At A Glance
Cannes Lions 2026 showed that marketers are moving from AI discussion to AI decisioning. This article explains four themes shaping marketing in the second half of 2026: agentic AI, interoperable identity, curated activation, and outcome-based measurement across a more connected ecosystem.If Cannes Lions 2026 had a bingo card, AI would have filled every square. But the week pointed to a bigger story: marketers are rethinking how identity, interoperability, activation quality, and measurement work together as the ecosystem becomes more connected and AI-driven.
As marketing changes, independence matters more. Brands, agencies, publishers, platforms, commerce media networks, and data providers need the flexibility to adapt without being forced into a single workflow, partner path, or technology stack. That requires trusted identity, interoperable data, strong governance, and infrastructure that supports choice across the ecosystem.
Here are the themes that defined Cannes Lions 2026.
1. Agentic AI shifted the conversation from content creation to how marketing decisions get made
Agentic AI shifted the Cannes conversation from content creation to the way marketing decisions get made. Marketers are now asking how AI systems recommend actions, build plans, optimize spend, and shape which brands appear in AI-influenced environments. That shift puts understanding and managing AI-driven decisions at the center of the AI conversation. Marketers need to know what data an AI system is using, which signals it may prioritize, how those signals are governed, and whether the decision path can be explained, tested, and measured.
Agentic AI will raise the stakes for the data collaboration layer because connected data can influence training, decisioning, optimization, activation, and measurement. That makes governance, transparency, and control more important across every environment where data is used.
- Brands need confidence that AI-informed decisions reflect accurate and unbiased customer understanding.
- Agencies need transparent inputs they can defend across clients.
- Platforms and media owners need high-quality signals that improve performance without creating more fragmentation.
- Publishers need clear ways to protect the value of their content and audiences as discovery becomes more automated.
“Everyone wants to talk about agentic AI, but the differentiator is the quality, governance, and connectivity of the data behind it. The organizations that will get the most value from agentic AI are the ones that have invested in trusted identity, strong governance, and interoperable data foundations that allow them to activate, measure, and maintain control at scale.”
ExperianSVP, Product
Agentic AI needs trusted, permissioned, and well-connected data. It needs identity that can support a consistent view of people and households across environments, and governance that gives marketers confidence in how data is connected, activated, and measured.
2. Interoperability is the foundation for flexibility and trust
Interoperability gives marketers the flexibility to work across partners, platforms, and channels without being locked into one commercial environment. At Cannes, it became clear that trusted infrastructure is now central to how teams collaborate, activate audiences, and measure performance.
Cannes also made clear that flexibility has become a business requirement. Marketers are working across more partners, channels, and collaboration environments. Marketers also need to trust the infrastructure underneath it. That means clear governance, aligned incentives, transparent data use, and the ability to measure performance without being locked into one commercial environment.
As the market becomes more connected, teams need identity and data infrastructure that can move across the ecosystem without limiting choice. Interoperability isn’t enough on its own.
- For brands, this starts with making first-party data more usable and scalable across the marketing ecosystem. Customer data becomes more valuable when it can be resolved, enriched, expanded, activated, and measured in privacy-conscious ways. That flexibility helps brands turn owned signals into scalable audience strategies without losing control over how data is used.
- For agencies, it creates more efficient ways to plan, execute, and measure across clients. For commerce media networks, publishers, platforms, and media owners, it helps valuable signals move into market in more usable, governed, and scalable ways.
“The marketers making the most progress today are the ones building flexibility into their data and identity strategies. Interoperability gives them the freedom to work across partners, adapt to change, and trust how audiences are understood and activated.”
ExperianChief Revenue Officer
An independent identity foundation can help connect these environments without forcing every partner into one workflow. Teams need the ability to work across agencies, platforms, publishers, commerce media networks, clean rooms, and media channels while maintaining a consistent view of their audiences, understanding how data is being used, and measuring performance across partners.
3. Curation is a path to better decisions
Curation gives buyers and sellers a more intentional way to bring data and media together. At Cannes, the strongest conversations focused on how better signals, supply, and decisioning can improve performance at the point of activation.
- For brands and agencies, that means media strategies that are easier to explain, optimize, and measure.
- For publishers, platforms, and media owners, it creates new ways to package differentiated inventory with high-quality data.
- For commerce media networks and data providers, it can extend valuable audiences into more scalable activation environments.
“The future of marketing belongs to organizations that prioritize data and audience activation at the centerpiece of every conversation.”
ExperianHead of Audience Activation
This is where curation becomes more than a media tactic. It becomes a way to improve decision quality at the point of activation. When trusted data, identity, and supply come together, marketers can reduce waste, improve relevance, and bring more confidence to each activation decision.
