What did Cannes Lions 2026 reveal about AI?
Summary: Our co-founders spent last week at Cannes Lions 2026, where every conversation came back to AI. We share three insights they took from the week, and what they mean for agencies and brand teams.
Author: Asta Vallis
Read length: 3 minutes
Date: 1st July 2026
Spark AI is a strategy-led consultancy helping agencies and creative teams build organisation-wide AI capability. Together, we'll build the engine that changes not just how your team works, but what your organisation is capable of. Our blog provides the techniques, insights and industry discussions needed to navigate AI with confidence.
What did Cannes Lions 2026 reveal about AI?
Cannes Lions is the advertising industry's biggest annual gathering. This year, AI was the conversation running underneath every session, whatever it said on the billing. Our co-founders Jules and Emma spent the week there taking notes.
The big shift from last year was where the conversation had got to. After two and a half years of arguing about which tool is best, the room had moved on to discussing how the people, culture and leadership drive AI adoption.
What gets argued out on a Cannes stage tends to land on clients' desks three to six months later, so here are three things worth a head start on.
Why does redesigning the work beats bolting AI on?
A team of developers at Iterable added an AI tool to how they already worked and saw a 20% lift. Then they rebuilt the actual process around AI, and the gain jumped to 6x. Same tools, same people. The only difference was being brave enough to change the work itself.
That's the trap most people fall into. They bolt AI onto the old way of working, same steps, same handoffs, just a bit faster, and wonder why the results are underwhelming. The real gains come from redesigning the work around what AI can now do.
Why does AI takes the easy work, not the hard work?
Here's the part few people saw coming. We assumed AI would clear the boring jobs and free people up for the good stuff. In practice, it's the small, low-stakes tasks that go first.
Take those away and the working day becomes a series of harder tasks. That's a fast route to burnout, even while everyone looks more productive on paper. So if you run a team, it's worth designing the work with that in mind, rather than just handing out the tools and hoping.
When everyone has the same tools, how do you stand out?
When the whole industry leans on the same handful of AI models, everyone gets served the same safe, obvious answers. The tools pull everything towards the middle, and the middle is exactly where no brand wants to be.
As Sir Martin Sorrell put it on the Monks panel, AI raises the general standard, so the weak stuff falls away. But because everyone now has the same access, the human dimension matters more than ever. Automate the routine, lower-value work. Then spend the time you've saved making the important work more distinctive.
What is thread running through all three?
The agencies that pull ahead won't be the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest tools. They'll be the ones who did the harder, human work.
That's exactly what Spark AI is built to help with. Our AI Accelerator takes a team from scattered experiments to structured capability in 90 days, across client services, strategy, creative and leadership. Our AI for Leaders programme is part of that, where we help you connect AI to your company strategy rather than bolting it on and hoping.
Frequently asked questions:
What was the main AI theme at Cannes Lions 2026?
The conversation had moved on from which tool is best to the people, culture and leadership side of AI. The recurring point across sessions was that the technology is largely solved and available to everyone, so the real advantage now sits in how organisations and their people actually work.
Where can I find more AI insights like this?
We publish a fortnightly newsletter called Spark Intelligence, where we share the latest AI insights and updates for agency and brand teams.
Where can I find the events Spark goes to?
We share where we'll be on our events page, as well as on our LinkedIn.
