Three Ad Tech Shifts to Watch at Cannes

This year, Cannes Lions isn’t just a celebration of creativity and marketing. For better or worse, it’s a stress test for an industry in flux. From agency restructurings to economic uncertainty, advertising is being reshaped in real time.  

And in ad tech — which underpins it all — the pace of change is even faster, fueled by AI, shifting channels, and growing complexity around data. Amid the plentiful rosé and sunshine, here are the three themes I expect to dominate ad tech conversations this week. 

How Real Is Your Agent? 

AI dominated Cannes last year, but the conversation is evolving. It has shifted from generic AI hype to Agentic AI, the systems that don’t just generate responses but actually take action and complete tasks on your behalf, autonomously and at scale. In theory, this should be a watershed moment. But in ad tech? It’s mostly noise. Companies are slapping the term “agentic” on any product with a basic prompt-response interface. That’s not agentic AI. 

What we’re seeing is a wave of opportunistic rebranding as companies chase fresh funding. Expect “agentic” to be one of the most abused buzzwords at Cannes this year. True agentic systems are pre-trained and actually intelligent, capable of making decisions and executing workflows with minimal human input. Most ad tech companies still don’t have a credible AI story, let alone real agentic capabilities. But that won’t stop them from pretending they do.

CTV Wants SMBs, and It Shows 

Cannes isn’t exactly known for championing small businesses. But 2025 has brought a growing push to get SMBs and DTC brands more meaningfully involved in connected TV, and the buzz around it will likely continue along the Croisette this week. CTV can’t scale forever without broader advertiser participation. To unlock the next phase of growth, platforms need to open up programmatic access and tools and make “performance TV” feel real. They also have to make it accessible — both in cost and in complexity — to businesses without Super Bowl budgets or major agency support.  

This explains why companies like MNTN are showing up at Cannes ready to make a splash. Roku and Comcast are also leaning into SMBs, offering lower entry points and self-serve tools designed for smaller advertisers. The message may not be tailored to the Cannes elite, but the opportunity is clear: CTV needs a middle class.

Retail Media Is Dead. Long Live Media Networks 

Retail media is undergoing an identity shift. In fact, it’s no longer just about retailers. Marriott, Western Union, and even Chuck E. Cheese are launching media networks. The term “retail” can’t contain what this has become. At this point, any brand with scaled first-party data and media assets can spin up a media network and, increasingly, they are.  (This is a drum I’ve been beating for some time, and the IAB recently endorsed that thinking.) More importantly, the focus is moving well beyond owned-and-operated properties to include off-site extension. Initially, retail media was prized for its proximity to purchase, with ads running on retailer-owned sites near checkout. But now, the value increasingly lies in using that data across the open web. 

Marriott’s media network, for example, isn’t just about marriott.com or Marriott in-app inventory. It’s about activating traveler intent data across the broader internet. The same goes for financial and entertainment brands, as well as any other media networks. Expect to hear less about “retail” and more about “commerce” or simply “media networks” — and a lot more emphasis on off-site activation, which has quietly become the fastest-growing offering. 

Some of these discussions may sound semantic, but in reality, they’re structural. We need to align on what truly qualifies as agentic AI and stop mislabeling basic automation of Gen AI. We need to democratize CTV by making performance TV real in terms of accessibility and measurability, so it’s more than just a buzzword. And we need to move beyond the limitations of “retail media” and embrace the broader, more scalable future of “commerce media.” Cannes is a good sandbox for these conversations, as it’s reshaping what’s to come in the second half and beyond.