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At Cannes Lions 2026, Fortune’s Kamal Ahmed sits down with Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook to discuss why human creativity remains essential in the age of AI. Cook explains how leaders can harness AI’s efficiency without “promoting mediocrity at scale” and what the next generation of workers needs to thrive.

Interview with Simon Cook, CEO of LIONS

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AI is rewriting the rules of every industry. Yet Can Lion CEO Simon Cook believes the future belongs to creativity. Since being named Managing Director and later CEO in 2019, Simon has championed creativity as a means of harnessing AI to accelerate, optimize and personalize creative marketing. Fortune was an official media partner at Cannes Lions 2026, giving us access to some of the biggest names at the conference, including Simon. We sat down for a quick conversation in the Carlton Hotel to discuss how business leaders should be thinking about AI and why creativity remains a key competitive advantage for workers of any age. Simon, we're here at Can Lion, we're delighted to be official media partner at this tier one business event, frankly, of course it's about creativity, but it is also about business performance. What do you see as the main themes that are coming through from Cannes Lions this year? I think one of the main themes, and this is a constant because it's every year for us, it's really bringing people together, not just to celebrate the most creative, most effective work on the planet, but also, you know, part of our job is to give CEOs, as we've just been with the C-suite, the tools, the resources, the data that they need to not only make the case for creativity, but to lobby for future investment in creative marketing that matters. And so that is a theme because people are constantly trying to do that. And uh we, we remain here helping them so that the business of creativity continues to thrive. How do you insist, given the data you have to C-suite leaders that marketing, storytelling brand really matters when everyone is looking for direct ROI to the bottom line as quickly as possible. And often the thing that is targeted is the thing that seems most easy to cut. Yeah, that's a great question, and look, I think. The acceleration that we're gonna see with artificial intelligence is profound as we know. But one watch out for all of us is because of the efficiency it's gonna create, because of how targeted, how widespread, how personalized AI is gonna make the messaging, let's make sure that we're not promoting mediocrity at scale. You know, we still need something of a caliber that has cut through in differentiation, and that comes from human creativity. What advice do you have for the next generation of colleagues, employees, our workforces, who are looking at the world and they see questions about mass redundancies? What do you say to my children, 22 and 26, and they look at the world, they think about artificial intelligence. For where you are expert, what do you, what's your message to them about the skill sets they will need as that generation who are now starting to flourish in their first work roles? I'd probably talk to them about how we think about our own brand and the industry that it mirrors. You know, we are constantly internally talking about how we need to honor the past. Make sure that the fundamentals that have served us for so long. Don't get thrown out with the bathwater, but at the same time embrace the future. You know, we have to experiment, we have to embrace and uh harness the power of new technologies in service to the human creative idea. That's what I'd say. You can watch more of Fortune's conversations at Cannes Lions 2026 on Fortune's YouTube page and at Fortune.com.

Cynical headlines about Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s entry into corporate America are hard to ignore, but they are also stepping into a workforce unlike any before. These generations, deeply shaped by technology and instability, bring a distinct lens on work, culture, and reinvention that business can’t afford to ignore. Hear insights about the realities early career workers face today, how they’re challenging legacy cultures, and what leaders must do to move beyond the stereotypes and truly harness the distinct perspective and potential these generations bring. 

Gabrielle Judge, Founder, Ms. Anti Work
Brad Rencher, Chief Executive Officer, Bamboo HR
DV Williams, Chief People Officer, Match Group
Moderator: Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media; Co-Chair, Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit

