Cannes Briefing: What the ad industry isn’t saying about AI

That’s the thing about this year’s biggest theme. It’s not just AI itself that’s destabilizing the industry. It’s the quiet discomfort people have with how quickly it’s moving — and what that says about the work, the value chain and who gets to keep their seat at the table. 

“There’s a lot of oversight on all things AI from corporate comms at the moment,” said an ad exec on the Croisette — immediately after asking to go off the record. 

This is the shape of the AI conversation at Cannes: vague in public, anxious in private. The official stance is cautious optimism. Behind closed doors, the questions are more direct: how much of what we do is now automatable? How long before clients start to notice?

And while the ad industry calibrates its messaging in response, the shift is already happening — just not where you’d expect.

AI companies like Perplexity are in town but not on the main stage. They’re here to take meetings — the kind that matter. Tucked away from the main drag, in quiet villas up in the hills, Perplexity’s head of advertising and shopping Taz Patel is meeting directly with advertisers and some agencies. The pitch is open-ended — he wants them to tell him what ads they want to see on the AI-powered search platform — but the direction is clear. The company is laying the groundwork for a business around ad dollars not just subscriptions. 

“I think it’s probably about five years until they really start making advertising as their biggest growth driver,” said an ad exec who was in one of those meetings. 

So while much of the moaning in Cannes this week centers on AI and its supposed war on creativity, the bigger story is unfolding elsewhere. It’s not a war, it’s a reordering. The platforms — new and old — aren’t trying to burn the industry down. They’re just building something that doesn’t need it in the same way. 

The advertisers, agencies, creators and ad tech vendors that understand that will adjust. The ones that don’t will keep trying to win arguments that were already decided a few product cycles ago.

The gap between those two mindsets — one reactive, the other already building — has never been more obvious. And in Cannes this year, it’s on full display.

There are agencies like PMG and vendors like MiQ that are here at Cannes trying to show marketers what that looks like in practice. Not every demo is transformative but the intent is clear: automate the routine, push into higher-margin strategy and stay useful in a world where the platforms are doing more of the heavy lifting. 

“There is still this fascination with AI around creativity rather than all of the other even larger impact things that it can do,” said Jim Mollica, CMO and president of luxury audio at Bose.

And he has a point. 

So much of the Cannes chatter — heard and overheard — fixates on AI’s ability to generate content faster or reduce production costs. The bigger shift is how AI is being used to gain competitive and operational advantage, changing how decisions are made, how media is allocated, how campaigns perform. That’s less visible but far more disruptive. And in many corners of the industry, still under-discussed.

Maybe part of why it remains under-discussed is because engaging with it means confronting some uncomfortable realities.

Take media planning. Today, large parts of the job sit between a marketer’s budget and the media owners who eventually get it. It’s a function built on relationships, reputation and institutional knowledge. Sure, those qualities still matter, but AI is increasingly capable of replicating — or at least supplementing — them.  

Still, on the sidelines of the Croisette, there were signs the industry is beginning to drag itself out of the panic phase. Some marketers aren’t just asking what AI will take away, they’re beginning to ask what they can build with it. Its a mindset shift that will eventually reshape the industry. It just might not be happening fast enough. 

“My sense is that brands and agencies are further along, certainly than they were 12 months ago in accepting and using AI in their organizations,” said Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights. “That said there’s still a lot of skepticism and concern about fully AI generated advertising.” — Seb Joseph

BeReal remerges at Cannes with a slower, cheaper take on social ads

BeReal was founded with a French mindset: find and appreciate the joy in the moment, said Ben Moore, managing director of the U.S.

Now, it’s taking that positioning to Cannes for the first time this year, selling itself to advertisers as a place where attention is gathered to share unfiltered, in-the-moment snapshots of their lives.

Moore is quick to acknowledge its dip in the user base that is only just now starting to tick back upward. The brand sits at 40M MAU globally now, a spokesperson said. And though this user base is smaller than competitors, Moore is also quick to say BeReal is also cheaper at $5 CPM.

Under Voodoo’s acquisition, BeReal introduced ads in the U.S. in April when TikTok was facing a ban. Since then, the company opened up native ads to 50 brands including Apple, Levi’s and Nike, Moore said, wearing a BeReal cap and carrying a BeReal tote from which he was offering loose bracelets for access to its opening late night after party on Monday (which was scheduled to run from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.) at the Bisous Bisous Club.

Moore, who has had stints at Walmart Connect and TikTok, talked up the app’s new user features: a way to see who else around you is using the app and showcased its ad experience, including blurring out the organic posts, but not the native ads — designed to give those ads more attention before rewarding users with other viewable content once they share their own.

BeReal plans to evolve its ads business this year by introducing a self-serve platform at the end of this year/beginning of 2026. “We take our time to build things not only to preserve our users but we also want to have a product that works,” Moore said. — Sara Jerde

Digiday Video Studio at the Blockboard Suite

Day three, Cannes 2025 interviews with Aida Moudachirou Rébois, svp and general manager, MAC Cosmetics, Jackie Jantos, CMO and president, Hinge, and Matt Graham, CMO, Mars, global food and nutrition, touched on the importance of heart-based story telling in an AI-obsessed media and market sector, the future of the creator economy in service of brands, expanding into new global markets with passion-driven content and preparing product pricing and marketing for an uncertain economic look ahead. Please check back here for more interviews. — Jim Cooper

Elsewhere from Cannes

• Snap’s Ajit Mohan believes having more performance driven capabilities has the potential to put the platform into the tier one platform bracket.
• Between panels and parties, creators are looking to get face time with ad execs, brand marketers and partners like Spotify. However, rather than coming to the Croisette to strike deals, they’re playing a long game.
• The partnership lets OMG clients target high-traffic live-streaming content, including sports, entertainment and shopping on YouTube.
• At Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this week, the tech vendor has been working to convince advertisers — and skeptics — that it can help fix the brand safety system, which many say it helped break.

Overheard

“Sports is the new AI,” — an attendee, breathlessly, waiting in the long (and very hot) line for Stagwell’s Sport Beach on the Croisette

“They’re just everywhere, everywhere we turn, everywhere.” — French holidaygoers trying to make their way through the crowds of ad industry people in the Carlton lobby

“At least we’re not getting sued.”

“Was this line here before?” — Leslie Jones, walking to the end of the line to get into the Journal House’s cocktail hour.

Standing in line for the elevator at the Martinez, headed to the Female Quotient lounge:
Woman: Do you mind if I ask you a question while we wait?
Man: What is it?
Woman: I’m wondering about your understanding of Latino audiences?
Man: I’d rather not.

“In fairness I was a little bit drunk this morning.”

“I feel like I still haven’t had a real meal”

“Raja [Rajamannar, CMO for Mastercard] is going to be stronger than the other CMOs, especially among, like Samsung and others.”

What to do

10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Lumière Theatre, The Palais
Consider the job of creatives to dignify emerging technology with human empathy.

10:45 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. at Terrace Stage, The Terrace
Listen to how AI and humanity converge.

12:45 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. at Debussy Theatre, The Palais
Hear from “The Chocolate Guy” on growing a social media presence.