Cannes Lions 2026 Special: OpenAI, Zoom, Under Armour, Accenture Song on How Soft Skills Are the Hard Skills Now

What if the four people setting AI strategy at some of the world's biggest brands all showed up in the same tent at Cannes — and none of them agreed on what "restraint" actually means?

This special live episode of Prompted was recorded at the Canva Creative Cabana at Cannes Lions 2026, where Cameron Adams sat down with four marketing leaders navigating AI's collision with advertising: Kimberly Storin (CMO, Zoom), Sean Lyons (Chief Strategy Officer, Accenture Song), Liz Bacelar (Global Head of AI, Under Armour), and Elke Karskens (Head of International Marketing, OpenAI).

Kimberly unpacks how Zoom is repositioning from "pandemic video app" to full productivity platform, why her team built a cross-functional SWAT unit just to track how Zoom shows up inside ChatGPT and Gemini, and why she thinks "soft skills" like empathy and emotional intelligence are quietly becoming the hardest skills marketers need. Sean breaks down where AI is actually earning its keep in creative workflows — mood boards and rapid prototyping, not final craft — and makes the case that agentic commerce is really just "search on steroids" that sends people back to brand sites rather than replacing them. Liz, building Under Armour's AI org from scratch, introduces her framework for "restraint": why she'd never greenlight a synthetic Brazilian football match but might allow synthetic kids in apparel ads, and why she's more worried about leaders declaring "we don't need designers anymore" than about AI slop itself. And Elke gives a first-hand look inside OpenAI's marketing machine. Why the brand's ad campaigns were deliberately built to feel human-made, how voice (and a lapel mic worn all day) has replaced typing as her main interface with Codex, and what OpenAI's brand-new in-chat ads platform does and doesn't allow advertisers to see.

Key Quotes

“Everybody's using the same models and you really have to work on finding ways to build distinctiveness through the agents that you're building or through the inputs that you're putting in.” – Kimberly Storin, Zoom

“I think you need to then proceed to decreasing the power of the AI team and democratizing the AI and actually fractionalize that across the organization. And then this head of AI becomes more of a symbolic role, and heads of AI are created everywhere.” – Liz Bacelar, Under Armour

“The how has fundamentally changed, and I do find that our industry is one that has always really leaned into innovation more so than a lot of other industries which is why it's so energizing to be part of this ecosystem.” – Elke Karskens, OpenAI

“Seeing all those choices quickly, understanding which ones to do, and then really the creative leadership role becomes about making those choices on behalf of brand, on behalf of your company.” – Sean Lyons, Accenture Song

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

00:51 Setting the Scene

01:43 ChatGPT: not even 3 years old, already closing in on a billion weekly users.

03:06 OpenAI's ad strategy on purpose: no robots, no blinking screens — just human, relatable moments.

04:26 “It’s definitely not business as usual” – AI as a genuine inflection point, not just another cycle

09:12 Zoom's biggest challenge: going from "the meeting app" to a full productivity platform.

11:07 Inside the Workflow

16:12 Step one of AI adoption: understand each department's maturity stage before you brief them.

20:38 Growth OS: test ideas on synthetic audiences, then validate with real people before you commit.

22:24 Ethics, Trust & the Synthetic Line

24:17 AI can generate the desert backdrop — but not the exact paint job on the car. Know where the line is.

31:24 Trust has to be the red thread through everything — brand level and product level alike.

33:24 The Agent Layer

36:13 SEO asked "is my product listed?" AEO asks "does my product fit in this recipe?"

43:20 Taste, the Flood & the Talent Question

52:45 Too much AI, like too much candy, gives you a tummy ache — and that changes behavior.

01:03:30 Cannes Hot Takes

Links

Subscribe to the Prompted Newsletter: https://promptedwithcam.substack.com/ 

Cameron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themaninblue/
Kimberly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlystorin/

Sean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmlyons/

Liz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizbacelar/

Elke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elke-karskens-33925115/

The State of Marketing and AI Report 2026: https://www.canva.com/marketing-ai-report/?utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=google_youtube&utm_campaign=b2b_dg_global-gen_awareness_pro_wbr_prompted-podcast-2026&utm_content=description-link&utm_term=

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