Cannes 2025: Human creativity as a competitive advantage in the Age of AI

In a world dominated by headlines about automation, algorithmic filter bubbles, and the AI-pocalypse, this year's Cannes Lions offered something unexpected: hope for humanity. 

Naive? Perhaps. Motivating? Definitely.

If Cannes were a drinking game (and for some, of course, it is), "human creativity" and "human impact" would have you on the floor. But rather than eye-rolling repetition, this represented something profound: an industry built on the currency of human ideas declaring its role and ambition for the AI age.

I started the week fully prepared for an onslaught of AI evangelism. I’m not anti-AI by any means, but was perhaps expecting a stronger corporate meme narrative about how it’s going to change everything. There are definitely people doing some epically cool AI-powered shit and being recognised accordingly at the Palais. I applaud them. But if I’ve taken one thing from this year’s festival, it’s that adaptability and possibility of human imagination gives brands an edge. 

This red thread was clear from day one in a healthy tension between AI and human creativity, with the former turbo-charging the latter. As Apple's Tor Myhren proclaimed in his festival-opening Creative Marketer of the Year keynote: "You drive. AI rides shotgun." It’s a telling instruction from the world’s third largest company, a tech brand with some serious AI credentials. But that cred has never been the engine behind the brand’s incredible body of creative work. Yes they’re marketing tech products. The executions might even involve AI. But in the world of Apple marketing we’re always in our messy, human present. They make us laugh, they make us cry. They delight us with a dancing Pedro Pascal. They get it.

Heroing humanity from grief to bureaucracy, and of course booty calls

A huge percentage of the campaigns that cut through in this year’s awards eschewed the shiny novelty of generative AI for hand-crafted simplicity, emotional precision, and insights rooted in deep human truth.

Take the Health & Wellness category, where Eric Weisberg, jury president for the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good, emphasised the need for work that helps consumers tap emotion to reclaim their humanity in the face of harsh systems: “Joy turns us into humans when the medical system turns us into patients." CALM and ITV's silver-winning "Missed Birthdays" (content warning: suicide) exemplified this perfectly, juxtaposing joy alongside its counterpart of grief. The work featured an articulate installation of thousands of birthday balloons, each representing a birthday of a young person ‘missed’ due to suicide. It's exquisite. Moving. Devastating. Subversive. And not an algorithm in sight.

This crystalline simplicity also showed up in word-perfect campaigns at different emotional ends of the ballpark. AXA's "Three Words" hijacked the very human phenomenon of bureaucracy to do good: adding three words to home insurance contracts (compulsory in France) as a lifeline for people who have to leave their homes due to domestic violence. Not to be outdone in brevity that packs a punch, IKEA's "U Up?" saw the furniture retailer sliding into night-owls' DMs with a cheeky overture. Booty-call DMs to sell mattresses is definitely a human innovation in direct marketing. You've gotta love the cheek, and the succinct clarity of idea and execution.

The power of being unreasonably, perversely human

Forbes' discussion panel marking its inaugural Accessibility 100 list featured three of the list’s honorees: Brad Heaven (assistive technology influencer), Lucy Edwards (blind content creator and disability activist) and Sarah Herrlinger (Apple Accessibility lead), who reminded us that the disability community has leveraged AI and assistive technologies for years. 

Edwards noted that people living with disabilities have often been early adopters and tech innovators thanks to urgent and relevant use cases in their lives, teaching the machines in turn through feedback loops. Examples include the mass adoption of AI-enabled cameras for blind and vision impaired people, to accessible gaming controllers for physical disabilities, and eye-activated speech devices powered by iPad technology. Herrlinger noted these accessible tech leaps have been powered by AI for years, long before the generative wave hit the zeitgeist - but the focus was always (rightly) on human/user impact, and so the storytelling was too.

Harnessing technological leaps to tell better stories is something filmmaking has always done well, with the tech always in a support role; never the story, nor the creator. Hearing Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson proclaim on stage that “I’m a complete idiot when it comes to anything computer-y…I can do emails and that’s about it” was hilarious and refreshing. This from one of the world’s most technologically innovative filmmakers. What Jackson has is vision, and the audacity to ask big questions of technology like ‘can we make archival WWII film look like modern day Imax footage?’ or ‘can we create a program that makes thousands of little computer orcs and elves battle each other with a sense of individual agency?’ and then a skilled technical team to help answer those questions. But they’re nothing without his creative provocation.

Accenture Song’s Nick Law emphasised this practice as a critical creative skill - asserting that in future generative AI will handle heaps of the ‘how’ of our industry, so what we need to bring to the table is the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. These are questions that centre on developing ambition and taste. Law wrapped his excellent talk with a call to arms, arguing we should all seek to partner with “aliens and heretics”. When working with models based on ‘reasoning’ the opportunity for creative genius is in being “unreasonably, perversely human”. In another panel, Wicked and SNL star Bowen Yang summed it up beautifully: “heart is the engine that storytelling runs on”. And machines rarely nail that.

The luxury of human imperfection

Perhaps my favourite talk scored a zero on technology and 100 for humanity. It was the story of Glass Lion for Change-shortlisted Heralbony, a luxury design company from Japan founded by twins whose brother was born with an intellectual disability. The company works with artists with intellectual disabilities, licensing their artwork to print on luxury goods: silk dresses, phone cases, and product partnerships with the likes of Nikon, Toyota, Hyatt and Visa. The partnership delivers dividends of goodness: beautiful luxury goods and financial independence for people living with disability.

The founders were emphatic that Heralbony’s proposition isn't about charity or pity; it's a luxury brand blending beautiful art with chic design. Their handmade prints might be called a celebration of human vulnerabilities and possibilities. Perfect for those inclined to wear their heart on their sleeve.

The strategic imperative

For marketing and communications leaders, Cannes 2025's message is clear: the brands winning hearts and wallets aren't just AI-powered: they're human-obsessed. They use technology to amplify emotional truth, not replace it. The future belongs to organisations that master this balance, leveraging AI's efficiency of the ‘how’ while doubling down on distinctly human insights, empathy, and creativity in the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. In an increasingly automated world, authentic human connection becomes an ultimate competitive advantage.

As we navigate the AI revolution, this year Cannes reminded us that technology's highest purpose is amplifying what makes us most human. And that's not naive optimism. It's a strategic necessity.

An edited version of this blog first appeared in Campaign Brief.