AI was everywhere at Cannes this year. So was a growing unease about what it can't see.
Every panel, every yacht conversation, every late-night debate circled the same tension: AI is everywhere, and everyone's still working out what to trust it with. GWI spent the week in those rooms: on stage, in roundtables, in more meetings than any year before.
Here's what we heard, what our data confirms, and what it means for 2026.
Age-based segmentation is losing its grip as a reliable way to understand consumers.
There's a comparison our host opened one panel with that stuck with us all week: two people born in the same year, both wealthy, both famous, both married twice, both living in a castle. On paper, identical. In reality, about as different as two people can be. That's the problem with birth-year segmentation in one image.
Marketers have spent decades briefing by birth year. That assumption came under real pressure at Cannes this year: our "Beyond the Label" roundtable and "Does Gen Z Really Exist?" panel both landed on the same conclusion, that the label doesn't hold up anymore. GWI's data shows why. Values, behaviors, and motivations cluster across generations, not within them.
"GWI's data shows that age is one of the least discriminating factors for predicting behaviors or attitudes. Yet in so many workflows, age is the thing we start with, when actually it's the thing that should be overlaid at the end."Jason Mander, GWI, in the “Does Gen Z Really Exist?” panel. [05:21]
Reach counts who's watching. It doesn't tell you who actually cares.
Conversations about sports fandom kept surfacing a gap between who brands think they're reaching and who's actually there. Loyal fans never show up in viewership or click data: they're following highlights, engaging on social, buying merchandise, present everywhere except the one place most media plans measure.
Liverpool FC showed what closing that gap looks like. Ahead of their Tommy Hilfiger deal, they skipped reach data and asked fans directly. One panel explored how:
Involving the fan community in selecting a brand partner can help shape the final decision and strengthen stronger, more authentic partnerships. “Why Sports Fans Really Care?” panel. Watch to learn more. [~27:30s]
Adoption is up, but the appetite for genuinely human interaction hasn't gone anywhere.
AI, automation, and speed dominated Cannes this year. Underneath it ran a quieter thread: people still want to feel understood by something real, not just served by a well-trained model.
That tension showed up literally on the sports panel, when Liverpool's team described spotting an obviously AI-generated partnership image from another major club, well below the standard fans expect. Authenticity isn't a nice-to-have anymore. It's table stakes for trust. One panelist highlighted that:
As AI agents take on more of the workload, human judgement becomes even more valuable - not less. “Less Artificial, More Intelligence” panel. Watch to learn more. [~20:25]
The question at Cannes this year wasn't whether to use AI; it was whether you could trust what it gave you back.
As more of the industry leans on synthetic personas and AI-generated insight, the conversation has shifted from speed to scrutiny. Where did this data come from? How was it collected? Does it hold up under pressure? These questions came up everywhere this week: data quality is becoming a real differentiator, not just a compliance checkbox.
One of the clearest signals: an agency running its own vendor analysis, rather than taking anyone's word for it. One panelist highlighted the value of:
Looking beyond a single data source can lead to more informed decisions, with data quality, freshness and breadth all playing a critical role. “My AI Is Better Than Yours” panel. Watch to learn more. [~8:08s]
The conversation at Cannes this year wasn't only about better campaigns. It was about better decisions, company-wide.
Our senior CEO lunch moved past campaign talk into a bigger question: how do you put human insight at the center of how a company runs, not just how it markets. As more of the business runs on agentic systems, real decisions still need something grounded in human behavior underneath them, not just marketing, but product, strategy, and operations too.
The same instinct showed up elsewhere during the week, just at a smaller scale. One panel explored the idea that:
The most valuable AI capabilities are those embedded within an organization; they allow teams to build and compound intelligence over time rather than relying solely on external tools. “My AI Is Better Than Yours” panel. Watch to learn more. [~02:56s]
Every conversation at Cannes came back to the same idea: AI can make you faster, but it can't make you right. The brands pulling ahead aren't the ones automating the most, they're the ones who know what's underneath their automation.
That's the work ahead in 2026: not choosing between AI and human insight, but making sure one is built on the other.
Want the fuller picture? Dive into each panel below:
And, if you're thinking about where human insight fits into your own AI stack, that's a conversation we have every day. Talk to a GWI expert about what that could look like for you in 2026.