The Industry Is Betting That Scale Plus AI Equals Value. Dentsu’s New CEO Disagrees
At Cannes Lions, Dentsu’s new CEO Takeshi Sano argued that as AI commoditises agency output, the industry’s consolidation bet is targeting the wrong variable
Takeshi Sano, Dentsu’s CEO, held two sessions at Cannes Lions Festival on the second day of the festival: first a press lunch with industry journalists, then a public session on the Debussy stage in the afternoon conducted by CNBC’s Julia Boorstin. Taken together, the two appearances amounted to his most extended public statement since taking the global CEO role roughly 100 days ago. He continues to run Dentsu Japan simultaneously, a dual mandate unchanged since his appointment earlier this year.
That Japanese foundation, built over 125 years and the most stable part of a business undergoing significant international restructuring, ran through the core of his argument at both events.
Cannes Lions has become a specific kind of stage for the heads of the major holding companies, a place where differentiation claims are made in front of people well placed to test them. This year that pressure carries added weight. The merger of Omnicom and IPG has further consolidated the competitive landscape, and the question of where Dentsu positions itself within it was one Sano addressed directly in both sessions.
The tiger, revisited
In the months before Cannes Lions, Sano attracted attention with remarks framing Dentsu as a “tiger” rather than an “elephant”, shorthand that prompted considerable debate about whether Dentsu, now the smallest of the four major holding companies by global revenue, can compete at the level of the largest players. Asked at the press lunch to address the analogy, he redirected it.
“Dentsu is a global, scaled business. I believe we are the right size. However, the point of the tiger analogy was never about size: it was about being agile, strong, flexible, muscular. Agile enough to move fast and expert enough to have real impact.”
Takeshi Sano, Dentsu’s CEO
Clients, he said, choose Dentsu’s people, ideas, and results rather than the scale of its holding company. He named several: Vodafone, BMW, Netflix, Tapestry, Adobe, and Salesforce. In an AI-enabled world, he argued, that dynamic may be shifting further in Dentsu’s favour. As AI commoditises certain capabilities, agility may matter more, not less, than the resources that accrue from consolidation.
AI and PI
Sano returned to one framework throughout both sessions: AI alongside what he calls “PI”, or People Intelligence: his shorthand for the human judgement and relationships that AI cannot replicate. The pairing appeared in the press lunch and again on stage with Boorstin and is clearly a worked position.
“The real opportunity is combining AI and PI: artificial intelligence and People Intelligence amplifying each other. AI handles the standardised work; our people focus on judgement, imagination, creating ideas that move people, and the human connections that drive a business.”
His argument is that AI expands the range of possibilities available to an organisation but cannot exercise the judgements that create real value. He identified three things he considers inherently human: defining an organisation’s direction, identifying the real issue beneath a client’s stated problem, and building the collective consensus needed for large-scale action. “The real question is not what AI can do: it is what our people and clients choose to do with the time it gives back to them.”
The practical application is Dentsu. Connect 4.0, a composable, interoperable marketing operating system built on proprietary intelligence from decades of campaign data rather than generic AI. Sano described its architecture as designed around openness and composability rather than client lock-in, which he framed as a practical expression of client centricity rather than simply a product decision. Competitors pushing closed systems, he said, cannot offer what decades of embedded campaign knowledge produce.
Restructuring with pace and discipline
Asked about the most significant challenges facing the industry, Sano named three: pace of change, the complexity of operating across an increasingly integrated set of disciplines, and the risk of sameness. The first calls for agility; the second, simplicity; and the third, the risk he sees as most acute in an AI-driven environment where similar tools tend to produce similar outputs, distinctiveness.
On complexity, he has acted. The number of international entities has been reduced since 2021, regional leaders have been given direct accountability, and the layers that slowed decision-making have been removed. The Japanese operation, which Sano led before taking the global role, is the reference point. “We are not trying to export a Japanese model. What is transferable is the mindset: building trusted relationships, working across disciplines, and aligning around the client’s long-term success.”
On the pace of the international rebuild: “The Japan story took time and consistency. We will apply the same approach internationally: execution with pace and discipline, not a transaction.”
One year from now, he described success as an international business with its own distinct competitiveness: clients growing with Dentsu, integrated solutions delivered at scale, and the people building it proud of what they have achieved.
Where Dentsu sees the opening
Sano pointed to the convergence of culture and commerce, across sports, entertainment, and retail, as the biggest opportunity Dentsu is well placed to pursue. The more technology saturates daily life, the more people crave real, emotional experiences, he argued, and Dentsu’s combination of creative, media, data, and cultural capabilities positions it to connect those experiences to measurable commercial outcomes.
The proprietary data underlying all this matters, but it is not the real moat. Culture, in Sano’s framing, is the thing that cannot be acquired or replicated quickly. “Our combination of AI and PI, and a 125-year culture of mutual respect and collaboration, means that as AI commoditises, our people become the true differentiator. That culture is not something you can acquire overnight.”
The bet he doesn’t believe
Sano’s most critical comments came in response to a question about frustrations. Sano offered a sharp assessment of the wider industry and a candid one about Dentsu.
On the industry, he was blunt: “Too many agencies remain fragmented internally, slow to integrate AI, and unwilling to take real accountability for client outcomes end-to-end. That is a disservice to clients.” More pointedly still: “The industry has placed a large bet that scale plus AI equals client value. I am not convinced. What makes a business grow is rarely the size of its agency.”
On Dentsu itself: “We have historically been better at doing than at telling. That frustrates me: Dentsu has 125 years of genuine innovation, and we have not always brought that story forward with the confidence it deserves.”
The combination of a pointed industry critique and a candid admission about Dentsu’s own communication record is an unusual pairing for a new CEO at his first major public appearance in the role. It suggests an appetite for making a direct argument over managing a position. Dentsu has 125 years of material to draw on for the case Sano is making. What changes now, he suggested, is the confidence with which it is made.
