As anyone who has attended Cannes Lions will know, the festival programme is intense enough to make you wish you could be in several places at once. On one side are sessions featuring the world’s leading brand and creative leaders across the various stages of the Palais. On the other are the beach houses and rooftops lining the Croisette, where all-day brand activations make choosing where to be even more difficult. That makes reviewing the programme in advance — and locking a few key sessions into your calendar — all the more important.
#1 ‘Making Things That Make Things: A Playbook for the Intelligence Age’
When generative AI first entered our lives, much of the debate revolved around which creative tasks machines might be capable of performing. Could AI write as well as the human mind, generate images, make films — and ultimately replace creatives?
Today we face a more consequential question: What happens when we begin designing creative systems capable of continuously generating new work?
‘Making Things That Make Things’ explores the shift agencies and brands are making from producing campaigns to designing creative systems. When production becomes effectively infinite, the truly scarce resources aren’t ideas themselves, but taste, curation and strategic judgement. In other words, people’s choice will matter more than what machines are capable of producing.
Anyone interested in understanding the evolving role of strategy and creativity in the age of AI should be at the Rotonde Stage at 11.45am on Monday 22 June.
#2 ‘Five Marketing Truths We Can Actually Agree On’
Brand or performance? Loyalty or customer acquisition? Newness or consistency? Long term or short term? Creativity or frequency?
Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp, normally on opposing sides of industry debates, will share the stage to explore the marketing truths they can both endorse.
Even its title makes this one of the most intriguing sessions at Cannes. Our industry has no shortage of people willing to deliver definitive verdicts. It has far fewer people capable of establishing principles on which everyone can agree.
To discover the five things Ritson and Sharp genuinely agree on, head to the Debussy Theatre at 3.30pm on Monday 22 June.
#3 ‘Advertising in the Age of AI’
How will artificial intelligence change the future of advertising?
That’s a question so often over the past few years that it’s become tedious. But ‘Advertising in the Age of AI’, featuring OpenAI, will look beyond the arrival of new creative tools or the promise of faster content production. Instead, it will examine advertising’s transition from a media-centric operating model to an intelligence-centric one.
This shift means how advertising interacts with consumers is more important than where it appears. Brands may evolve from entities that broadcast fixed messages into systems that answer questions, personalise experiences and build reciprocal relationships with users.
For those who want to hear how this transformation is being interpreted by one of the organisations at its very source, the session takes place at the Debussy Theatre at 11.45am on Tuesday 23 June.
#4 ‘The Anatomy of an Icon’
Some creative ideas transcend the period in which they were launched and become an enduring part of culture. Others disappear within a matter of weeks.
But what makes an iconic idea iconic?
In ‘The Anatomy of an Icon’, Estée Lauder and Meta will use artificial intelligence to analyse iconic ideas from the past, looking to uncover the creative, emotional and sensory codes these ideas have in common.
For a closer look at the anatomy of iconic ideas, add 1.45pm on Tuesday 23 June to your calendar.
#5 ‘Who Carries the Fire?’
For many years, brands defined themselves through what they said: A slogan, a manifesto, a television campaign or a consistently repeated brand promise…
But today the true power of an idea depends less on how loudly a brand communicates it and more on whether other people choose to carry it forward.
Unilever’s ‘Who Carries the Fire?’ examines how brands are built within a new cultural environment shaped by creators, communities, algorithms and artificial intelligence.
The fire metaphor in the title is therefore particularly apt. A brand’s role may no longer be to carry the flame alone, but to ignite something meaningful enough for others to want to carry…
The session takes place at the Debussy Theatre at 11.15am on Wednesday 24 June and should be on the list of anyone interested in the intersection of culture and brand building.
#6 ‘The Future of Creativity with Demis Hassabis’
Were we to draw up a shortlist of people worth listening to on the subject of artificial intelligence, Google DeepMind CEO and Nobel Prize-winning scientist Demis Hassabis would almost certainly rank near the top.
At Cannes Lions, Hassabis will discuss not only the scientific and economic potential of technology, but also its impact on creative expression.
It is always open to debate how far the grand visions presented in sessions such as these can be translated into the everyday practice of advertising. Nevertheless, hearing directly from one of the people developing the technologies we will be using in the years ahead is valuable in itself.
Expected to be one of the festival’s highest-profile talks, the session will take place at the Lumière Theatre at 2.30pm on Wednesday 24 June.
#7 ‘The Startling Power of Surprise’
Why is so much advertising beginning to look the same?
The same insights, the same narrative structures, the same styles of humour and the same visual worlds… As data-led decision-making, platform conventions and best practices have multiplied, communication has arguably become safer — but also far more predictable.
Adam Morgan, founder of eatbigfish and one of the most prominent voices in challenger brand thinking, and Jon Evans, creator of the popular marketing podcast Uncensored CMO, will once again come together on the Cannes stage to explore the power of surprise.
‘The Startling Power of Surprise’ takes place at The Forum, Rotonde, at 3.45pm on Wednesday 24 June.
#8 ‘The Cultural Edge You Can’t Buy: Unlocking Your Unfair Advantage’
The democratisation of AI tools is gradually narrowing the gap in production capabilities between brands and agencies.
In the near future, everyone will be able to conduct research at a similar speed, produce visuals of a comparable quality and generate similar volumes of content. As the technology becomes equally accessible to everyone, where will competitive advantage come from?
‘The Cultural Edge You Can’t Buy’ looks for the answer in cultural intuition.
At a time when strategists are attempting to redefine their role in relation to technology, this may prove to be one of the week’s most direct and timely sessions.
Set aside an hour for this session, which takes place at the Campus Stage, Rotonde, at 5.30pm on Wednesday 24 June.
#9 ‘Go Big… Or Just Keep Posting? The New Battle for Growth’
Do brands need big, attention-grabbing creative ideas to grow, or is publishing content consistently every day enough?
This is one of the central dilemmas social media has imposed on modern marketers.
On one side are major brand ideas that reach broad audiences, generate fame and remain memorable over time. On the other is a high-frequency content model designed to feed platforms continuously…
In ‘Go Big… Or Just Keep Posting?’, Les Binet will examine how these two approaches influence growth.
Taking place at the Rotonde Stage at 4pm on Thursday 25 June, this is one session anyone interested in marketing effectiveness should not miss.
#10 ‘Cannes Lions Wrap-Up Live’
Throughout Cannes Lions, dozens of sessions are attended, hundreds of pieces of work are examined and countless ideas are exchanged along the Croisette. By the end of the festival, however, a familiar question remains: What did Cannes really tell us this year?
Making its debut in the Cannes programme, ‘Cannes Lions Wrap-Up Live’ aims to bring together the festival’s defining ideas, winning work and jury insights in a 90-minute session.
Adding a wrap-up session as the final entry on this list may initially appear to be the safe choice. Yet one of the greatest challenges of the Cannes experience is turning the sheer volume of content you encounter into a meaningful whole. I speak from experience…
Seeing how the perspectives shared across different stages on AI, culture, the creator economy, brand building and creative effectiveness come together within a common framework could prove particularly useful for the presentations and reports that inevitably follow the journey home.
Anyone looking to catch up on what they missed and see the broader picture of Cannes 2026 should be at the Debussy Theatre at 2pm on Friday 26 June.