4. Measurement has to account for an AI-shaped customer journey
Measurement remained a consistent theme throughout the week, but the conversation was broader than campaign reporting. Measurement now has to account for more decision points, partners, and AI-shaped interactions. Marketers need to understand how investments influence growth, sales, visits, and other meaningful actions across a journey that may not begin with a search, site visit or traditional ad exposure.
- Brands need to understand which investments are driving customer growth, sales, visits, or other meaningful actions.
- Agencies need proof they can defend across clients and channels.
- Publishers, platforms, commerce media networks, media owners, and data providers need clearer ways to show the value they create as attention, discovery, and activation become more fragmented.
“Marketers are under pressure to prove outcomes, not just report performance. As measurement becomes more fragmented, organizations need a stronger foundation built on identity, interoperable data, and outcome-based measurement.”
ExperianVP, AdTech Sales
The measurement challenge now is about building a trusted view of performance across more decision points, partners, and AI-shaped interactions. It also requires confidence that measurement is grounded in consistent identity, governed data, and infrastructure that supports transparency across the ecosystem. That level of proof depends on stronger connection across planning, activation, and measurement. When teams use a consistent identity foundation and responsible data practices across the journey, they can move beyond delivery metrics and start understanding what worked, where it worked, and how to apply those insights to the next decision.
Continue the conversation beyond Cannes Lions 2026
Cannes Lions 2026 may be over, but the conversations that mattered most are just getting started. The week reinforced a clear market need: marketers want flexibility, transparency, and the ability to collaborate across platforms, partners and channels without sacrificing control. That requires an interoperable approach to identity and data that supports choice, enables collaboration, and helps teams activate and measure.
At Experian, we’re continuing those conversations with brands, agencies, publishers, platforms, commerce media networks, and data providers looking to build stronger connections across the marketing ecosystem. Whether your goal is improving audience activation, expanding addressability, strengthening measurement, or creating more seamless collaboration across partners, we’re focused on helping marketers put these Cannes themes into action.
If we connected in Cannes, (or if you’d like to explore how these trends may impact your business), we’d love to continue the conversation. Reach out to learn how we can help you build a more connected, interoperable, and measurable marketing strategy for what’s next.
FAQs
The main marketing themes from Cannes Lions 2026 were agentic AI, interoperability, curation, and outcome-based measurement. Together, these themes point to a marketing ecosystem where identity, governed data, and partner flexibility are becoming central to how teams plan, activate, and measure.
Marketers are talking about agentic AI now because AI is starting to influence more than creative and workflow efficiency. It’s beginning to shape recommendations, planning, spend decisions, consumer actions, and brand visibility in AI-shaped environments.
Identity matters more as AI becomes part of marketing decisioning because AI systems need accurate, permissioned and connected data to guide useful decisions. A consistent identity foundation helps marketers understand people and households across environments, test decision paths, and measure outcomes with more confidence.
Experian helps marketers act on these Cannes Lions 2026 themes through our identity foundation, data capabilities, and measurement approach that help marketers connect planning, activation and measurement across partners. Experian helps brands, agencies, publishers, platforms, commerce media networks and data providers build interoperable strategies that support flexibility, transparency, and control.
After Cannes Lions 2026, marketers should assess how their identity, data, activation, and measurement strategies work together across the partners they use today. The next step is to identify where fragmentation limits decision quality, audience activation, or proof of performance, then build a more connected approach across the ecosystem.
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In our Ask the Expert series, we interview leaders from our partner organizations who are helping lead their brands to new heights in AdTech. Today’s interview is with Samantha Zhang, Senior Data Scientist, and Jim Meyer, General Manager of the DASH TV Universe Study at the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). DASH is an annual tracking study conducted by the ARF to define and better understand TV audience behavior and household dynamics. What does DASH measure, and how does it help the industry understand TV consumption today? By capturing hundreds of individual- and household-level data points from each respondent in a rigorous and nationally projectable sample, DASH creates a comprehensive picture of U.S. consumer TV “infrastructure” – how America watches. Core elements in DASHElements that create context in DASHTV setsLocation | brand | smartness | service modes | sources DemographicsConnected devices Game consoles |video players | streaming devicesYesterday viewing Daypart | TV/device genre | Out-of-home viewingMobile devicesOwners | sharing usersShoppingOnline and in-store | Exposure to major RMNsInternet serviceModes | ISPs | connectivity by device Streaming audio Streaming TVSVOD/AVOD tiers and sharing | FAST Email accounts and apps Live TV Modes of access | including casting from devices Social media For example, DASH gathers: Data on every TV set, including brand, room location, age, “smartness,” and connection devices and modes Household connectivity and video service data, even in homes with no TV set Internet Service Providers (ISP) and TV service