Thank you so much for joining us and our P&G friends for a high-energy morning full of great ideas and even better company!

Relive the highlights here!

I had the honor of moderating the 𝗣&𝗚 𝗔𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗻𝗶 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸’𝘀 𝟱𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗹 at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — held at Chez Vayner, with thanks to Gary Vaynerchuk and the VaynerX team for hosting us.

Four trailblazers I deeply respect, each bringing a different kind of intelligence to the table:

⭐ Jim Stengel — Industry Intelligence. Decades of pattern recognition on what drives growth no model has been trained to replicate. Our very own 𝗟𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲. The Jim Stengel Company

⭐ Laura Knebusch — Commercial Intelligence. Turning AI into brand decisions, P&L impact, and real scale. Georgia-Pacific LLC

⭐ Chad Reynolds — People Intelligence. Understanding people — motivation, behavior — at a depth most marketers assume they already have. Vurvey Labs

⭐ Andrew Swinand — Creative Intelligence. Generating and producing at a speed and scale the industry has never seen. Inspired Thinking Group (ITG)

We didn’t talk about AI as a tool. We talked about AI as a cognitive shift.

Here’s the idea we keep coming back to:
⭐ 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 — the analytical, the operational, the “get me the answer fast” side of marketing — faster than any human can
⭐ 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻. It raises the stakes on it. Taste. Judgment. Empathy. Curiosity. Intuition. The ability to look at what AI hands you and ask, “Is this actually right? Does it make sense?”

I call this the 𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗫𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗦 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗗. The marketers who win in this next era won’t be the ones who defer to AI — they’ll be the ones who know how to interrogate it, challenge it and toggle between left and right in an iterative flow.

𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿:

⭐ 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗽 — a phrase that treats people as one checkpoint in a machine’s process.
⭐ I think about it as 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 — AI surrounds the work, accelerates it, generates options at a scale no team could match. But the human is still the center everything radiates from. The judgment. The intent. The why behind the what. 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗽.

Huge thanks to Jim, Laura, Chad, and Andrew for bringing real rigor and real stories to this conversation — and to Vayner for the home base on the Croisette that made it all come together.

Raquelle Zuzarte,  CMO and Board Member for the P&G Alumni Network

#CannesLions2026 #AI #Marketing #Leadership