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Oteh is converting Song from Droga's creative reputation into owned infrastructure around autonomous commerce and creator supply—media acquisition likely next.
$1 billion
agentic commerce pipeline and a creator-infrastructure play through Whalar
22,000
people across creative
$64.9 billion
revenue base
1.2 million
creators across TikTok
Ndidi Oteh is one year into running Accenture Song with a $1 billion agentic commerce pipeline and a creator-infrastructure play through Whalar. She took the role twelve months ago after David Droga exited to launch The Droga Group. The numbers she inherited: 22,000 people across creative, production, and digital experience inside Accenture's $64.9 billion revenue base. Now she's pointing the network toward autonomous shopping agents and influencer economics while signaling moves into media ownership.
The agentic commerce pipeline sits at the center. Oteh is building capabilities around AI-driven shopping agents that recommend, transact, and optimize across platforms without human intermediaries. The $1 billion figure represents committed client spend and pipeline development, not booked revenue. Accenture has been running commerce transformation work for legacy retailers and CPG brands since the consultancy acquired Droga5 in 2019 and rebranded the creative unit as Song in 2022. The agentic layer is new. It means Song is now engineering the backend systems that let autonomous agents place orders, negotiate pricing, and manage subscription flows—work that used to live with systems integrators, not creative agencies.
The Whalar acquisition matters because creator commerce is where agentic systems need supply. Whalar operates a marketplace connecting brands with 1.2 million creators across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Accenture bought the London-based firm in late 2023 for an undisclosed sum. Oteh is using it to build what amounts to programmatic creator infrastructure: automated matching, contract execution, rights management, performance attribution. The arbitrage is obvious. Brands currently pay agencies to manually source influencers, negotiate rates, and reconcile invoices. Whalar's platform automates the discovery and contracting. Song's agentic commerce stack handles the transaction and attribution. The margin compression in traditional media buying pushes holding companies toward owned platforms. Song is building one inside the Accenture umbrella.
Oteh also flagged media as a next vertical. She did not specify acquisition targets or timelines, but the logic is clear. Accenture Interactive already manages $8 billion in addressable media spend for clients. Song does not own inventory or operate as a principal buyer. If Oteh moves into media ownership—either through direct buys, programmatic infrastructure, or retail media networks—she would be replicating what Publicis did with Epsilon's data spine and what WPP attempted with Choreograph. The difference is scale. Accenture's consulting relationships give Song access to CFO and CIO budgets, not just CMO discretionary spend. A media operation built on ERP integration and supply-chain visibility would look different than Omnicom's media networks.
Operators should watch three things. First, Accenture's Q2 earnings in late March will show whether Song's growth rate is accelerating or decelerating relative to Accenture Interactive's legacy digital experience business. Second, any Whalar product launches around creator-commerce APIs or white-label influencer marketplaces in the next 90 days would signal how fast Oteh is moving the infrastructure play. Third, media acquisition rumors will surface if Accenture approaches retail media network operators or programmatic supply-side platforms in the back half of 2025. Oteh's predecessor built Song's reputation. She is building its economic model.
The tell is the $1 billion pipeline. Agencies do not typically quantify agentic commerce work in ten-figure commitments unless the client base is already buying it as a category. Oteh is not speculating. She is reporting.
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