Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity attendees struck an optimistic tone this week as they begin to find new ways past the artificial intelligence upheaval.

• The Croisette was buzzing about authenticity, human connection and storytelling.

Why it matters: AI is upending every industry, and the winners of this nascent era will be those who can capitalize on technological advances and the human factor unleashed by those gains.

• Many delegates Axios spoke to this week are already implementing AI into their workflows.

Case in point: Reddit's daily active users continue to grow while the platform becomes a top-cited platform for large language models.

• The company is benefiting from people's desire for authenticity, similar to how it gained traction as social media became "performative and shallow," CEO Steve Huffman told Axios' Sara Fischer on Tuesday.
• "It's the same thing," he said. "The sanitized, summarized, concise, sterile answer from AI causes people to appreciate Reddit more — the real, the messy, the multiple points of views, you know, the tension in the answers."
• "People want people, and in the era of AI, people want people even more."

Zoom in: Business leaders told Axios their companies are ramping up in-person experiences and creator partnerships to build community and fandom.

• ESPN's live studio on Santa Monica Pier next year for the Super Bowl will also include fan activations, said Rita Ferro, president of global advertising at The Walt Disney Co.
• Spotify rolled out Reserved tickets for artists' top fans on its platform earlier this year. "The way we think about it is: it is an investment in our Premium user base. It's about retention," Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström told Axios' Sara Fischer on Tuesday.

Yes, but: Brands have to show up in ways that make sense for their audiences.

• "Brands have to respect and appreciate the direct relationship that creators have to their audience, and how much trust comes from that audience, and brands have to relinquish some control," United Talent Agency CEO David Kramer told Axios' Sara Fischer yesterday.
• "I think that's really important for brands to look at these people not in an endorsement, transactional sort of way, but more of a long-term partnership. And those are the brands I think they're going to get the most bang for their buck."

The bottom line: AI will accelerate some processes, like buying decisions, but brands still need that connection first to come out on top.

• For example, while agentic shopping might lead a consumer to buy a product every few months, Samantha Critchell, head of corporate communications at Elf Beauty, noted that the decision about which item will still require a connection to a brand first.
• "When you have community and content and commerce all together, that's really where the magic happens," eBay chief communications officer Gigi Ganatra Duff said during an Axios roundtable.

Here's a snapshot of other conversations on Axios stages this week:

🤖 People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel accused Google of abusing its market power by using the same crawler for both search and AI.

• Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that "splitting the crawler up is the key to getting Google to play by the same rules as everyone else."

📰 The New York Times is confident in its AI legal fights and believes the law is on its side, president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said.

🕶️ Snap CEO Evan Spiegel defended the rollout of Specs, saying the augmented reality glasses are a bet on the shift back to in-person connection.

🏈 Disney's sweeping plans for next year's Super Bowl will flex the entertainment giant's massive platform across broadcast, streaming and experiences, Ferro said.

🤳 As the creator economy matures, founders are weighing growth opportunities against retaining control of their businesses. Selling isn't the default endgame anymore.

Missed us on yacht row? Catch up on Axios House Cannes programming on YouTube.

Industry leaders across media, advertising, technology and entertainment shared their best advice and must-pack items for the Cannes gauntlet.

🧠 Jill Kramer, chief marketing and communications officer at Mastercard, recommends setting aside "think time."

• "The biggest thing [is] about the amount of things I've heard already this week that I want to make sure I remember, and we don't tend to give ourselves the time to synthesize, and you're too tired at the end," she said.

🙂‍↕️ John Kozack, president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing for TelevisaUnivision, offered these two pieces of wisdom:

• "Just say yes. Take the meeting, because you never know where that's going to lead."
• "Stay out of the gutter bar at 2am. That's never good for anyone."

🏃‍♂️ Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao said the best way to fight jet lag is to break a sweat, especially an early morning run.

• "We're never going to be out that often in front of water like this," he said. "So, tomorrow morning, go running outside."

💭 Christine's thought bubble: I took Karthik's advice and joined iHeartMedia for Diplo's Run Club yesterday morning and barely hung on to the front pack for the first 1.5 miles before wising up and dropping into a brisk walk.

• Lesson learned: there's nothing like proper hydration and sufficient fueling for Côte d'Azur's hot weather.

Packing list recommendations include:

• 👟 "A good hat and some comfortable walking shoes are really key," Omnicom Public Relations CEO Chris Foster said.
• 😎 "You got to have a good pair of sunglasses here," Kramer said.
• ☀️ "This is like the lamest answer in the whole world, but I packed SPF 100 sunscreen," commercial video creator Grace Wells said.

👋 Simon here! What a way to start my time at Axios. It's not every job where you get to onboard on board a yacht!

• I'll confess, I stole that pun from one very clever comms leader I met this week, and that gets to the real value of my time at Cannes. The casual, unstructured and honest chats with so many professionals I met.

I'm leaving Cannes with three key beliefs reinforced:

• Communicators who are passionate about the work and who deeply care about audiences are essential to any successful enterprise.
• There's nothing like seeing someone face-to-face to build meaningful community.
• At the heart of it all — both communications and communities — is that old saying in journalism: "Tell me a story."

More — much more! — to come.

Programming note: We'll be off next week ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. The next edition will be in your inboxes July 9, authored by Simon.

🥂 À plus.