according to JPMorgan data.