Havas Unveils Global LLM Portal, AVA, and Reinforces Human-Led AI Vision at CES 2026

At CES 2026, Havas announced the upcoming launch of AVA, its global LLM portal built to provide secure, centralized access to the world’s most advanced AI models. AVA takes its name from the heart of Havas itself, reflecting 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 its legacy of pioneering integration in the communications industry, AVA creates a unified, human-led AI ecosystem that connects every talent and client worldwide.

AVA 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, it empowers teams to move faster from brief to breakthrough, while ensuring safety and compliance. By connecting users to top-tier models like GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3, AVA supercharges creativity, strategy, and collaboration. This helps teams choose the ideal “partner” for any task and 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 a nearly €1 billion 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 Havas Chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré joining brand leader Jim Stengel on the C Space stage for a keynote about the future of advertising, where AI enhances, not replaces, human creativity, judgment, and cultural insight. Addressing an audience of senior marketing, media, and technology leaders, Bolloré emphasized that generative AI is not just a technological shift but an organizational and cultural transformation, one that enables intelligence, creativity, and performance to scale together while keeping human judgment and empathy at the center. As part of this transformation, AI literacy is a top priority at Havas. The Group is 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,” said Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and CEO of Havas.

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.

Havas is showcasing practical AI applications that transform client work, including the recently announced partnership with Akkio to accelerate agentic capabilities across Converged.AI. In creativity, the Group is leveraging its Vermeer platform, which pairs generative AI with human oversight to deliver brand-safe outputs at scale. Havas is also highlighting innovation in research and health, as demonstrated through its recent investment in Vurvey, an AI-powered research platform that combines real and synthetic data to deepen insight while ensuring regulatory compliance.