What are the important thing tendencies and takeaways from Cannes Lions 2026?

You’d anticipate AI to dominate Cannes Lions, and it did – on each stage, in each panel, from contained in the Palais to the perimeter occasions lining the Croisette. However beneath the headline matters, the dialog had shifted since final yr.

If there was one overarching theme, it was how we may work with expertise transferring ahead, together with the facility of indie creators. This is what stood out from one of many trade’s largest occasions of the yr.

The inversion of authority

We reported on the rise of the creator CEO in our 2025 round-up, during which creators had been more and more driving the programming, partnerships, and conversations across the competition. This yr, their presence was unimaginable to disregard.

Alongside some genuinely considerate reporting, there was additionally a noticeable rise in social content material that prioritised entry over evaluation, typically providing little past superstar sightings, activation excursions and proof of attendance. An analogous sample emerged in some fringe programming, the place character often outweighed originality.

Mockingly, this created much more area for creators, strategists, and journalists with genuinely recent views.

Rachel Lowenstein captured the shift completely: “One in every of my key takeaways is that Lions is now a story of two festivals: the advertiser competition and the creator competition. As somebody who straddles each worlds as a tenured strategist and a content material creator, I felt like I used to be dwelling two lives all week. The trade is at a fulcrum level the place it does not fairly know what to do with the inversion of authority creators are having on companies and types.”

That divide was maybe most noticeable between the conversations occurring contained in the Palais across the work being judged (the rationale Cannes Lions exists within the first place) and people occurring throughout the perimeter round activations, personalities and social content material. It was additionally an remark picked up by the creator of the Social Juice e-newsletter, Jaskaran Saini.

Tradition beats scale

Past the creator dialog, tradition was one other theme rising all through the week.
Whether or not it was discussions round fandom, ladies creators, cultural intelligence or the position of impartial companies, the message was remarkably constant. Scale alone is now not sufficient.

Talking throughout 5 classes, together with talks for UN Girls and the Unstereotype Alliance, Rachel Lowenstein argued that manufacturers must take ladies creators critically as entrepreneurs and recognise influencing as an trade that financially empowers ladies, relatively than dismissing it as superficial.

Elsewhere, her classes with Reddit, Yahoo and Collins explored why fangirls sit on the centre of at present’s cultural conversations and why understanding fandom is more and more changing into a aggressive benefit for entrepreneurs. On the Palais, in partnership with the Effie LIONS Basis, she inspired younger creatives to unlock their unfair benefit by way of cultural intelligence.

Rory Sutherland echoed the sentiment at Collins Home, who noticed: “Businesses these days are obsessed by scale. Nothing scales higher than mediocrity.”

Colette Phillip constructed on that argument, suggesting that consolidation and one-size-fits-all considering are eroding creativity. As bigger holding firms proceed to merge, impartial companies have a possibility to compete by way of distinctive considering, deeper cultural understanding and nearer relationships with the communities they serve.

AI made us crave human experiences

If AI dominated the conversations on stage, lots of the standout activations inspired individuals to step away from their screens.

In distinction to final yr’s AI-led activations and limitless branded merchandise, the pendulum swung again in direction of tangible, sensory experiences.

Pinterest invited guests to create personalised journals in partnership with Adobe Specific, alongside a collection of tactile experiences together with tattoos, French pâtisserie and hair bleaching.

French sonic branding company Sixième Son took attendees away from the Croisette on its Sound of the Sea cruise, demonstrating how sound influences reminiscence, emotion, stress and decision-making. Slightly than competing for consideration, it provided one thing a lot rarer throughout competition week: a second of calm.

Sound additionally featured prominently at Stagwell Sports activities Seashore, the place Epidemic Sound created an AI-powered radio activation.

Curiously, there have been 4 completely different postcard activations alongside manufacturers that repeatedly encourage guests to create one thing bodily relatively than extra digital content material.

Networking bought transferring

Alongside the primary devoted Lions Sport programme, morning health classes and sports activities clinics have develop into fixtures of the competition, whereas fringe occasions are more and more centred round walks, runs and motion relatively than conventional networking receptions.

Woman Hike CIC introduced ladies collectively by way of strolling, whereas Alaina Crystal partnered with Chief to create a management expertise the place ladies may visualise their future selves, share private management journeys and construct significant connections in a lower-pressure atmosphere.

Towards the backdrop of AI-heavy discussions, many attendees gave the impression to be trying to find slower, extra human methods to attach.

AI grows up

AI dominated the dialog as soon as once more this yr, however the dialogue itself had matured.

Final yr, many debates centred on how inventive companies ought to use AI and whether or not it threatens creativity. This yr, the dialog shifted in direction of how AI can remove repetitive work whereas preserving the distinctly human abilities expertise cannot replicate.

Colette Phillip’s takeaway from the talks was that AI ought to scale back the executive and mind-numbing manufacturing work that always will get in the best way of creativity, releasing individuals to deal with concepts relatively than course of. A number of audio system additionally harassed the significance of constant to nurture junior expertise relatively than assuming expertise will change the necessity for inventive improvement.

Jon Williams, founder and CEO of The Liberty Guild, summed it up: “It appears to me the most important false impression popping out of Cannes is that AI is altering creativity. It is not. What it is actually altering is the place worth sits. And it is a large benefit for creatives. And this is the reason inventive judgment is changing into essentially the most precious commodity. Some name it style. It is fairly rattling onerous to immediate. What stays tough to copy are the issues which have all the time pushed desire: cultural relevance, emotional connection, distinctiveness and belief – and these are the powers of the inventive thoughts.”

The important thing takeaway?

Taken collectively, this yr’s competition felt much less like a celebration of expertise than a reminder of what expertise cannot change.

Whether or not that was fandom, trusted creators, bodily experiences or inventive judgment, the strongest conversations stored returning to distinctly human qualities.

AI might have dominated the agenda, however style, tradition and connection quietly grew to become the themes that lingered lengthy after the rosé had been packed away.