My Cannes Lions 2025 recap: AI, sweat and human connection

At this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the spotlight was definitely on data and AI. In fact, AI was everywhere. From big tech product announcements to immersive activations and hands-on demos, AI was unmissable. Tech giants and emerging technologies alike all showed up strong. 

Inside le Palais, AI strategy and adoption were recurring themes across sessions and panels all week. 

So what’s new? Brands are no longer just experimenting and talking about the possibilities of AI. They are deploying integrated AI solutions that solve real business problems. No longer just a novelty, AI is now delivering real-world impact and enabling more dynamic and relevant brand experiences at scale, from agent ecosystems to real-time personalization and beyond. This also highlighted the importance of having the right underlying data, ie. consumer data that is continuous and connected.

AI is already reshaping how we think about creativity, relevance and customer connection. Here’s my top takeaways from the week:

From Coca-Cola to DoorDash to our own Zappi AI showcase, nearly every brand activation showed real-world AI in action. One of my favorites was Pinterest and Adobe Firefly's AI-powered “style readings," decoding visitor's personal style (although I was too shy to try it myself).

Most notable? The huge partnership and product announcements. Big Tech is fully invested in AI—and that raises the bar for everyone. Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft all debuted new agentic and generative AI capabilities that are foundational to their platforms, not fringe or experimental. 

For many organizations, AI is already deeply embedded into workflows across media, creative and operations. What does that mean? AI proficiency across teams and individuals is critical to succeed. 

Dara Treseder, CMO, Autodesk, shared how “AI is across the entire lifecycle of marketing experience. We’re seeing AI fluency is a must-have. It's becoming a requirement.” 

Based on Autodesk's in-house research analyzing 300 job listings since 2022, “There’s been a 640% increase in demand for AI proficiency.” And this trend is for both technical and non technical roles. 

Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist, LinkedIn, echoed the same message and added that she's even seen new titles emerge like the "AI Artisan." Possibly specialists who craft prompts or fine-tune models?

Morgan Flatley, Global CMO, McDonald’s, stated “the fundamental role of the CMO is to ensure the voice of the consumer is always at the table.” Especially with AI reshaping how teams access, analyze, and act on data. Flatley added a pointed note that “CMOs must be more fluent in tech and AI.”

Organizations must invest in training, cross-functional collaboration and AI-friendly tools to keep pace.

Generative AI is changing the game for creative teams, unlocking rapid content production at scale. AI can also automate repetitive tasks—like programmatic media buys and static-to-video conversions. Overall, AI agents are handling more of marketing and creative team's repetitive tasks and freeing up time for human-led ideation and strategy.

Keep in mind, this might be old news to AI thought leaders, but it's critical for every team and organization to get this right. If not, teams and their broader organizations won't be able to keep pace. 

And organizations doing this well are seeing HUGE efficiency benefits.

Finding ways to “do less with more" is always going to be critical to stay competitive, but it’s just the starting line. However, the true power of AI comes when you harness that speed to explore uncharted creative terrain and test bold ideas at scale.

“Speed isn't interesting. Doing the impossible is. Historical data is the secret sauce to creative breakthroughs.”

- Steve Phillips, Founder, Chair & Chief Innovation Officer, Zappi

These "new possibilities" include scaling brand operations through interconnected, agentic systems that deliver real-time personalized experiences and adapt instantly to consumer context. I think we'll be seeing more stuff like this soon!

Brands like Zappi leverage your past consumer testing to guide AI-driven ideation—grounding new concepts in proven consumer preferences while moving at warp speed.

Advocates hail AI as a “creative teammate,” not something to be feared. It was positioned more like an accelerator that you should try your best to understand and govern closely. But there was a mixed response on this topic. Here’s a few comments that I noted throughout the week:

• Gülen Bengi, Lead Chief Marketing Officer, Mars: "How we do work is going to be different."

• Helen Ma, VP of Product Management, Meta: “Agents are co-creators, and your data shapes their every move."

• Pratik Thakar, VP/Head of Generative AI, The Coca-Cola Company: AI accelerates our creativity fourfold—but let's be honest, "we're still in the honeymoon phase.”

• Ruba Borno, AWS: "Just as people that understand code now have a skill, the coding of the future is going to be prompts." Emphasizing the importance of understanding and optimizing the way human engage with AI agents and agent ecosystems.

During the day one CMO panel, there as an interesting aside from both Gülen Bengi and Claudine Cheever (VP, Global Brand and Marketing, Amazon) about the value of making AI do what you want it to do. They asked people to think, "are you a user or a shaper of AI?"

Across the Cannes conversations I experienced, the caveat emerged loud and clear. This AI-human partnership only works long-term when you can guide the use, adoption and strategy.

Consumer data is the fuel that powers this all. Companies that unify customer insights and leverage real-time engagement data into cohesive, accessible platforms gain a massive edge in personalization, predictive modeling, and more.

It's also a critical source for uncovering new insights and "fan truths" that power customer-led decision making. Access to the right data allows us to learn from the past.

At Zappi, that meant creating our connected insights platform. For both advertising and innovation development systems, consumer research is unified in one platform, easily accessible whenever users need it most.

Here’s a few things I heard on this topic:

• Steve Phillips, Zappi: “When great AI meets bad data, bad data wins.”

• Pratik Thakar, The Coca-Cola Company: “There is no substitute for consumer insights.”

