This year at Cannes Lions, AI wasn’t the spectacle it’s been in recent years. Instead, it took center stage as a practical tool helping brands move faster, think bigger, and build trust in smarter ways.
As I shared with Cybernews, the shift is clear: marketers are no longer asking if AI belongs in advertising. They’re focused on how well it can support human creativity. The best work we’re seeing blends human vision with AI’s ability to accelerate and scale execution. Today’s creative process is iterative: we prompt, review, refine, and keep control of the narrative.
Where early AI experiments fell flat, often producing generic or soulless work, co-creation is now the priority. We’re seeing great examples, like Pinterest’s AI-powered auto-collages that respond to individual tastes in real time.
But with speed comes responsibility. I spoke about the risks when AI outpaces public understanding — like the confusion caused during the January wildfires in LA, when AI-generated images of the Hollywood sign on fire spread misinformation. Building trust means brands must be transparent about how AI is used, and clear about what’s real.
Ultimately, the future of advertising isn’t just about making campaigns with AI. It’s about how those campaigns are discovered through AI-powered search. The brands that win will be the ones who use AI not as a shortcut, but as a way to make human insight shine.
Talk to us about how Avenue Z helps brands pair AI with human creativity to drive results.
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