A chat with Jess Davies

Everyone said AI. The 2026 Cannes Lions meant humanity.

Every conversation at Cannes this year was about AI. The message between the lines confirmed the opposite: the future of monetisation lies in humanity. Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., provocatively defined the 2026 Cannes Lions as “the first post-ad tech, post-open web Cannes” on Brian Morrissey’s

The Slowest Fastbreak in History

In 2009 I failed to convince sports businesses to monetise their fans like media audiences. Seventeen years later, Fastbreak Digital comes back to life.

You Cannot AI Generate a Ferrari

I have always found the comparison of digital advertising to an ecosystem more revealing than the cosmetic use of the word across the industry. It highlights the importance of its different components but also explains why imbalance is not a sustainable state. That holds true with AI, for different reasons.

Adtech No Longer Needs Premium Media Brands

For 15 years, much of adtech sold a lie the industry was happy to buy: infinite reach without sacrificing quality. The pitch survived only because quality media owners legitimised with their presence pipes full of Made for Advertising (MFA) inventory and the long tail of low-quality content. Generative AI