Cannes Lions 2026: Has AI moved from hype to utility?

For the last three years, it was nearly impossible to walk through the corridors of Cannes Lions without encountering conversations about artificial intelligence. Whether in keynote sessions, beachfront activations, jury rooms or agency presentations, AI dominated discussions about the future of creativity. Much of that conversation revolved around possibility: What could AI do? How much could it automate? Would it disrupt agencies, replace jobs, or fundamentally redefine creativity itself?

At Cannes Lions 2026, however, the mood felt noticeably different. AI was still everywhere, but it was no longer the star attraction. Instead, it had become part of the machinery powering ideas, craft, production, personalisation and experiences. The industry's attention appeared to have shifted from the novelty of the technology to the value it creates.

That evolution was reflected not only in panel discussions and jury deliberations but also in the work that was ultimately awarded. Across categories, the strongest campaigns were rarely those that showcased AI for its own sake. Instead, they were ideas that used technology intelligently to solve problems, enhance storytelling or unlock experiences that would have been difficult to create through conventional means.

The shift mirrors a broader trend across the marketing and communications industry. According to the 2026 Dentsu Global Ad Spend Forecast, AI-enabled marketing capabilities are increasingly being embedded across media planning, content production and customer experience functions, moving from experimental budgets into core business operations. Similarly, recent findings from the e4m-Dentsu Digital Advertising Report highlighted how Indian marketers are increasingly prioritising AI-driven efficiency, audience intelligence and content optimisation over purely experimental use cases.

In many ways, Cannes 2026 became the clearest signal yet that AI has entered its utility phase.

When AI stops being the story
For industry leaders who attended the festival, one of the most significant observations was that AI often disappeared into the background of the work itself. According to Josy Paul, Chairman of BBDO India, the real question has never been about whether the industry adopts a new technology. "Every generation receives a new instrument. The question is never whether we use it. The question is: what music do we make with it?" Paul said. His observation reflects a recurring theme that emerged throughout the festival. Technology alone is rarely enough to create meaningful creative impact. The value lies in how it is used and what it enables.

"AI can accelerate output, but creativity was never output alone. It is empathy, timing, contradiction and meaning. If AI removes repetition and creates more room for imagination and craft, something beautiful can happen. AI can scale expression. Humans recognise what matters," he added. That distinction between output and meaning appeared central to many of the conversations taking place at Cannes this year.

Only a year ago, agencies were often showcasing AI-generated films, synthetic production techniques and prompt-driven creativity as proof of innovation. This year, those demonstrations felt less remarkable simply because the technology had become commonplace. The benchmark had shifted. The industry's focus was no longer on whether AI was involved. Instead, it was on whether its use genuinely improved the creative outcome.

Creativity still leads, technology follows
Few people had a closer view of that evolution than Gurbaksh Singh, Chief Creative Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at Dentsu Creative India, who served on the Cannes Lions Digital Craft jury. For Singh, the conversation has clearly matured. "AI is no longer the story. It has become an integral part of the creative process. This year, the strongest entries employed it where it genuinely enhanced the outcome, often without making it the headline," he said.

What stood out among the winners, according to Singh, was the role AI played in enabling new forms of execution rather than replacing creative thinking. "What distinguished the winners was that AI wasn't replacing creativity. Instead, it unlocked new forms of craft, personalisation, production and interaction that would have been difficult or impossible before. The jury rewarded ideas that solved real problems, delivered meaningful experiences, or elevated execution by applying the technology intelligently and purposefully," he added.

That perspective reflects a broader recalibration taking place within creative agencies globally. The first wave of AI adoption was often centred around efficiency and automation. The current phase appears increasingly focused on augmentation, using technology to enhance human capabilities rather than substitute them.

As agencies continue to integrate AI into workflows, production pipelines and creative development processes, the question is becoming less about capability and more about judgment. "The conversation has evolved from 'Did you use AI?' to 'Did AI help make something people couldn't have experienced otherwise?'" Singh noted.

The democratisation challenge
One of the paradoxes facing the industry is that the very accessibility of AI may make it less of a competitive advantage. When new technologies emerge, early adopters often gain an edge through access. Over time, however, that advantage diminishes as tools become widely available. That is already happening with generative AI.

Today, sophisticated image generation, video creation, content production and audience analysis tools are accessible to agencies, brands, creators and even individual consumers. The barriers to entry continue to fall. As a result, industry leaders increasingly believe the differentiator will not be technology itself but the quality of thinking behind it.

"Technology quickly becomes democratised. Judgment doesn't," said Singh. "As AI capabilities become available to everyone, competitive advantage will come less from access to the tools and more from the quality of human thinking behind them. That includes insight, cultural understanding, taste, ethical decision-making and clarity of intent."

In an era where anyone can generate content within seconds, originality may become less about creation and more about curation, interpretation and strategic thinking. "Anyone can generate content. Far fewer people can identify the right problem to solve, recognise when the technology genuinely improves an idea, and shape experiences that feel emotionally relevant and truly original," Singh added.

For creative agencies, this could become one of the defining challenges of the next decade. As AI lowers production barriers, agencies may increasingly be valued for strategic intelligence, cultural fluency and creative judgment rather than execution alone.

Beyond the AI debate
Interestingly, Cannes Lions 2026 also suggested that the industry may finally be moving beyond the binary debates that characterised earlier conversations around AI. For a period, discussions often swung between two extremes. One camp viewed AI as a revolutionary force that would transform creativity. Another saw it as a threat to originality and human expression.

The work celebrated this year appeared to reject both positions. Amitesh Rao, CEO South Asia at Leo, Publicis Health and Publicis Business, observed that neither blind enthusiasm nor outright resistance seemed to influence how work was evaluated. "Clearly, AI is no longer the shiny toy that it was just a couple of years ago," Rao said.

Drawing from his experience as a jury member in the Entertainment Lions for Gaming category, he noted that AI was viewed as a creative enabler only when it served a meaningful purpose. "There was no semblance of fascination with the use of AI as an end in itself, however innovative that may have been. Equally, the counter narrative we saw in some work that it did NOT use AI was in itself not cutting ice either." That balanced approach may be one of Cannes 2026's most important takeaways.

The industry appears increasingly comfortable judging ideas on their effectiveness, creativity and impact rather than on the technologies used to create them. "In other words, I can say with some confidence that the work that won was largely judged from a balanced perspective with neither positive nor negative bias when it came to its use of AI," Rao said.

The next creative advantage
As AI becomes embedded across every stage of the creative process, the industry's competitive advantage may increasingly shift back to where it has always resided: human imagination. For Rao, the future is not about choosing between humans and machines. "This has never been, and never will be, an either/or conversation for me,” said Rao. “Creativity has always found new ways to manifest and amplify with every new technology that has come our way, and that is true even for this powerful technology we call AI."

That sentiment echoed throughout Cannes this year. The festival's most celebrated work suggested that while AI may become invisible infrastructure within the creative process, human insight remains the engine driving meaningful ideas. Technology can improve efficiency, accelerate production and unlock new possibilities. What it cannot do, at least not yet, is understand culture the way people do, recognise emotional nuance, or identify the tensions that spark truly memorable creativity.

As Rao puts it, "In the creative business, the best work will be that where human imagination, judgement, instinct, and experience will work together with AI to create more transformational impact than ever before."

If previous editions of Cannes Lions were about the promise of AI, Cannes Lions 2026 may be remembered as the year the industry stopped talking about the technology itself and started focusing on what it can actually do. In that sense, AI has not disappeared from the creative conversation. It has simply become part of the toolkit. And perhaps that is the strongest sign yet that it has finally moved from hype to utility.