At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, actress Demi Moore made a statement about AI that has garnered much attention. “AI is here,” she stated. “And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it, I think, is a more valuable path to take.”

The statement from Moore may be addressing a sobering reality or “fascist propaganda” depending on who you ask, but it set the tone for a Cannes Film Festival that has been reflecting largely on the role of AI in filmmaking, with the topic taking up more attention than the glamorous A-listers descending on the French Riviera in droves, particularly with Meta as the official festival partner this year, as part of a multi-year deal.

Moore wasn’t the only figure to speak on AI’s growing relevance in the creative industry. Speaking at a Cannes Film Festival masterclass, Peter Jackson said that though AI is “going to destroy the world,” when it comes to its use in film, he doesn’t “dislike it at all. “I mean, to me, it’s just a special effect,” Jackson said. “It’s no different from other special effects.

This more relaxed approach wasn’t shared by everyone. Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada said, “When AI is used to create an artwork or produce a ​video, you effectively skip over the process and jump straight to ⁠the result and, in doing so, we, who ought to be the ones ​expressing ourselves, lose sight of the very process in which we are to ​increase our understanding of the world."

With divisive opinions shared about AI use at this year’s festival and in general – 59%

of Americans and 58% of Britons feel uneasy about the potential role of AI in our society – it’s clear that the topic and ambiguity around artificial intelligence continues to intrigue many. But as The Wrap editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman writes: “What’s clear is that the AI has turned a corner among some film professionals, from being the object of panic and hostility and existential threat to real curiosity over how the technology can be leveraged to make filmmaking more economically viable.”

So, with AI becoming increasingly involved in creative industries, what does it signify today?

AI has officially entered the creative mainstream

Well, this year’s Cannes shows AI is now embedded into filmmaking and no longer a speculative conversation. This has been reflected in Meta being an official Cannes partner in a multi-year deal, showing AI is now integrated into the festival ecosystem, and how AI tools are being used in selected productions outside of the competition. It also hasn’t been left to fringe panel discussions but is happening on the main stage at an industry-wide level, showing its importance and impact. The question around AI has moved from whether it will have an impact on film and creativity to how it is already being used in production and distribution. AI is no longer disrupting the film industry as insiders aim to build greater infrastructure around it. For example, Disney has deployed internal chatbots and agentic AI tools, including ‘DisneyGPT’ and systems like the ‘Disney Ads Agent’ to automate marketing workflows. Meanwhile, Amazon plans to use AI to speed up TV and film production.

Divided definitions of what AI is within creativity

The varying opinions among stars like Demi Moore and Koji Fukada highlight a split interpretation of what AI is within this creative space. While Moore leans into acceptance and adaptation, Fukada sees it as a potential loss of the process of filmmaking by jumping “straight to the result”. This signifies how creative industries are still grappling with AI adoption, with no clear consensus just yet on what AI is in relation to authorship. This also speaks to a potential deeper anxiety around human authorship and the importance of the creative process, as highlighted by Fukada. By speeding up processes, the journey to get there is minimised, potentially limiting the human value of creative work. Indeed, 73% of creative workers believe AI is already eroding the quality of creative output.

This is a sentiment shared by many, as seen with the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes, and one of the core issues was digital replicas of actors, with new rules now requiring informed consent for creating digital likenesses; compensation for use of AI-generated replicas and limits on reuse of performance data without permission. This highlights how the AI debate isn’t centred around efficiency, which is a core focus, but about originality, authorship and emotional legitimacy of human-made work – and the stance on this in the creative industry still varies greatly.

What does this mean for brands?

The conversation around AI use at Cannes isn’t about replacing creativity outright, but the perceived loss of human input within it. For brands, audiences will want to know whether something is human-made, whether the idea originated with an actual human, and what is human vs machine-generated. These distinctions will need to be made clear to maintain trust with audiences, but also to serve as a differentiator for those who want to lean into human-led and created content that feels culturally resonant. For brands still wanting to navigate that middle, ‘human-led, AI-assisted’ becomes the safest positioning, signalling human intention and not just production efficiency.

Cannes this year has also shown competing views around AI – some based on inevitability, others viewing it as a threat to the process, and in Peter Jackson’s case, merely a tool. These different views are also reflected by viewers, and for brands, it’s important to operate inside this same split mindset, creating campaigns that have a coherent AI philosophy and stance of its usage versus just AI capability.

While glitz and glamour may be Cannes status quo, this year is looking a little more like a creative industry quietly beta-testing its own future.