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While attendees navigated the heat at the Croisette, Search interest in the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity hit an all-time high this year. Cannes 2025 came at a time of cautious optimism in the industry. We’ve got three takeaways — plus a data visualization capturing the most talked-about themes from the week.
1. AI is now at the core of creativity. Being human is a differentiator
AI isn’t the headline anymore; it’s the infrastructure. At Cannes, this theme was front and center, in conversations around speed, interactivity, and storytelling at scale. “The line between creativity and technology is disappearing,” observed Tata Motors CMO Shubhranshu Singh. “Today’s most effective campaigns are not just emotionally resonant, they’re also powered by data, algorithms, and automation.”
AI-led creativity was on display all week. Leaders from R/GA, for example, shared their approach to creating a campaign for luxury fashion brand Moncler that would have been impossible just a few years ago.
Breaking through with audiences is not about shouting louder; it’s about connecting more deeply.
Nick Pringle, chief creative officer at R/GA EMEA, explained, “We wanted to test the real-world physics, the character design, the real-world locations, and push that to the nth degree.” The result was an immersive, AI-powered campaign that drove a 72% increase in conversion rate. As R/GA Global Chief Creative Officer and Global Chair Tiffany Rolfe summed up, “One of the best ways to get clients to embrace new technologies is to allow them to be experimental.
While AI underpins the future of creativity, the festival’s conversations also focused on the imperative of authenticity and connection. Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary Of A CEO podcast, made the case that in a world of captivating AI-generated content, being undeniably human is the true differentiator. Breaking through with audiences is not about shouting louder; it’s about connecting more deeply.
2. Navigating AI isn’t easy, but CMOs are driving change
If you’re asking, “Am I ahead or behind on AI?”, you’re not alone. Privately, attendees had similar questions on their AI journeys. Depending on the organizational context, attendees were thinking through how to accelerate their AI journey — challenges to be overcome ranged from internal change management to sufficient resourcing to measuring impact.
There is more than a silver lining here. New research by the Institute for Real Growth (IRG) shows the growing influence of CMOs in shaping the future of AI. At Cannes, IRG founder Marc de Swaan Arons shared key insights from the study, drawn from C-suite interviews, an online survey, and social media post analysis across 61 markets.
AI transformation is something that you as a leader will drive, design, and champion.
“Many of the CMOs were in a reactive and defensive mode last year, afraid that their CEO or CFO would ask about something they weren’t sure about. This year, they are taking the lead in talking about AI,” de Swaan Arons explained. His advice for achieving growth with AI? “Put people at the center of the process. Your teams, and especially you as the leader, need to be the central force. AI transformation is not something that will happen to your organization; it is something that you as the leader will drive, design, and champion.”
3. Creators are leading the content conversation
While celebrity A-listers graced the Croisette, it was creators who drove the biggest buzz. Creator conversations at Cannes reflected a shift from output to ownership. Many are now building multiformat strategies across Shorts, video on demand, podcasts, livestreams, and shopping — and brands are adapting accordingly.
Take podcasts, for example. Once audio only, the format is now watched by over 1 billion monthly users on YouTube. We heard from Alex Cooper, host of Call Her Daddy, who joined YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on stage at the Palais. She explained, “There’s something intimate about the visual connection that adds a whole new layer … . It’s not just a podcast anymore; it’s a show.”
Tools that empower storytellers don’t just make things easier. They change who gets to tell the story in the first place.
As creators’ ambitions grow, they are becoming the new Hollywood startups — building production houses packed with cutting-edge tech and embracing AI tools like Google’s latest AI-powered video generator, Veo 3. According to creator Brandon Baum, “Tools that empower storytellers don’t just make things easier. They change who gets to tell the story in the first place.”
Creators’ storytelling approaches are also increasingly shaped by fundamental changes to how people search for and find things. A new era of content discovery — driven by platform-based storytelling, visual search capabilities, and AI-generated recommendations — is reshaping how creators and brands alike optimize for discovery.
As you plan for the rest of 2025, let these key trends guide your next moves. The word cloud below captures the top themes that dominated the Cannes conversation online.
The biggest takeaway from Cannes Lions 2025 is the speed with which AI is being deployed for creative work and powering the creators who drive it. To find out how your brand can harness the power of AI, head over to Think with Google’s YouTube playlist and LinkedIn page to catch all the interviews, ideas, and perspectives from Cannes 2025.
