And when this is the case, there is still only one income flow large enough to make a bump: advertising.

This is why Cannes, with its proximity to brand portfolios and Holdco power brokers, becomes more than the backdrop. This is the warm -up act for the inevitable passage of AI in the advertising sector.

“I would not be surprised if it was the play,” said Bose CMO and luxury audio president Jim Mollica, who spoke to Digiday at the festival.

It turns out that this is already the case. Perplexity discreetly sent announcements of ads to the south of France, including Taz Patel, its advertising and purchases manager, who spent the week meeting the agency and the brand leads to show where the company’s advertising company is – and where it wants to go.

Anthropic was there too. As indicated by the information, the company has quietly sent a team of announcements of announcements to Cannes for the first time, including Lexie Barnhom, its influence marketing manager.

“People go from the most monetized space on the web to a space which, at least in theory, would be much more difficult to monetize,” Matthew Dacey, CMO told Tripadvisor. “If they do not discover how to put announcements, they will have big problems.”

This tension occurred several times in conversations with CMOs in the south of France: they fear that as regards juice income, these platforms could end up compromising the usefulness, speed and confidence that made them so useful for so many people in the first place. Because the manufacturing of ads works in environments like Chatgpt or Perplexity is not only a question of inventory. It is a question of integrating into a space which has never been built so that advertisements begin.

“Whatever happens, I think the context becomes more important because they [AI platforms] Know that the user allows them to surface ads in a much more relevant way than what is happening today, “said Dacey.” They [the platforms] I will understand, I just hope that he will take another type of advertising. »»

So far, it’s still not clear. But the bases are being laid. Calmly.

“What always seems to happen in these moments is before they start to take advertising dollars, they start to have conversations to get information from people,” said Mollica, who recalled similar movements from Meta, Google and Twitter during her stay in Disney in the Dughts.

At the time, Cannes was their outing party. Now it seems that the platforms have followed the same script. Customer councils, Holdco partnerships and brand advisory groups are probably the next ones.

But to introduce yourself is only the beginning. The generative AI is delivered with a different set of constraints. Infrastructure costs are overwhelming. Announcements inventory does not yet adapt. And more user requests are always exploratory and non -commercial, making short -term advertising performance a difficult sale. Buyers want a measurement, targeting and safety of BRAD. The platforms are not yet there.

Cannes may have marked the gentle entry of AI into the advertising world, but transforming curiosity into expenses will require more than presenting itself. As advertising manager, who asked not to be appointed because they had a colleague who met perplexity, said: “While more of these solutions from these companies are coming out, we will see more here.”