The biggest marketing trends from Cannes Lions 2026
PrettyGreen's Cannes Lions 2026 Takeaways Report brings together the biggest conversations, debates and marketing trends from this year's festival. After a week spent across the Palais, Google Beach, TikTok, Reddit, UTA, Brands & Culture Villa, Empower Café and dozens of fringe events, one theme emerged above all others: as AI becomes the baseline, human judgement becomes the competitive advantage.
If Cannes Lions 2025 was dominated by conversations about what AI could do, Cannes Lions 2026 marked a more significant shift. The industry has moved beyond AI adoption and productivity gains to focus on the qualities technology can't replicate. Trust. Creativity. Cultural instinct. Community. Original thinking. The capabilities that help brands stand apart when the tools themselves are becoming available to everyone.
Many of the strongest themes from Cannes reinforced ideas that have always delivered results. Distinctive creativity continues to outperform average content. Long-term brand building remains more effective than relentless short-term optimisation. And while AI is changing how marketing is planned, created and measured, it isn't replacing the judgement needed to create work that people remember.
What's inside the Cannes Lions 2026 Takeaways Report?
The report distils the ideas shaping the future of marketing into practical insights for brand and marketing leaders, including:
- The biggest trends from Cannes Lions 2026
- How marketers are redefining AI's role in creativity and strategy
- Why trust, community and cultural relevance are becoming competitive advantages
- The changing relationship between brand building and performance marketing
- What these shifts mean for brands planning for the next 12 months
Rather than reporting every keynote, we've focused on the patterns that emerged across the week and what they reveal about where the industry is heading next.
Download the Cannes Lions 2026 Takeaways Report
Whether you joined the conversations in Cannes or followed them from afar, this report brings together the ideas worth paying attention to and the implications for brands navigating an AI-driven future.
