Cannes Lions 2026 Day 1: Young Lions Kickoff, AI Takes Over the Croisette & Early Winners

On day one of Cannes Lions 2026, host Conor Byrne covers the Young Lions competition as teams prepare for a 24-hour brief, and shares highlights from meetings and sessions across the festival. He recaps a coffee catch-up with Karen Nelson-Field and plans to feature her on the podcast, then reports recurring Cannes themes around AI, including agentic AI in ad tech and the importance of transparency and human-in-the-loop control discussed by Limelight leaders. From Adweek House, he notes talks on moving at “the speed of now,” AI enabling human connection (including Grindr and TD Bank), and sponsorship as a marketing lever. He also shares early Lions winners across Creative B2B and health categories, and summarizes research from WARC, Jellyfish, and Inseed on how creativity performs differently for humans versus LLMs.

00:39 Young Lions Kickoff

01:24 Coffee With Karen Nelson-Field

02:19 Limelight on AI Transparency

04:48 Adweek House Highlights

06:31 Early Lions Winners Roundup

07:59 Creativity in an LLM World

12:21 Oshri on Limelight US Growth

14:46 Ritson vs Sharp Debrief with Marc & V from the Sleeping Barber Podcast

That’s What I Call Marketing is where marketers come for real conversations about brand, B2B, creativity, effectiveness and the future of the profession.

Hosted by Conor Byrne, the show features conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, agency leaders, authors, thinkers and practitioners about what good marketing looks like in practice.

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