June 25, 2025  |  SIGN UP

Ronan Shields
SENIOR REPORTER, AD TECH

As most readers know, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity took place last week, a five-day sojourn where the ad industry collectively toasts its success in public, but privately frets over existential threats.    

While the industry decamped to the French Riviera, the phrase ‘AI’ was on everyone’s lips. Still, while the phrase anchored almost every press release last week, the real conversations were happening behind closed doors, according to Digiday’s sources. 

Publicly, the tone was one of cautious optimism, but privately, the ad industry is grappling with AI’s accelerating disruption — from automating media planning to shifting power dynamics in the value chain. Recently, IAB Tech Lab's Anthony Katsur outlined his outfit’s plans to help publishers through this transition, but it’s unclear if the emerging AI platforms will play nice.  

Meanwhile, platforms like Perplexity are already laying foundations for ad businesses quietly, while agencies scramble to adapt, often avoiding uncomfortable truths about how AI is reshaping roles as well as their relevance. 

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