A repeatable model for building new capabilities at speed

When enterprise demand shifts, the most effective transformation partners do more than react. They build ahead of the market. Publicis Sapient’s collaborations with Tquila show how that can happen in a disciplined, repeatable way: identify a fast-emerging capability need, stand up a focused business with specialist talent, prove value quickly in the market and then expand or integrate that capability to serve clients at greater scale.

This approach is visible in the journey from Sapient.i7 to Publicis Sapient AI Labs and PS Hummingbird. Together, these ventures reflect a practical model for accelerating new capabilities in Salesforce, AI and cloud without asking clients to wait for traditional capability development cycles to catch up.

Why this model matters to clients

For clients, the value of this model is straightforward. It brings together three advantages that are difficult to achieve at the same time: speed, specialization and scale.

Speed comes from launching focused teams around a clear market opportunity. Instead of building a new practice slowly inside a large organization, Publicis Sapient and Tquila have shown they can create dedicated ventures designed to move quickly, attract targeted talent and respond to urgent client demand.

Specialization comes from concentrating expertise around specific platforms and problems. These ventures are not broad, generic service lines. They are purpose-built around high-demand capabilities such as Salesforce transformation, data science, generative AI, Microsoft cloud technologies and enterprise automation.

Scale comes when those capabilities are expanded or integrated into Publicis Sapient’s broader organization. That means clients gain access not only to deep specialist talent, but also to the end-to-end transformation strength of Publicis Sapient’s SPEED capabilities across strategy, product, experience, engineering and data & AI.

The result is a model that helps enterprise clients access emerging capabilities earlier, with less delay between market need and market-ready delivery.

Sapient.i7: a clear early example

Sapient.i7 was launched in 2018 as a collaboration between Publicis Sapient and TQI Ventures to help large enterprises in Europe leverage Salesforce technology for digital transformation. The new business was designed to extend Publicis Sapient’s Salesforce capabilities in EMEA and respond to growing client demand for cloud-based engagement, commerce, sales and service transformation.

What made the model distinctive was not simply the formation of a new company. It was the way the venture was set up to scale quickly. TQI brought a track record of rapidly building technology services practices and had structured talent relationships to help expand Sapient.i7. This enabled the business to focus on assembling the right skills fast, while Publicis Sapient contributed its digital business transformation expertise and enterprise client context.

Over the next two years, Sapient.i7 built an extensive services capability around Salesforce for large companies in Europe. In 2020, Publicis Sapient acquired the business in full and used it to form a new global Salesforce practice, expanding its Salesforce expertise and strengthening its alignment to the platform.

For clients, that progression matters. It shows how a focused venture can move quickly in the market, prove its value and then become part of a larger transformation engine capable of serving enterprise needs on a truly global scale.

Publicis Sapient AI Labs: the model applied to AI and data science

The same pattern appears in Publicis Sapient AI Labs. Launched in 2020 as a joint venture between Publicis Sapient, Elder Research and Tquila, the business was created to accelerate advanced data science and AI capabilities at a time when enterprise demand for intelligent, data-driven solutions was growing rapidly.

Here, the specialization was even more pronounced. The venture combined Publicis Sapient’s decades of transformation delivery, Elder Research’s expertise in data science, AI and machine learning and Tquila’s record of hiring and rapidly scaling technology services practices. That combination created a focused environment for building applied AI capabilities with both technical depth and practical business relevance.

When Publicis Sapient acquired the full stake in 2023, the goal was not simply organizational consolidation. It was to strengthen the company’s global data & AI capabilities and deepen its data science talent bench so it could help clients develop solutions across generative AI, natural language processing, computer vision and autonomous systems.

For clients, this meant faster access to capabilities that had already been incubated, tested and matured in a specialist setting, then brought into the broader Publicis Sapient organization to support enterprise-wide transformation at scale.

PS Hummingbird: extending the model into generative AI and cloud

PS Hummingbird shows that this is not a historical one-off. It is an active and evolving way of building capability.

Launched in 2023 as a new joint venture between Publicis Sapient and Tquila, PS Hummingbird expands Publicis Sapient’s generative AI and cloud-based capabilities across Microsoft Azure Data & AI, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, including solutions powered by Microsoft Copilots. Importantly, Tquila described PS Hummingbird as the fourth build-operate-transfer collaboration with Publicis Sapient, reinforcing that this is a deliberate model rather than an isolated partnership.

PS Hummingbird was created to address growing market demand for end-to-end AI-powered services and solutions. It brings together strategy and planning, user experience and process design, data analysis, implementation, testing, training and ongoing support. It also helps organizations prepare enterprise data for generative AI and create bespoke solutions that improve operational efficiency.

For clients, the significance is clear: Publicis Sapient can move quickly into new areas of demand by creating focused capability engines around them, while still connecting those engines back to a larger transformation platform.

A capability-building pattern, not a transaction story

Taken together, Sapient.i7, Publicis Sapient AI Labs and PS Hummingbird reveal a broader pattern in how Publicis Sapient scales expertise.

It begins with a clear capability gap or market opportunity. It continues with the launch of a focused venture built to attract specialized talent and develop expertise quickly. It then proves itself through real client delivery. And as the capability matures, it can be integrated more fully into Publicis Sapient’s operating model, giving clients the benefits of both specialist depth and enterprise scale.

This is especially relevant in fast-moving domains such as Salesforce, AI and cloud, where waiting too long to build capability can mean missed opportunity. Enterprises need partners that can help them adopt new platforms, accelerate transformation and turn emerging technologies into measurable business outcomes. Publicis Sapient’s repeated collaborations with Tquila demonstrate one way to do that with intent.

What clients gain

For executive leaders, this model offers a practical advantage. It gives them access to emerging capabilities earlier, without sacrificing the confidence that comes from working with a transformation partner that can connect niche expertise to enterprise-wide strategy and delivery.

In a market where new technologies can quickly become strategic imperatives, the ability to build, scale and integrate new capabilities is itself a competitive advantage. Publicis Sapient’s partnership model with Tquila shows how that advantage can be created deliberately and repeatedly—helping clients move faster, adopt earlier and transform with greater confidence.