At Cannes Lions 2026, 13,000+ marketing leaders from 92 countries gathered around a single question: Where does creative advantage come from once AI handles capacity?
This report argues that the advantage has migrated. It is no longer a technology problem. AI compresses production and testing, but it cannot decide what is worth making, how a brand should behave, or which investment deserves to scale.
The new premium sits on five capabilities: Judgment, Aesthetic Instinct, Trust, Capability and Financial Integration. Each one is nameable, ownable and measurable.
The report brings together the lenses of the MMA ecosystem: The global view of MMA CEO Greg Stuart; the MMA MEA reading spanning MENA and DACH, from the MMA CONNECT CANNES interviews and MMA MENA member reflections; and field observations from MMA Türkiye members. These lenses do not always point the same way, and that is the point.
Inside:
- Why marketers now have two audiences, humans and large language models, and why the correlation between their verdicts is close to zero across 480 Cannes entries
- Why trust surfaced as the currency in three regions independently
- The CMO and CFO language gap, and the financial integration formula built to close it
- Creators, CTV and retail media as the new measurable stage
- A 90-day CMO agenda derived from the findings
Key Takeaway: Sustainable creative impact = AI efficiency × human intuition and judgment. If either factor is zero, the product is zero.
