GWI · Cannes Lions 2026 · 22–25 June

Less artificial.
More intelligence.

Four days on the water at Cannes. Panels, podcasts, and waterside chats: all built around the human insights that make AI trustworthy and your commercial decisions smarter.

Meet us in Cannes

The week at a glance

Monday 22

My AI is better than yours

Tuesday 23

The inner circle

Wednesday 24

Does Gen Z really exist?

Thursday 25

Less artificial.
More intelligence.

Daily programme

What's on

Each day has a distinct theme and speaker programme. Browse the full schedule below, then register your interest.

Register your interest

16:00

Panel: My AI is better than yours

Every vendor claims their AI is smarter. We ask the harder question: smarter on what data? This panel discusses why the quality, recency and humanity of the underlying data is what separates AI that performs from AI that assumes.

Host: Birthe Emmerich, CMO at GWI

17:30

Data & drinks

GWI Yacht welcome reception.

10:30

Panel: Why sports fans really care

Sport has more data on its audiences than almost any other category. But behavioral data has never answered the question that matters most to the brands spending against it: why does someone become a fan, what keeps them there, and what moment converts a casual viewer into a high-value customer?

15:00

Roundtable: AI is changing everything. Just not evenly.

An invite-only lunch exploring where AI is actually delivering inside their organizations, where the resistance is legitimate, and what it took to change their minds.

Host: Birthe Emmerich, CMO at GWI

22:00

England World Cup watch party

90 minutes of human behaviour.

12:30

Roundtable: Beyond the label

An intimate, invite-only lunch. Generations are a shortcut. A convenient label that flattens everything underneath it. What does it actually mean to understand an audience?

Host: Jason Mander, CIO at GWI

15:00

Panel: Does Gen Z really exist?

The generational marketing industry is worth billions. GWI's data asks the harder question: does the label hold up? Emotional state, life stage and context predict behaviour better than birth year.

10:00

Panel: Less artificial. More intelligence.

Every AI system trained on web data inherits the same assumptions, the same gaps, the same blind spots. This panel unpacks where that fails and what changes when human-sourced data takes its place.

13:00

CEO Lunch roundtable: Insights belongs at the top table

Using agentic infrastructure to put Human Insights at the core of how companies operate.

Host: Tom Smith, CEO & Founder at GWI

17:00

Less artificial. More Aperol.

Four days of insights. One conclusion. Aperol.

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Location

The GWI yacht

While the rest of Cannes is inside, we're on the water. A 26m private yacht, with a sun deck for open conversations and intimate areas for the ones that need privacy.

Four days away from the noise, with enough space to say what you mean, and enough of the right people around you to make it count.

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Yacht Row
Cannes Marina, located directly behind the Palais des Festivals.

Meet the Team

WHO YOU'LL MEET ON BOARD

Meet with us at Cannes

Tom Smith

CEO & Founder

Jason Mander

Chief Insights Officer

Dot colour=Hot pink-1

Birthe Emmerich

Chief Marketing Officer

Kate Park

Senior Marketing Manager

Lucrezia Keane

SVP Customer Success Community

Dani McCarthy

Head of Comms

Rhianna Said

Senior Events Executive

Russ Willis

VP Brand & Creative

Charlotte Platt

Charlotte Platt

Key Account Director

Yohai Ben Israel

Yohai Ben Israel

EVP Enterprise & Major Accounts and US Country Lead

Sophie Barter

VP Network Agencies

Ben Rotheram

Senior Sales Director Enterprise

Darren Walker

Senior Account Director

Kurt King

Senior Sales Manager Mid-Market EMEA

Simone Za

Associate Creative Director

Christopher Flynn

Christopher Flynn

Senior Account Director

Jake Trethowan

Account Executive

Ramzi Aweida

Strategic Account Director

Melissa Cooper

Global Account Director

Glen Constable

Senior Solutions Consultant

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Live & Recording on board

Be on our shows

On the DotCast

GWI's podcast is recording live on board across all four days and we want you on it.
A relaxed conversation about data, AI, and the future of marketing. No script needed, just turn up with a point of view.

Talk Data to Me

GWI sits down with leaders from brands and agencies for an honest, on-camera conversation about where you think marketing is heading. No script or prepared answers needed. Just a good conversation we want to have with you.

I'm interested