Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun Explore AI’s Role in the Future of Marketing
At Cannes Lions 2025, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun explore how AI and human creativity can coexist to shape marketing’s next chapter.
At this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, two of the industry’s most forward-thinking leaders Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, and Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis Groupe came together to discuss one of the defining issues of our time, how artificial intelligence is transforming the nature of creativity, and how brands and agencies must adapt.
Their conversation was an exploration of how marketing must evolve in the face of media fragmentation, automation, and shifting consumer expectations.
For Narayen, Adobe’s purpose is rooted in enabling creativity at scale. “Creativity has always been at the heart of Adobe,” he said. He referenced Adobe’s legacy starting from PostScript and the desktop publishing revolution to its current position as a cloud-first, AI-enabled platform powering creative workflows across industries. Today, that mission is expanding through tools like Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI product designed to accelerate ideation through natural language prompts. With Firefly, creatives can test, iterate, and communicate ideas faster bringing clients and collaborators into the ideation process in entirely new ways.
Sadoun, a former creative director before he became Publics’ CEO is never one to avoid difficult questions, was quick to point out that creativity must do more than keep up it must lead. “If we want creative ideas to have impact, they must dominate the media landscape, not be reactive to it,” he said. He underscored the pressure marketers face in an environment where channels have multiplied, attention is scarce, and effectiveness is under the microscope. Yet he was clear, AI is a tool, not a solution. “The real differentiation still comes from the idea. From the humanity behind it.”
Cannes Lions 2025/Getty Images
The conversation delved deep into how AI is shaping the marketing ecosystem. Narayen introduced Adobe’s four-layer AI framework: data, models, agents, and interfaces. It’s a system designed to empower users while maintaining ethical boundaries, especially around intellectual property. “We’ve built our own models, trained on licensed content, so creators retain control over their work,” he explained. He also hinted at a future where clients could train custom models using their own data sets offering a highly tailored, brand-specific application of generative AI.
Sadoun praised Adobe’s emphasis on personalisation and storytelling, noting that Publicis agencies are increasingly relying on data to enhance emotional resonance. But he cautioned against complacency. “AI will not replace creatives,” he said, “but creatives who use AI effectively will replace those who don’t.” For agencies and brands, this means understanding not just the tools, but how to integrate them into campaign development, strategy, and long-term brand building.
A notable theme was cultural change. Narayen and Sadoun both acknowledged that adopting AI isn’t only about implementation it’s about mindset. “You can’t just give someone a platform,” Sadoun noted. “You need to create the right conditions skills, vocabulary, incentives for it to be used effectively.” Narayen shared that Adobe embraces an “open book” policy, using its own tools internally and sharing those experiences with clients to build trust and confidence.
Photo: John Rahim
They also addressed concerns from the creative community particularly around the fear that AI may dilute or replace human originality. Both leaders agreed that AI should serve to augment and amplify creative thinking, not constrain it. “We’re not trying to automate creativity,” Narayen clarified. “We’re trying to make it easier for people to express ideas, to experiment, and to scale their impact.”
Closing the session, Sadoun called on the industry to stay united and embrace bold thinking. “We need to focus on ideas that make a difference to clients, to audiences, to society.” Narayen echoed the sentiment, drawing inspiration from his own early passion for the written word. He advocated for STEAM namely, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics as the foundation for creative innovation, and reaffirmed Adobe’s mission to support creatives in turning their ideas into action.
Their joint message was clear: while the tools are evolving, the fundamentals of storytelling, emotion, and differentiation remain unchanged. The future of marketing will belong to those who can combine the power of technology with the irreplaceable spark of human imagination.
