Cannes Lions 2026: The Roar of the Machines

Tech Dominates the Croisette

Anyone walking along the Croisette this Monday will quickly sense that the balance of power in the communications industry is continuing to shift. Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok, and Adobe dominate the festival’s beaches, stages, and gathering areas. While the world’s largest creative festival remains a showcase for ideas, it is increasingly focusing on topics such as technology, data, and business impact.

The fact that the Cannes Lions are apparently seeing slightly fewer submissions this year almost goes unnoticed. In any case, there’s no shortage of star power. Oprah Winfrey will be honored with the LionHeart Award. Personalities such as Stella McCartney and Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind will take turns on stage.

But one name in particular comes up in many conversations: OpenAI.

The company isn’t just making its presence felt. It appears determined to secure its place in the marketing, advertising, and creativity value chain for the long term. This message is likely to run through many of its presentations this week: The future no longer belongs to the attention economy, but to the intelligence economy. What does that mean? Users aren’t primarily looking for content, but for solutions. The focus isn’t on reach, but on relevance.

That sounds like a declaration of war in the increasingly confusing jungle of ad tech. Or, fitting for Cannes, like the roar of a new lion.

Advertising in ChatGPT: Revolution or Beta Test?

Denise Dresser, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAI, described the transition from the attention economy to the intelligence economy in Cannes. The vision is ambitious. The operational reality, however, is still in its early stages.

OpenAI is still in its infancy as an advertising platform. Its ad product is just four months old and is currently available in only seven markets. The major advertising revolution that is currently the subject of much speculation has yet to prove itself in practice.

That is precisely why the presentation by Dave Dugan, Head of Global Ads Solutions at OpenAI, was particularly insightful. Dugan made it clear why OpenAI considers its advertising model to be fundamentally different from that of existing platforms. Users don’t come to the platform to scroll endlessly, but with a specific intent. Already today, around 20 percent of all queries have a direct commercial purpose.

This opens up an attractive prospect for advertisers. At the same time, it presents OpenAI with a challenging balancing act. After all, as soon as advertising becomes part of an AI-powered dialogue, the credibility of the entire system is at stake.

Dugan therefore emphasized the clear distinction between commercial and organic content. «The most important thing here is: a very clearly labeled ad, two separate models, and a clear separation from the organic results,» he explained.

This statement touches on what may be the most crucial question of the coming years: How can intelligence be monetized without undermining user trust?

From Creative Professional to Systems Architect

While OpenAI's advertising business is still in its early stages, the impact of the technology on creative processes is already becoming much more apparent.

Creative Director Chad Nelson demonstrated in Cannes how the work of creative professionals is changing. This evolution has long since gone beyond the creation of individual prompts. Creatives are increasingly building their own tools, developing specialized applications, and designing entire production environments.

Using Workspace Agents and the AI system Codex, Nelson demonstrated how customized solutions can be created in a very short amount of time—from a digital location scout to a campaign builder that develops various creative approaches, including copy and visuals…

His perspective on the future role of creative professionals was particularly noteworthy: «Some of the best creative directors in your company can now become R&D leaders. They can actually start designing and thinking about production workflows, tools, and systems.»

This sentence may describe the real shift behind the AI hype. In the future, creative professionals will no longer just come up with ideas. They will develop systems that generate ideas.

Whether this actually signals a fundamental shift in the industry remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: The discussion has shifted from individual AI applications to the design of entire work processes.

The Cannes Lions: Between Tradition and Transformation

This development is also a concern for the festival organizers themselves. In a conversation with cinema marketer Weischer, Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook discussed the challenge of steering a 73-year-old, time-honored brand into a technology-driven future.

Cook emphasized the need to preserve the festival’s values and cultural essence while fostering a culture of innovation. He added that it is equally important to demonstrate to corporate C-suite executives the role creativity can play in the next phase of growth.

This message fits the overall tone of the first day of the festival. Creativity doesn't disappear. It changes its tools, its processes, and its role within companies.

Networking and the Hope for "Swissness"

Despite all the technology, Cannes remains, above all, a place for personal encounters. For m&k Editor-in-Chief Anna Kohler, the first day alone was packed with networking appointments. At the invitation of Christof Kaufmann, representative of the Swiss delegation and CEO of Weischer Cinema Switzerland, the group met for lunch at «Astoux & Brun.».

Also seated at the table was Sven Reinecke, a marketing professor at the University of St. Gallen, who just a few days earlier had served on the «CMO of the Year» jury alongside m&k editor Beat Hürlimann.

And what about Switzerland? At the first press conference, there were no awards to announce yet for the shortlisted winners from Switzerland. It would be premature to speculate on the final tally. Nevertheless, there is still hope that Swiss voices will join the international roar of the Lions in the coming days.

In any case, this week's schedule is packed. m&k will keep you posted.

The first Lions are banking on simplicity, courage, and culture

The festival’s first Grand Prix winners also offer interesting insights into what kind of creativity is currently making an impact. The diversity of approaches is striking. Sometimes, the croak of a small Puerto Rican frog is enough to create a sense of cultural connection for Hyundai. Other times, a soccer field is transformed into a giant barcode for Mercado Livre. And in the case of Heinz, even the mere presence of the brand is enough—without the product itself needing to be prominently displayed.

What many of the award-winning entries have in common is that they rarely focus on complex technologies. Instead, they rely on strong cultural codes, surprising simplifications, and bold ideas with clear business relevance. Whether the Faroe Islands become a “space program” for SKF or The Ordinary deconstructs the language of the beauty industry—it’s not technological gimmicks that are being honored, but creative solutions that combine attention, relevance, and impact.

In line with the dominant topic of conversation on the festival’s first day, this highlights an interesting tension: While discussions on stage focus on AI, automation, and new workflows, the juries often celebrate works that are based on deeply human insights, cultural relevance, and a strong brand concept.