The New Generations at Work: Moving Beyond the Stereotypes

So Gabriel, your brand is literally anti-work or decentering from your 99 to 5 from being your whole identity. DV, you are trying to retain talent as a at a company where the culture kind of is the product in, in a lot of senses. So I, to start, I, I'm curious if you both agree on what Gen Z actually wants from work. So give me the top thing on your mind that is important to this generation. Gabriel, let's start with you, um. You know it, it's, it's a very interesting time for Gen Z. Um, I would say overall we do want some meaning. Meaning to work looks different than what it did for millennials, um, and so oftentimes it does take being able to sit with them for a little bit and ask those questions of what meaning means. Um, at the same time we don't play the office politics games, and I know that that can be quite challenging and different right now, um, so the whole mode of just communicating in the office is much different right now. Yeah, yeah, I think they want a few things. I think transparency and communication is huge. They want to understand the inner workings of the business, how decisions are made, and how they can impact those decisions. Another component of it is agency. Are they sitting at the tables and have the ability to influence what the product is, how they, uh, you know, how they begin to work together. So they definitely want that influence. They also want to be aligned to the mission. And so that's why you have a lot of Gen Zers who question, they're not questioning the authority of their leaders. They're wanting to understand that they are aligned to how the leaders are running the organization and how the mission is evolving at the company. And so those things are very important to that that group of people. Absolutely. And another thing I think is important right now is AI and how that's affecting this generation because you have young workers who are being told you quickly adapt to AI it's you need to do it to get a job, but then also being told at the same time AI is replacing you, you're not gonna get a job. So I, I'm wondering which is it love for you to debate is the early career dead to AI dead because of AI and why or why not? So, I was going to say early career is not dead at Match Group. I can tell you that for sure. We're actually doubling down on it and starting to implement more entry level roles. We're talking about the Gen Z population who's actually AI native. They grew up with technology that the other generation. did not, so they know it firsthand. And as we think about our end product and the fact that it's going to serve Gen Z and Gen Alpha behind it, we want those people influencing how the product evolves. And so we're doubling down on it through our internship program. We reinstate it as well as implementing more entry level roles. I, I think one part of it that could be refreshing for Gen Z is because their early career they may not have as much, uh, well, let me explain like how millennials are thinking about this. So if you told them for 20 years to do these tasks because it's the entire meaning of your life and then all of a sudden I. We're Gonna automate them with AI and robots. It's almost like, wait, hold on. Was I like a robot this whole time? I think we'll lose. I think we'll not have as much resistance with Gen Z as well in that because they're so early career they don't know what they, what they don't know, right? And they don't have that baggage and they don't have that expectation. Um, at the same time, uh, I really liked your point of high agency with Gen Z because that was, that was the reason I left corporate America, to be frank, that's why, because it almost felt like high agency in order to have those high agency roles took so much time and also so much trust, and it just, it's, it just took too much time. It was too clunky for me, whereas now with social media and AI how it's working today, it's so easy to go independent in some way and so the things that I do at 29. Would have taken me like 20 years to cultivate in a career in, in, uh, in corporate America and so I do, I really like that point that you have with high agency. um, I do think as well early career is gonna look very different for Gen Z. Um, one question I have for you with that is what do these job scopes look like for entry level? How are they changing, if at all? Yeah, so they're definitely changing. The, the goal of, of the output. is similar, like what you need to accomplish. The how is what's shifting. And so instead of saying, hey, this is how we make X, we're saying, hey, the goal is to get to X. Let's think through it as a team on how we get there and how we use AI and technology to help further the mission that then starts to break down the role of the structure that a lot of Gen Zers don't want and it gives them the agency that we just talked about to say we can create the path and we probably can get you there faster. If you don't give us all these hurdles that we need to, you know, kind of overcome, mm, Gilbert, I wanna go back to something you said because you, you left the corporate world. We have a lot of people who are trying to convince your demographic to come to the corporate world. What was it missing that you really didn't see and why did you decide to go out on your own? So I come from the tech industry. I graduated college in 2019, um. I had about a good 7 months until everything closed down, right? So it was so funny because I would be in these meetings every day, remote working and people would be like, I can't wait for it to go back to normal, and I'd be like, I've been remote working for 14 months now in the pandemic, this is my normal. Um, so it's just like a weird time to join the workplace. I will say every time that I would hit around 12 to 18 months with these big tech companies, all of a sudden due to economic factors they wouldn't have departmentwide raises and I was like fool me once, OK, fool me twice, OK, I'm not doing a third time. I'm just gonna figure this out myself. Um, there was also a lot of things going on at the same time where any disgruntledment, anything that made me disgruntled with work, I just had to practice a lot of self. Self-awareness and be like, hey I just Gab, I don't think you wanna be an employee. I think you wanna like take on the risks and that's OK, right? And there's some Gen Z that are like that and there's some that aren't, um, but for me kind of what I was talking about earlier is that agency so I felt either I needed to be micromanaged or be given a lot of free. Like quiet we call it quiet hiring projects outside of my career to like prove myself and things like that um and so I understand why that works and why that worked for so long but I do believe that's an outdated way to um approach talent and so now for me it's like I'm an employer now which is insane and