From flights in, to rides across the Croisette, to conversations over cocktails, for one week Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2026 becomes a live map of how people move, gather, discover, and decide.

The festival brings together the community shaping the future of marketing, technology, and media. It is a global stage where the industry debates what is changing, where investment is moving, and which partners are best positioned to help brands grow. For Uber Advertising, Cannes is a strategic platform to advance our point of view, engage in the industry’s most important conversations, and demonstrate how brands can connect with consumers across real-world journeys.

Here are three themes we saw driving the conversation this year, and how Uber Advertising advanced each one across Cannes.

1. Commerce media is moving from the digital shelf to daily life

It is no surprise that commerce media is becoming one of the most important ways brands connect with consumers, and the conversation at Cannes reflected a category entering its next phase. As investment expands beyond traditional retail media environments, commerce media represents everyday moments that shape what people buy, where they go, what they order, and how they move through the world.

That idea anchored our EMARKETER session, From Digital Shelf to Daily Life: The Future of Commerce Media, where Sarah Marzano, VP & Principal Analyst, Commerce Media at EMARKETER, joined Kristi Argyilan, Global Head of Uber Advertising, to discuss what the next phase of commerce media means for marketers now.

Sarah Marzano of EMARKETER joins Kristi Argyilan of Uber Advertising at Cannes

"What I see in Uber is a broader definition of commerce media: the richness of people around the world going places and getting things, hour by hour, and the opportunity for brands to show up in those moments in ways that feel truly relevant."

— Kristi Argyilan, Global Head of Uber Advertising, in conversation with Beet.TV

This shift underpinned the announcements we shared at Cannes, centered on two parts of the Uber Advertising platform: what brands can activate and how they can activate it.

What brands can activate is expanding across the moments when intent is forming. New announcements like Offsite Ads, Mobility Offers, Deal Drops, and Reorder Rewards give advertisers more ways to meet consumers as they discover, ride, order, redeem, reorder, and decide what comes next.

How brands can activate is becoming easier to access and scale. Uber Marketing Manager and APIs are helping advertisers and partners activate, manage, and measure Uber Advertising through more connected workflows.

Mobility Offers turn attention into action through value

2. AI is changing how people decide and how marketers show up

AI was the defining topic at Cannes, and the conversation is quickly expanding from what AI can create to how it’s changing the way people search, shop, plan, compare, and make decisions. For marketers, that means looking beyond the technology itself and understanding how AI is reshaping consumer behaviour, marketing workflows, and the way leaders turn experimentation into business outcomes.

At Shelly Palmer’s breakfast, From Proxy to Truth, Kristi Argyilan joined Dane Mathews, Global Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Taco Bell, to discuss how leaders can turn AI from an abstract technology discussion into a practical growth agenda. The session focused on a clear idea: AI is a leadership challenge as much as a technology challenge. The opportunity is not AI for AI’s sake, but better business outcomes, better customer experiences, faster innovation, and more useful ways to connect with consumers.

Dane Mathews of Taco Bell joins Kristi Argyilan of Uber Advertising at Shelly Palmer's breakfast

A human-centered view of AI also came into focus at The Female Quotient’s FQ Beach, where Jess Shuraleff, Head of US&C Advertising Sales joined Danielle Betras of NYT Wirecutter, Anja Spielmann of Royal Canin, Nyma Quidwai of VIZIO, and Elizabeth Preis of Victoria’s Secret & Co. for a conversation called Connected Commerce: Buy the Feeling, where they discussed experiences that feel less like transactions and more like discovery, community, or culture. The panel explored how AI and connected technology are reshaping the way brands show up in people’s lives — making commerce feel more intuitive, personal, human, and seamlessly woven into everyday experiences.

Nate Elliott of EMARKETER discusses AI adoption curve with Edwin Wong of Uber Advertising

At the Uber Villa, we taped a live episode of Decoder Podcast Live from Cannes: Advertising in the Agentic AI Era, followed by an audience Q&A with The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Digitas North America CEO Amy Lanzi. The conversation explored how agentic AI and search are reshaping advertising — and why brands will need brand identity, data infrastructure, media networks, and commerce platforms to work together as AI changes how people find information and make decisions.

The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Digitas North America CEO Amy Lanzi records a live podcast at the Uber Villa

3. The fan journey is bigger than the game

Football made the Cannes conversation feel especially tangible because match day already moves across many moments: where fans watch, how they get there, who they meet, what they order, how they celebrate, and how they get home. The opportunity for brands is moving beyond standard match-time exposure toward deeper fan engagement, where they can help shape the fan experience in real time.

At Decoding the Signal of Sports Fans at Stagwell SPORT BEACH, Edwin Wong joined Katherine Shappley of LinkedIn, Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills, Dan Gardner of Code and Theory, and Matt Spiegel of TransUnion to discuss how understanding fan behaviour can help brands move from the sidelines to the centre of the game-time experience.

Edwin Wong, Head of Global Measurement Science at Stagwell SPORT BEACH

Back at the Uber Villa and across the Stagwell SPORT BEACH stages, our World Cup data visualization experience extended that conversation by showing how fan behaviour comes to life in the real world: where people go, what they order, when demand peaks, and how patterns shift across cities and markets.

“What we see from our own agency partners when we collaborate from the same starting point are more relevant campaigns that enhance the consumers’ in-the-moment experience — faster iteration, sharper formats, and work that adapts as audiences do"

- Corey Rados, Global Head of Creative Strategy, in conversation with Digiday

As Creative Studio rolls out into additional markets, the opportunity is to connect media with the real-world experiences surrounding everyday and cultural moments. By showing up in the moments before, and the moments after events brands move from visibility to participation.

How Uber Advertising showed up across the Cannes consumer journey

For one week, the festival became a microcosm of the Uber consumer journey: people arriving, moving, discovering, dining, connecting, celebrating, and deciding what came next. For Uber Advertising, it was the perfect opportunity to turn the platform story into a real-world journey.

Across that journey, Uber Advertising and our partners showed how brands can become part of the moments they care about most: moments of decision surrounding key moments of commerce media.

The media journey surrounded moments before, during, and after Cannes 

Delta in-flight ads, welcome digital screens at NCE airport, and Journey Ads greeted attendees as they made their way into Cannes.

The Uber Villa became a hub for client connection and conversations

Across three days of programming and client meetings, the Uber Villa created space for conversation, discovery, and engagement — bringing together partners, clients, and industry leaders across the week.

Beyond the Villa, the Uber experience moved with attendees

Across the Croisette, where getting from one meeting to the next can be its own challenge, Uber-branded mokes turned movement through Cannes into a timely and useful brand experience.

As the day turned into night, the Vesuvio pizza window takeover met people in a moment that was memorable and unmistakably Cannes: a late-night slice as the perfect end to the night.

From shore to sea, the Uber Boat activation extended the journey beyond the Croisette, delivering ice cream cones as the perfect way to cool down after the festival

And as attendees headed home, The Female Quotient co-branded shuttle to NCE helped send attendees off on a warm note.

From attention to action

Across Cannes, movement was the connective thread across culture, commerce, technology, a constant force in the moments that shape what people do, where they go, and what they choose next.

That is the opportunity ahead: helping brands move with people through the real-world journeys that define daily life. From digital touchpoints to IRL experiences, across moments big and small, Uber Advertising is where life’s movement becomes your brand’s momentum.

To learn more about how Uber Advertising helps brands connect with consumers across the moments that matter, visit Uber Advertising or connect with your Uber Advertising representative.