Cannes-Lions 2026 | Days 1 & 2: Agentic Media, AI-Native Agencies, Self-Service TV, and the Reinvention of Creativity

With Rio Longacre, Krish Raja & Brett HouseSignal & Noise is on the ground at Cannes-Lions 2026.This year marks the first time Rio Longacre, Krish Raja, and Brett House have attended Cannes together as a team under the Signal & Noise banner. While each of us has been to Cannes in previous years, experiencing it together—and recording conversations live from Hearst House—made this year’s festival something special.And what a year to do it.Cannes Lions 2026 felt bigger, busier, and more energized than ever. The familiar faces from advertising, media, and publishing were all here, but what stood out most was the influx of AI founders, product leaders, engineers, and technologists who are increasingly shaping the future of our industry.This special compilation brings together our Day 1 opening conversation along with every interview recorded during Days 1 and 2 at Hearst House.Across these sessions, we explored some of the biggest themes emerging from Cannes:• Agentic media buying and autonomous analytics• The transformation of agencies into AI-native operating models• Self-service television and the future of premium video advertising• AI-powered measurement, causal modeling, and MMM• The reinvention of creative workflows• Healthcare marketing, discoverability, and the changing physician experience• The role of creators, influencers, and culture in modern brand building🎙 John Hoctor — CEO & Co-Founder, Newton Research; Founder of Data Plus MathJohn discusses analytics agents, causal modeling, MMM, and how Newton is helping agencies such as Horizon Media and Dentsu build toward an agentic future for planning, measurement, and buying.🎙 Robyn Freye — President, Court AvenueRobyn shares her perspective on enterprise AI transformation, organizational redesign, and what it means to build an AI-native agency designed for the intelligence economy.🎙 Daniel Druger — VP Product, Comcast Advertising / Universal AdsDaniel walks through Universal Ads, Comcast’s effort to bring self-service buying to premium television, making TV advertising accessible to millions of businesses that historically couldn’t participate.🎙 Brian Vaughan — Executive Creative Director, ShadowBrian explores how creativity is evolving in the age of AI, why culture-first campaigns still matter, and how PR, creators, celebrity partnerships, and social storytelling can work together to create moments that break through the noise.🎙 Andrea Palmer — CEO, PHM (Publicis Health Media)Andrea discusses healthcare marketing’s evolution from compliance-driven communications to discoverability, influence, and helping physicians and patients navigate an increasingly complex information ecosystem.This compilation episode is available in full on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, while each individual conversation will also be released separately here on YouTube.And we’re only halfway through the week.Days 3 and 4 are coming soon, featuring even more founders, product leaders, agency executives, publishers, and technologists helping define what comes next for media, marketing, AI, and advertising.Stay tuned.🎧 Full compilation available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify📺 Individual interviews dropping soon on YouTubeFeatured Guests📰 More Cannes coverage, articles, and episodes at SignalAndNoise.ai