• Gülen Bengi, Mars: "The term 'creative' used to be a title, but now it's a verb for everyone. We must learn, iterative, and then scale."

There was a lot of talk around the need to bring data together. Notably, I heard:

If your data is scattered, slow-to-capture and fragmented, all of your initiatives will sputter. Speakers referenced that data silos create fragmentation, misaligned messaging and wasted spend.

Unifying data unlocks more confident decision-making, but also real-time personalization, predictive offers and seamless cross-channel experiences. 

One-off tools will become less and less common as real-time actioning, personalization and agentic systems will be more the norm. The smartest brands build agent ecosystems—networks of specialized AI agents that collaborate and even audit one another.

Here’s some insight into the chatter around this:

• Michelle McGuire, Deloitte: "Agents now proactively manage workflows"

• Claudine Cheever, VP, Global Brand and Marketing, Amazon: Talked about "adversarial agents," which could check and optimize the work of other agents and act like an internal system of checks and balances.

When done right, agent ecosystems break down silos, coach each other and amplify human expertise—turning fragmented efforts into orchestrated magic.

Pepsi’s most powerful AI lesson? There are still certain things in life that are  “uniquely human.” 

For creatives, it’s a time to double down on things that are really important and hard to replace with AI. It's all the things AI can’t taste, feel or truly resonate with—yet these "uniquely human" insights spark genuine emotional connections.

Here’s a great example:

• Jane Wakely, CMO, PepsiCo: Talked about how the Pepsi team finds micro human truths—like the cheesy residue on fingers after eating Cheetos—then broadens them to shared human experiences. Cheetos even named their iconic orange dust “cheetle,” celebrating snack-time messiness as a point of authentic relatability. That connection to the same experience we all have with "cheetle" drives emotional resonance of collective truths.

This underscores that some human insights—those messy, quirky behaviors—remain the spark that only people can truly discover and interpret.

When teams adopt and integrate AI into their own workflows, things start moving faster, decision-making trends downward, and there's a chance for less governance or oversight. Leaders across all brand categories spoke on the importance of heading into these times with alignment and a clear brand identity. It’s consistency and legacy that helps cut through AI noise; brands with strong authenticity and heritage are at an advantage.

Here’s what a few people had to say: 

• Dara Treseder, CMO, Autodesk: “When you're sick of repeating your message, your audience is just catching on.”

• Pratik Thakar, The Coca-Cola Company: Talked about the brands connection with Christmas traditions and newer holiday activations that leverage AI. From Santa’s first red coat to AI personalizations, "it's heritage that grounds everything we do in authenticity and trust."

Overall, "heritage" was another buzzword of the week. I liked the idea of brands leaning into this, especially for collaborations. Cannes sessions showcased several great collabs, ones that seemed to have forged real partnerships and long-tern brand building potential.

One example is Johnnie Walker’s Couture Expression collaboration with Olivier Rousteing (Creative Director for Balmain) in the Vault Rare Whiskies series. They showcased mutual heritage evaluation—Balmain’s artistry honored Walker’s iconic design cues and vice versa, proving that luxury tradition and modern creativity can elevate each other. I loved this session about authentic, mutually beneficial partnership

"IRL" experiences and the importance of real human connection were definitely some of the week's hottest topics, as well.

Nothing replaces the charge of shared cultural moments—live sports, events or even reality TV. Meeting consumers exactly where they are (and want to be) is a great thing to do, and not as competitive to gain their attention. Plus, there is an emotional pull for these rituals that forge deeper loyalty than any algorithm.

And a few examples of this in action: 

• Josh Feldman, NBCUniversal talked about transforming passive watching into an interactive, commerce-driven experiences. And made a fun reference to Love Island (my current tv obsession) during the AdWEEK yacht party. 

• Tech pioneers like IRCode enable shoppable live TV—turning attention during these cultural moments into action without the friction of searching.

• Tubi talked about their Super Bowl activation, which blended in-stadium energy with real-time interactivity, proving IRL and digital can amplify each other.

The hottest Cannes activation was certainly Stagwell's Sports Beach, tapping into the excitement of bringing players and fans together for IRL experiences. This was a great proof point for sports as a unifying element in our culture.

Josefien Olij, Senior Director Marketing Communications, Philips, said the one phrase she'd pick to describe the future of marketing is "creative business transformation." I thought this was a good reminder of our goals. Bold ideas without business impact are just noise. For brands, the true value of creativity lies in driving revenue, retention and brand health.

Here’s what some people shared: 

• Gary Vaynerchuk: “If doing something doesn’t move the needle, AI will replace you.”

• Jane Wakely, PepsiCo: “Creativity must deliver growth”

• Dara Treseder, Autodesk: “My metrics as CMO match our CFO and CEO—no hiding behind ‘creative excellence.’”

• Morgan Flatley, McDonald’s: “Driving revenue and effectiveness is table stakes for every marketer today.” 

The big takeaways: The south of France is very hot in June. AI is here. How can you get the most out of it? First, make sure you've got the right data. (Think: connected and continuous feedback and insights). Then, align AI-driven processes and creatives with concrete goals (Think: revenue lift, conversion rates, brand equity) to ensure delivers measurable ROI. 

Moving forward, brands that win are the ones that can balance tech tools with human insight and a rock-solid brand. They will choose their first AI bets wisely, tackling problems where it truly adds value. Above all, it's the individual people who question the hype, work to connect and unify data, champion emotional resonance and demand real, measurable results we'll likely see rise to the top.