After my first afternoon in the Côte d'Azur this year, I officially retired my longstanding rule that a senior exec doesn't wear shorts to a work function. The heat was stifling, and so was the crowd. Cannes Lions was more packed than I have ever seen it. Whether that's driven more by the explosion of content creators or the rise of retail media is an open debate that's become something of a running joke: in more than a few venues along the Croisette, there were more panelists on stage than audience members in the seats. The speakers have officially overtaken the listeners (and probably not for the better). By the way, this might also be a result of hearing more hectic travel stories than in any other year, from 5 hour custom waits in Germany and many missed connections to layovers in North Africa!
But across dozens of formal meetings and far more impromptu conversations, what I heard was clear and consistent.
Outcome-based optimization is still running hot. The momentum we anticipated last year and witnessed at this year's Upfronts has only accelerated. Brands and agencies are beyond asking whether they should optimize toward business outcomes and well into the conversation about how fast they can get there and which partners will help them measure and optimize outcomes at scale. EDO is deep into the “how,” building tools like Frequency Optimizer that automatically deliver outcomes-driven optimizations while campaigns are still in flight.
AI has moved from the philosophy seminar to the engineering room. In past years, the AI conversation at Cannes was 80% futurism and 20% reality. This year it flipped. The most interesting discussions weren't about what AI might do — they were about what it's actually doing right now to solve real operational problems. And the most compelling application, not surprisingly, ties directly to point one: agentic AI driving smarter, faster optimization across campaigns.
Data is the new oil and context is the refinery. Some of the industry's sharpest strategists have achieved real clarity on why large, proprietary data sets are the strategic advantage in an agentic world. Mediaocean's newly named COO (and old friend and former colleague of mine) Iván Markman put it perfectly: "The most important part of MCP (Model Context Protocol) is certainly the C." His point cuts deep: it's not just that "context" is technically the most critical and proprietary component of an MCP server. It's that these AI models are only as smart as the data they can access. Whoever controls the richest, most outcome-linked context wins.
Consolidation is reshaping the map. The industry's biggest players are racing to build fortresses, or scaled, integrated stacks of identity and outcome data, to compete with the walled cities of Google, Meta, Walmart, and Amazon. Publicis acquired LiveRamp. IPG and notably Acxiom are now folding into Omnicom. Paramount is acquiring Warner Media. Fox is acquiring Roku. The pace is dizzying, and the strategic logic is clear: scale your data, own your stack, build your moat.
But here's what I kept coming back to as I walked the Croisette: will this produce a new Dark Ages of warring feudal states? And in that analogy, can an independent Venice emerge — a player that prospers precisely because of its independence, its centrality to the open flow of trade between all those fortresses and walled cities?
I think the answer is yes, and not just because it makes a good metaphor. It's because even the largest consolidated stacks will still need trusted, independent partners for identity, measurement, and optimization. The fortresses need to trade with each other. For that trade to be fair and efficient, it has to flow through a neutral party that none of them owns. A Venice that connects them all. That opportunity is enormous, and it's wide open.
By this time next year, more players will step up that want to build cities or fortresses with others vying to connect them with highways, bridges, and even canals.
The weather and energy at Cannes this year was record-setting. The industry is moving — fast, hot, and with the usual inspiring mixture of clarity and mystery about where it's headed.