• by Gerald Bagg , Yesterday

Artificial intelligence was everywhere at Cannes Lions this year, but the conversation surrounding it had changed.

The anxiety had not disappeared. Questions about jobs, authorship, ownership, and the future of creative work remained. But the discussion was noticeably less apocalyptic and more practical. The industry appeared less preoccupied with whether AI would replace creative people and more concerned with how agencies and marketers should use it.

That shift reflects a more mature understanding of the technology. AI is not simply a substitute for human effort. Properly used, it extends human judgment.

It can accelerate research, organize information, generate alternatives, and turn an unfinished thought into something that can be examined and refined.

What it cannot guarantee is distinction.

Excel did not eliminate financial judgment. Computer-aided design did not eliminate architects. Digital editing did not replace filmmakers. Each of these innovations reduced friction and expanded what skilled people could do. AI belongs to that lineage, although its reach is broader and its pace more dramatic.

As AI makes polished execution easier to produce at scale, advertising’s central problem will no longer be whether enough content can be created. It will be whether any of it deserves attention, changes behavior, or survives in memory.

Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, illustrated the distinction in discussing the introduction of Dawn Powerwash to the United Kingdom under the Fairy brand.

The American proposition encountered a deeply established British habit: soaking dishes before washing them. AI could analyze millions of data points about cleaning behavior, but data alone could not explain the cultural ritual behind it. Recognizing its significance required human observation, empathy, and intuition.

That understanding led to a more relevant proposition: “Skip the soak.”

Technology helped P&G develop, test, and execute the work. It did not originate the human truth that made it matter.

This is where agencies and marketers need discipline. AI can shorten the distance between a question and a plausible hypothesis, generate multiple routes, expose weaknesses, produce assets, and help teams move faster.

But a hypothesis is not a strategy, and an asset is not an idea.

Someone must still determine whether the work is original, culturally intelligent, emotionally appropriate, consistent with the brand, and worth an audience’s attention.

Otherwise, AI will allow the industry to produce mediocrity more efficiently.

If agencies and clients have access to many of the same tools, an agency’s value cannot rest primarily on producing assets, generating versions, or executing at speed. Those capabilities will increasingly be expected.

The greater value will lie in knowing which problem deserves to be solved, which cultural truth matters -- and when a technically proficient answer is still the wrong one.

Efficiency cannot become the principal measure of progress. Producing more work more rapidly may satisfy an operating objective without improving the brand or the business.

AI will not diminish the value of human judgment. It will expose how little of it there is.

The strongest agencies and marketing organizations will use AI aggressively, while remaining clear about what cannot be delegated.

Cannes Lions did not demonstrate that technology is becoming less important.

It demonstrated that human judgment is becoming advertising’s real competitive advantage.