TP, Teleperformance, acquires Agents Only, a Canadian Onepilot, without convincing: 78.54 euros

On Wednesday 19 June in New York, TP presented Future Forward, its new strategic plan to accelerate its growth and transformation. The plan is jargon-laden and overdue, and seems to demonstrate that one of the company's traditional skills - that of external growth - has been somewhat lost along the way.

The GIG CX Revolution, prophesied by McKinsey, is certainly underway, but mobilising independent agents on demand is nothing new. And Agents Only does not seem to be the star of its sector.

The acquisition of Agents Only. 
Teleperformance, the world's number 1 in customer experience and outsourced BPO, announced on Wednesday 18 April that it had acquired Vancouver-based Agents Only, a sort of Canadian Onepilot. But the markets were not convinced: the share price is now 78.4 euros. It was trading at 392 euros at the beginning of 2022. Daniel*, wake up! ( Daniel Julien, founder of Teleperformance )

On-demand agents: Eodom, Onepilot, Swad, Wirk.io...
Many players, including French companies, have already taken the plunge:

- Onepilot has an ARR of 25 million and has acquired Eodom, one of the pioneers in setting up and delegating on-demand agents.

- Sqwad, formerly Study Call, also offers on-demand telemarketing agents, and recently set up in Barcelona. Read more here.

- In 2018, the former Foule factory, now Wirk.io, was already offering tens of thousands of agents for on-demand IT and annotation tasks. It has since migrated to creating an agent supervision console and recently spoke at BankTech Day. Read more here.

- Companies such as Volubile.ai also offer conversational agents, for customer service, telemarketing and dental appointments, for example. And they do it effectively.

Worse still, on the Agents Only site you can't even fill in and send a price request form. This does not augur well for a very reliable use of the technology.  

Klarna and the departure of Bhupender Singh.
For two years now, with the advent of AI, which many analysts have seen as the agent of change and transformation in the customer service industry, TP's management team has been unable to explain to the markets how it is going to integrate this new situation. The famous Klarna study, which was a sham, and the stop-and-go changes in TP's management (such as the departure of one of the men who was supposed to embody a technological shift, Bhupender Singh) have led Daniel Julien and his cohorts to attempt storytelling whose effectiveness seems erratic. Yet the company's fundamentals remain sound, as do its financial ratios.

The markets have punished this new plan, with the share price plummeting to 78.4 euros, less than 20% of the world number 1's value at the beginning of 2022. TP was then trading at 392 euros.

‘Future Forward’ is TP's new strategic transformation plan 
. It combines human expertise with technology to expand the total addressable market and create new business opportunities. It comprises a number of different actions:

-the launch of TP.ai FAB, an integrated technology platform for the secure orchestration of AI, human experts and technology at scale.

The acquisition of Agents Only to strengthen TP's position in next-generation AI-enabled data services through an AI-supported on-demand crowdsourcing platform.

A partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to accelerate applied AI research in the field of AI-enhanced human augmentation.

The company intends to provide reassurance and has announced a solid medium-term outlook (2026-28): growth and increased net profitability from investments in AI, strong generation of net free cash flow of around €3 billion, a solid financial structure and a significant return to shareholders of around €1.5 billion, i.e. around 50% of net free cash flow. 

The two CEOs, Daniel Julien and Thomas Mackenbrock, spoke at the event. Here are some extracts from the press release:

TP held its Capital Markets Day last Wednesday in New York at 9am local time (3pm Paris time).

Daniel Julien, TP's founder and CEO, said: "TP's history of growth has always been marked by bold decisions at key moments for the industry. With each wave of change, we have adapted, transformed and won. At all times, we have demonstrated our ability to lead transformation, setting the pace in a market where we continue to outperform. With our new strategic plan, based on a strong hybrid approach between humans and AI, and a resilient model supported by exceptional AI-prepared teams and strengthened governance, we are well placed to achieve ambitious but realistic financial targets and create long-term value for our shareholders."

Thomas Mackenbrock, Chief Operating Officer of TP, added: "As a world leader in digital business services, TP has a wealth of experience. To build on this foundation and strengthen our long-term leadership, we are accelerating the transformation of the group by harnessing the full potential of artificial and human intelligence. Our new strategic plan, ‘Future Forward’, is designed to strengthen our portfolio of services, extend our dedicated solutions to customer sectors and seize new opportunities across the AI value chain. Our objective is clear: to accelerate growth, increase margins and generate substantial cash flow in order to make strategic investments and redistribute value to shareholders. Tomorrow's TP will be our customers' preferred strategic partner in AI, giving them a permanent competitive advantage."

This initiative has already led to collaborations with AI pioneers Sanas, a company specialising in real-time conversation understanding Parloa, an AI agent management platform for customer service . Ema, a cutting-edge agentic AI platform.

Here again, the partnerships that TP has just concluded do not seem as relevant or decisive. Sanas has certainly raised a lot of money, but a French company is doing just as well, if not better: Alta Voce Tech. And the correction of accents, the reduction of ambient noise in call centres, the summary and import into the CRM of the summary of conversations, the functionalities offered by these companies have not yet risen to the top of the list of priorities for BPO buyers. Jabra has also just launched this type of service. Read our news on this subject.

What is Agents Only and who is Martial Hebert?
TP has announced the acquisition of Agents Only, an AI-powered crowdsourcing platform designed to provide highly skilled subject matter experts on demand around the world. "Agents Only provides a flexible talent infrastructure for the AI age, identifying and managing thousands of AI annotators, data engineers and specialists.

TP and Carnegie Mellon University's prestigious School of Computer Science are partnering to accelerate AI research and innovation. To mark the partnership, Professor Martial Hebert, dean of the renowned school, joined TP executives at a roundtable discussion held during the group's Capital Markets Day. The expert reportedly gave his views on the evolution of AI.

The announcement of the acquisition of Agents Only.

New York, June 18, 2025

TP, Teleperformance  has announced it has acquired artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled crowdsourcing gig work platform Agents Only that mobilizes certified highly-skilled domain experts across the world. TP will use the acquisition to expand its TP.ai Data Services with on-demand access to certified and highly skilled professionals at scale, enabling faster project delivery and enhanced quality across data labelling, data annotation and generative AI support services.

I have learned so much from rue Firmin Gillot.

The history of TP, as Daniel Julien rightly said, has been made up of spurts and avant-garde visions, often very well executed, thanks to committed teams. This is the story told in the book described below, made up of heartfelt testimonials from former TP employees. I learnt so much at Rue Firmin-Gillot.

Now the management team needs to identify and give the keys to the machine to the new Patrick Dubreil, Sébastien Zins, Stéphanie Jacquet, Karine Jan... all the executives and managers who have written the history of the world number 1. 78.54 euros, it's a bargain :). Find out more in the dedicated section.

The editors of En-Contact and Manuel Jacquinet.

Front page photo: Moulay Hafid Elalamy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TP.

J'AI TANT APPRIS RUE FIRMIN-GILLOT
Portraits and confidences of Teleperformance alumni
To order the book, click here