VML at a Glance: 

• VML, the world’s largest creative agency, employs more than 26,000 people in over 60 markets, with annual revenues of about $3.5B.
• The organization was formed in 2023, when WPP, the creative services holding company, merged two sister agencies, VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson. 

Key Takeaways

• VML piloted Nadia, Valence’s AI coach, to support its workforce-wide career development platform.  
• Employees who used Nadia were significantly more likely to complete the THRIVE process and said it was significantly easier with Nadia. 
• VML was surprised at how Nadia coached with curiosity, asking insightful questions like the best human coaches. 
• Nadia showed deep cross-cultural understanding, helping managers close gaps across global teams.
• Leaders say Nadia has made the entire organization more coachable—amplifying, rather than replacing, human coaching. 
• After seeing the results in the THRIVE program, VML is expanding Nadia to assist with other management challenges, including an RTO push, their Global Career day, and other talent initiatives.

AI Coaching for Career Development 

Building iconic brands is the foundation of VML’s business—this is the agency that companies like Coca-Cola and Ford trust to communicate their value and purpose to the world.

When a 2023 merger left VML employees feeling uncertain about the direction of the company and their careers—a common experience in a major restructure—VML realized something: The same expertise they bring to building corporate brands could empower employees to define their personal brands and take charge of their careers.

Austin Smith and Vidhi Thakker, global leaders of VML’s Talent & Organizational Effectiveness team, translated the agency’s brand-building framework into the THRIVE program. Through the annual program, every employee has the opportunity to align their personal brand with VML’s career development philosophy by answering the “Four Ps” VML asks about every brand they work with: 

• Purpose: What do you want to do?
• Proposition: What are you good at? What sets you apart?
• Perception: How are you perceived by others?
• Priorities: How will you take action on your purpose, proposition, and perception?

The aim was to empower employees to showcase their authentic self, and use their personal brand to develop their career. 

The challenge became figuring out how to give all 26,000 employees support with an important but deeply personal process. VML knows the power of one-on-one coaching in this sort of process, but their human coaching team couldn’t possibly provide personalized support to every person engaging in the THRIVE process. 

When Vidhi and Austin first demoed Nadia, Valence’s AI coach, they immediately saw the solution they were looking for: personalized, on-demand coaching at the scale only AI can provide. 

By strategically linking Nadia to THRIVE, VML had the perfect opportunity to drive adoption and results in the context of a program that employees already understood and were excited about. Nadia, in turn, powered the THRIVE program: the thousands of employees who have engaged with AI coaching report that THRIVE is easier with Nadia and that she help them improve the quality of their responses.

“We used Nadia to help all 26,000 employees determine the unique value they can provide to the organization. That’s what’s going to help them drive their own career—and if we have 26,000 employees providing unique values, it's also going to be an incredible benefit to our clients.”
—Vidhi Thakker

VML would have considered that a success in itself. But what really stood out to Vidhi and Austin were the benefits they say they could never have predicted. 

SURPRISE #1: Nadia is endlessly curious, like the best human coaches.

When first piloting Nadia, Austin came in with measured expectations. He imagined something similar to the general-purpose AIs he’d seen: clear responses to clear questions—but a tendency to throw too much general advice at a user without getting to the root of complex issues.

What he didn’t expect was how well Nadia had been trained to engage with people like a human coach would: by being endlessly curious. Rather than jumping straight to solutions, Nadia would pause and zoom out to ask questions, helping users reflect and guiding them to a solution that made sense in their unique context.

“With something like ChatGPT, you say, ‘Here's my issue,’ and it says, ‘Okay, you should do this.’ But a great coach is the one that's going to ask questions. Think of the best coach you've worked with—Nadia has that same approach.” 
—Austin Smith 

SURPRISE #2: Nadia became a global coach for a global agency. 

VML has more than 50 offices worldwide, where employees speak and create in more than 30 languages. Vidhi came in expecting Nadia to have an American point of view—and to work best in English. 

But Nadia not only showed an impressive ability to switch between languages—she surprised VML with a global perspective on cultural norms and ways of working. . 

When one VML manager came to Nadia looking to challenge a direct report to show more initiative and manage up, they expected Nadia to simply help them craft that feedback. What they didn’t expect was for Nadia to pause and encourage them to consider their own management style first. Nadia pointed out that what the manager considered “showing initiative” and “managing up” could be perceived as insubordinate in the direct report’s culture. This was a "eureka moment” for the manager, who left the conversation not only with a better feedback plan for their direct report, but a broader perspective on how to adjust their management style across a global team.

“It's not just that she can speak your language. She understands the nuances of different cultures and the context you're coming from. It’s astonishing to see how intuitive Nadia is. This is an AI coach that is truly scalable internationally.”
—Vidhi Thakker

SURPRISE #3: Nadia makes the entire organization more coachable.  

VML knew that Nadia was going to help thousands of employees self-reflect in the THRIVE program. But they couldn’t have predicted how that would lead to a more coachable organization. “You stay coachable if you start early in your career,” says Vidhi. “That’s what Nadia is unlocking for us. So when people do work with a human coach, they’re already ready to be coached.” With Nadia laying that foundation, senior coaches report that they now have to spend less time helping individuals get the most out of human coaching.

But Nadia also had advantages in not being human. Vidhi and Austin were surprised to hear that employees often felt better going to Nadia first when they needed to process difficult situations they might be hesitant to share with a coach or their managers.

“People at VML have conversations with Nadia every day, and the coaching not only makes them feel better, but also helps them become a better and more efficient manager because [Nadia] is a judgment-free, trust zone.”
—Vidhi Thakker

As the workplace evolves, Nadia quickly adapts

Nadia proved to be so adaptable and emotionally intelligent in the context of THRIVE that VML is now looking at more ways Nadia can support business operations. 

First up? A complex return-to-office plan. VML saw that managers and employees were confused about RTO expectations and how to navigate this significant change. Managers and HR teams were overwhelmed with policy inquiries and lacked the capacity for consistent, real-time guidance, leading to potential inconsistencies across departments.

The agency’s managers trained Nadia on VML’s RTO policies, FAQs, and best practices to become a real-time policy expert, keeping communication consistent and freeing up HR capacity during a peak transition period by drastically cutting down on the repetitive questions HR had to answer. VML positioned Nadia as a neutral and empathetic coach, not a policy enforcer. Now managers have support navigating tricky conversations with empathy, and employees have a trusted resource for getting their RTO questions answered in a way that addresses their individual circumstances.

“I think it's going to completely transform the way that we do leadership and management coaching. I think it's just going to be standard pretty soon for just about everyone to use an AI coach in their daily work life, and I think the people who use it are going to have an advantage. My encouragement to anyone would be, just jump in and try.”
—Austin Smith

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Levi Goertz is cofounder and Head of Client Solutions at Valence. He works closely with each of our enterprise clients, bringing deep expertise on how Valence’s tools unlock the full potential of every employee.

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