• by Chris Harihar , Op-Ed Contributor, 9 hours ago

Coming into Cannes, I fully expected AI to dominate every talk and conversation. And, sure enough, it has.

But while AI is everywhere, the theme I keep hearing about is authenticity.

I got an early glimpse of this on my flight to France. I spoke with a marketing leader from Heineken who made a point that stuck with me: how a brand shows up and how it’s perceived are often two very different things.

At its core, that’s an authenticity challenge. I’ve heard variations of this idea repeatedly since arriving in Cannes.

Marketers now operate in a world where consumers are more discerning than ever. People quickly recognize marketing, advertising, or PR that feels forced or transactional. As a result, they gravitate toward brands and creators that feel genuine and aligned with their interests.

The challenge is no longer just reaching people. It’s reaching them in a way that feels credible.

The problem, however, is that authenticity is hard to manufacture.

The Creator Challenge 

Over the last few years, one of the default solutions for authenticity has been outsourcing it through creator marketing. The logic was straightforward: partner with influencers whose audiences overlap with your brand and let them deliver the message in a more trusted, organic way.

Unfortunately, for all the dollars spent on it, that playbook isn’t working as reliably as it once did.

Consumers have become increasingly skeptical of creator partnerships that feel forced or overly commercial (which is many of them). We saw this come to a head at Coachella a few months ago, where a flood of brand activations, sponsored content, and creator houses left many consumers rolling their eyes. In some cases, even the influencers themselves faced criticism for promoting content that felt disconnected from their audiences.

As a result, marketers are being forced to rethink what creator alignment actually looks like today.

That may mean being more selective about partnerships and focusing on moments where a brand can naturally participate in a conversation rather than forcing a paid campaign into it. Call it "earned authenticity." After all, influencers may love brand deals, but if consumers stop finding those partnerships credible, the value for brands starts to crumble.

Unique Expertise Creators 

The shift is also creating opportunities for a different type of creator.

At Yahoo Beach, I watched a panel featuring newsletter writers and subject-matter creators. Among them were Alex Heath of Sources, who has built a loyal audience around his reporting on Big Tech, Cat Goetze, who publishes CatGPT for AI education, and Casey Lewis, whose newsletter covers youth consumer trends.

What stood out was that their influence wasn’t built on mass lifestyle content or broad reach. It was built on deep, specific expertise, which gives them outsized trust within their vertical.

That idea came up again in a conversation I had with Yahoo Chief Communications Officer Sona Iliffe-Moon at the end of the event. She shared that transactional creator partnerships are no longer enough for brands. Increasingly, brands are looking for creators who bring genuine expertise, credibility, and trust within a specific community. In many cases, that means looking beyond traditional influencers to newsletter writers, subject-matter experts, and other differentiated creators with highly engaged audiences.

Trust As The Difference-Maker 

We’re seeing the same dynamic emerge in B2B. In ad tech, for example, platforms like Marketecture have built engaged, loyal audiences because people trust the individuals behind them.

As Marketecture CEO Jeremy Bloom told me at Cannes, “There is a premium not really for channels or outlets, but for people audiences trust.” (The company is working with DoubleVerify, Google, and others at Cannes.)

He’s right, and it gets at what may be the most important shift happening in marketing right now.

Perhaps credibility was always the goal. But maybe it’s becoming much harder to fake. AI may be dominating the agenda at Cannes, but trust is what marketers are actually trying to solve for.