Advertisers adapt to OpenAI’s chatbot ads push at Cannes Lions

OpenAI used its first Cannes Lions appearance to tell advertisers that ChatGPT is becoming a place to capture buying intent, not just conversation. The company said ChatGPT ads entered testing in February 2026, and that roughly 20% of queries on the platform already have direct commercial intent.

That pitch landed at a festival where the industry was already trying to figure out who will get surfaced inside AI-generated answers as discovery shifts away from traditional search. OpenAI said ChatGPT has nearly 1 billion users and framed the business opportunity as an “intelligence economy,” with users arriving with “a job to be done,” in the words of David Dugan, OpenAI’s head of global ads solutions. The company also said users were closing out of ChatGPT ads 50% less often, an early sign that marketers are treating the format as more than a novelty.

The conversation at Cannes Lions 2026, which ran from June 22 to June 26 in France, was notably less breathless than in prior years. Attendees described the AI discussion as more grounded and pragmatic, even as artificial intelligence remained the dominant theme across the Croisette and inside the Palais des Festivals. One marketing leader summed up the mood as an “arms race” to prove AI value, but much of that value still centered on efficiency rather than immediate business impact.

McKinsey used the festival to push a broader strategic question under the label “agentic advertising: impact on spend and channel mix.” The idea is that AI agents could compress discovery, browsing and purchase into a single intent-driven step, forcing advertisers to rethink where budgets go and which channels still matter when a chatbot can do the shopping prep. That shift is already pushing brands to ask not just how to advertise, but how to be selected by systems that increasingly mediate the path to purchase.

IAB Europe struck a different note, saying AI dominated the week while emphasizing that the industry’s enduring value still comes from human connection, collaboration and community. Creators remained part of that answer for many marketers, who see creator partnerships as a way to keep trust intact and stand out from a flood of AI-generated content, even as they use AI tools to speed influencer workflows and scale production.

That tension defined Cannes: the industry wants the productivity of AI without losing the authenticity that keeps consumers paying attention. With OpenAI now pitching brands on placement inside chat interfaces, the next gatekeeper fight in media is no longer only about ranking in search. It is about who gets surfaced when a chatbot decides what matters.