The more artificial intelligence advances, the more humanity matters.

The more artificial intelligence advances, the more humanity matters.

Every year, Cannes Lions offers a glimpse of where marketing and creativity are heading. This year, one idea stood out: as artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, distinctly human qualities become more valuable.

I sat down with Irina Rodina, a long-time fellow traveler of Innate Motion, to explore what this means for brands and leaders, from the growing value of meaning and judgment to the changing role of creativity in the age of AI.

Irina is a global marketing leader and independent advisor with more than 25 years of experience across Bacardi, Kraft Heinz, Unilever, and Barilla, spanning strategy, innovation, insights, media, and culture.

Femke: Looking back at Cannes this year, what stayed with you most?

Irina: The sense that humanity is becoming a competitive advantage.

The more AI and technology become ubiquitous, the more distinctly human qualities begin to matter. So many conversations came back to meaning, creativity, identity, connection, agency, and taste.

If I had to reduce Cannes to two words, they would be meaning and taste.

Femke: Meaning feels immediately relevant. But what do you mean by taste?

Irina: I mean something broader than aesthetics or personal preference. Taste is judgment in action: the ability to recognize what matters, apply clear criteria, and make good choices.

That becomes increasingly important in a world of abundance. AI gives us more content, ideas, and possibilities than ever before. But when almost anything can be generated, the challenge is no longer producing more. It is deciding what is worth producing.

For years, brands competed for attention. Today, attention can be generated on an enormous scale. The harder question is whether any of it means something. Meaning is essentially about making sense of the world and our place within it, our identity. So meaning becomes the filter – it is what people notice, choose to carry forward, share, and return to. The brands that win will not necessarily be those that create the most noise. They will be those who create the strongest sense of relevance, significance, connection, and systems to share and amplify the meaning.

Femke: So, as the number of possibilities grows, the ability to choose becomes more valuable?

Irina: Exactly. Knowledge alone is no longer enough. Leaders need to know what deserves amplification, what should be edited, and what should be left behind. As AI increases the volume of possibilities, value shifts from generating to selecting, shaping, and directing. That is where judgment—and ultimately leadership—comes in.

Femke: How does that change the role of creativity?

Irina: I think it brings creativity back to the center. AI is rapidly commoditizing production. It can generate assets, variations, and ideas incredibly quickly. But that makes the deeply human dimensions of creativity—imagination, originality, perspective, and courage—even more valuable. The interesting conversation is no longer humans versus machines. It is about how they work together and the role each should play. AI can expand the possibilities. Human creativity gives those possibilities direction.

Femke: What does that ask of leaders?

Irina: It asks them to make more conscious choices.

The biggest leadership question of the AI era may not be, “What can AI do?” but, “What should humans continue to do?” What do we automate? What do we deliberately keep human? Which decisions can we outsource, and which ones shape who we are? That is ultimately a question of agency.

Femke: What did Cannes reveal about the value of human connection?

Irina: The irony is that the more digital and automated our lives become, the more valuable real human experiences feel. There was a lot of discussion about community, intimacy, emotional connection, and shared physical experiences. Human connection is beginning to feel like a form of luxury. Technology is not replacing the need for connection. In many ways, it is intensifying it.

Femke: How was that reflected in the conversation around brands?

Irina: Brand building is clearly back. After years of focus on performance marketing, the conversation returned to memory, distinctiveness, cultural relevance, and long-term value. There was a renewed recognition that brands need to stand for something people can recognize, remember, and care about. When products, content and execution become easier to reproduce, what cannot be easily copied becomes much more important: a recognisable point of view, a meaningful role in culture and a relationship people genuinely value. Distinctiveness becomes an antidote to commoditization.

Femke: How is the role of creators evolving within that landscape?

Irina: Creators are becoming part of the infrastructure. They are no longer treated as a side conversation or simply another media channel. The question has shifted from, “Should we work with creators?” to, “How do we build with creators?” That is a profound change. It means involving creators earlier, giving them greater ownership, and recognizing that they bring more than reach. They bring perspective, trust, community, and cultural fluency.

Femke: When you bring all of these ideas together, what do you think the future of marketing looks like?

Irina: Technological capability alone will not be enough. As production becomes easier and content becomes infinite, differentiation will come from deeply human qualities: judgment, imagination, meaning, connection, and the courage to make clear choices.

The future will not belong to the brands that simply use the most technology. It will belong to those who know what technology is for.