usage, including Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs), virtual vMVPDs, streamers (ad-supported and premium), and Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) channels Person-level ownership and usage of video-capable mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops Measures of viewing and co-viewing across dayparts, devices, and services Additional modules covering shopping and retail media networks, streaming audio, social media, email, and apps Broad coverage and granularity make DASH a uniquely robust source of truth for practitioners across the industry, including measurement experts and ad programming strategists. DASH also reports regularly (and publicly) on key industry dynamics. DASH identified a growing segment of device-only viewers – now nearly 9 million households that watch TV, but do not own a TV set – and highlighted the implications of that trend for traditional ratings systems based only on households with TV sets. Households (HHs – million)2025 HHs (M) U.S. penetrationChange vs. 2024 (M)Total US134.8100%+2.7Connected TV (CTV)114.685%+2.1TV (Set)124.292.2%+1.1Device-only8.86.6%+1.6TV-Accessible133.198.7%+2.7 DASH called out the rise in app-based pay TV and proposed a new connection framework that better represents the modern TV world, in which linear and streaming overlap. DASH also defines the universes of households reachable with advertising. This graphic, for example, shows how all ad-supported linear and streaming properties in aggregate define the true scale of TV advertising. While 35 million households (and growing) are reachable only with streaming ads and 13 million (and falling) only with linear ads, most households are reachable with both, underscoring the importance of understanding the “overlap.” Who uses DASH data, and what decisions does it help inform? There are three primary users of DASH, each with its own use cases: Measurement providers, including Nielsen, use DASH to calibrate viewership data, turn household data into persons data (and vice versa) and estimate potential reached audiences–what the providers call media-related universe estimate (MRUEs)–for the calculation of ratings. Not surprisingly, measurement companies were the first to see the value that an independent TV universe study could provide. Media companies, including major broadcasters and streamers, use DASH to add context and color to their ad sales presentations – and to track the measurement providers, whose ratings play a major role in valuing ad inventory. AdTech companies, including Experian, use DASH to create high-value audience segments for activation. The recent accreditation of DASH by the Media Rating Council (MRC) and adoption by Nielsen as an input to its TV ratings have generated interest from a broad range of companies. We are actively pursuing new licensees and partners to make DASH more useful within, and even outside, the TV ecosystem. What does MRC accreditation signify, and why is it meaningful for DASH? MRC accreditation means DASH passed a rigorous audit conducted by Ernst & Young over many months, which validated our methodology, controls, and data quality. MRC accreditation establishes that DASH is an industry-standard dataset. While the service provider normally announces its own accreditation, the MRC took the unusual step of issuing its own release on DASH, announcing the accreditation of DASH for TV universe estimation and endorsing the study for broader, cross-media use. How does Experian use DASH data to build audiences? The segments combine specific TV usage habits and behaviors from DASH with Experian data on demographics, spending, and other contextual inputs to create a fuller view of consumer viewing behavior. They are designed to be valuable to advertisers in many categories and planning contexts – and to be customizable to fit advertisers’ media targets. The segments can be used to: Apply or suppress audiences to improve target coverage across a campaign Better align media and creative Reach elusive but high-value viewers, such as Ad Avoiders Drive valuable consumer behavior Achieve specific advertising objectives What are some practical use cases for DASH-based audiences? Here are some practical use cases for four different kinds of DASH segments in five different advertiser categories. Travel Co-WatchersA couples-only resort uses TV Co-Watching Households without Children to strengthen target reach and ad memory recallA big theme park destination uses TV Co-Watching Households with Children to reach families in moments of togetherness Home Entertainment TV Owners and Brand LoyalistsA premium TV manufacturer uses the overlap of Multi Brand TV Owners and Single Brand TV Loyalist Households to market its newest TV model to its most loyal consumers. Fast Food Screen Size ViewersA fast food chain with a high-impact new brand campaign uses Large Screen TV Viewers to better align the media and creativeThat same fast food chain uses Small-Screen TV Viewers to drive store traffic by increasing exposure of its retail campaign among on-the-go viewers Financial Services Cord Cutters A personal cost management app and a cash-back credit card target Streaming-First Cord Cutter Households to reach young, tech-savvy, cost-conscious consumers Thanks for the interview. Where can readers learn more about DASH? We started work on DASH seven years ago, and it’s been fun to watch it “grow up.” Our partnership with Experian is a big step toward putting DASH to work for advertisers and agencies. To learn more, visit our site at https://theARF.org/DASH or contact us at DASH@theARF.org. Contact us About our experts Samantha Zhang, Senior Data Scientist at ARF Samantha Zhang is a Senior Data Scientist at the Advertising Research Foundation working on the DASH TV Universe Study, with additional research spanning areas including attention measurement, digital privacy, and artificial intelligence. Jim Meyer, General Manager, DASH, at ARF Jim Meyer is general manager and co-founder of the ARF DASH TV Universe Study and managing partner of Golden Square, LLC, which advises media and research technology companies on growth strategy and development. Latest posts
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