for me I'm always looking for. It, it's strategy at this point, right? I'm not looking for task execution. I could find a VA or I could find, you know, AI to do that. It's more about strategy, um, and so that's where I think the biggest part is going to be is that curiosity, empathy strategy for this next talent of Gen Z. Um, but yeah, that's kind of, I mean, that's, that's why I left and, and just kind of made a career out of it, which is crazy, yeah, and, and DV, hearing, hearing that, how do you, how do you feel about that? Is that how are you trying to prevent that from happening to your young workers and if so, how? Yeah, uh, earlier you had mentioned, uh, during the intro that they're breaking the rules, and I look at it as they're reshaping. Helping evolve how we work all together and so it's less of how do you get them to fit your organization, it's more how is your organization evolving to ensure that they can bring their best work and so it's it's a different approach and it's one that is being forced, which I think is very healthy for us because how we, you know, how we work today is not how we're going to work in the next 5, 10 years. Gabriel, you coined the term and have gone viral for the term. It's called lazy girl jobs. Can you explain to our audience what that means and do they still exist today? Yeah, so lazy girl jobs came from the great resignation era, um, so different time obviously than where we're in today. Um, I'm a huge high achiever. I'm a huge workaholic. I have been since before I had a job. It's just something that was taught in me, uh, from my family. And for me I go 170% at everything that I do, um, and I didn't have a lot of balance and so what was really hard for me was to get a quote unquote lazy girl job which was still a really good job. I was pretty much like an account manager for Wix at the time, um. It wasn't a next rung in the ladder or anything like that. It was just a lateral move, um, and I was able to get my job done in 2 to 4 hours a day and build Miss Anti-Work, the media company that I run today. And so some people get lazy girl jobs because they're. Not careerists and they just want work-life balance. Some get them because they're like me where they're like, OK, I don't have the means or the funds to do my own thing yet, but I wanna try it out in a low risk way, kind of part time while I do something else. Some people start their own therapy practice and are crazy and say that's their lazy girl job. I would disagree. That sounds like a lot of that to be lazy. So, you know, it's like it's, it means. Something to everyone, and I think that's why it popped off so well. At the same time, lazy girl job, those three keywords together are quite controversial. I knew that going into it. I thought it was fun. Uh, that's like, you know, that Gen Z humor. And so, yeah, I mean, that's how I started it and then it, it resulted in tens of thousands of worldwide media mentions. I've met, you know, Doctor Phil and 60 Minutes Minutes and the whole thing, you know, so that was a really fun time. Um, but do they exist today to answer that last question? I mean, I think so. I think they do look different though. I mean, especially just how corporate America works right now, but like I said, it's subjective. It's, it means something to, to, you know, everyone. I think, I think that lazy girl jobs have a time and a place for sure in the workplace at the same time. The division of labor, the wants and needs of these companies are gonna shift so much. I don't know if I would tell an entry level person right now, like, uh, just chill for two years, yeah, just opt out, yeah, yeah, um, DV, I want you to respond, but I just wanna let our audience here know that after this I wanna come to you all for questions. So if you have one, please raise your hand. One of our mic runners will run a mic over to you. But, but DV, I wanna know what you think because, you know, Gabriel's built this following around people who are really resonating with, yeah, I. Want to opt out. Maybe sometimes they want a quiet quit, but you know your job relies on relies on people opting in and really wanting to be their full selves at work. So is there a middle ground and how are you working on finding that? So I think that what she's describing is literally a place and a space for individuals to make a call on. I don't think it's a like a group dynamic and everyone's saying like this we all should be doing this now, so you should conform to that. Uh, we've seen, and what I believe this is the agency part again, what we've seen for people who do want to take like their career in that direction, they would stay in roles because they didn't believe that they could do like this is what they had to do. And when they got the ages and you would sit there and then you would call them a poor performer, no, they weren't being engaged the way that they wanted to be engaged, and it wasn't a good fit for them. And so you see them leaving the workforce, which is positive for them because they're leaving and doing the things that engage them. Uh, in our environment we want to continue to engage them against our mission and make sure that alignment is still strong so we won't see a lot of people who will say, hey, you know, I want a job that's only 2 to 4 hours per week or per day that you work in, uh, that that wouldn't work in terms of how we need to get things accomplished, right? And so for those folks when we identify them, we help them understand like. Is this right for you? Does this work for you? This is what we're trying to accomplish. It's the transparency and communication as opposed to going down a path of you're not good or you're not aligning to what we need out of you and taking that path. And it's more, hey, where are you right now and what is it that you need? And here's what we need and let's see if it's still a match. Excellent. No pun. Any questions from the audience? OK, well, if you do keep raising your hand, I'll keep looking out, but for now, Gabrielle, you've mentioned this before, you know, part of the Gen Z stereotype is how disgruntled they are with work. I, I don't actually don't even know if it's Gen Z. It could be us, us geriatric millennials, and Stevie likes to call us here on stage too. Yeah, but it's, it's, uh, you know, everyone wants to complain about work. It's kind of like a badge of honor. In a way, um, but as we heard on the stage last year we had a panel of Gen Z's, um, there's so many white papers that it's like Gen Z values, integrity values, realness, but then there's still this, this negativity that they have around work. How do we square both of those getting past negativity if I wanna start such a good question, um. I think that Gen Z is pretty nihilist in my opinion than we've seen. I mean, I think millennials had like a grunge phase for a second too when they were younger. I think it's just that teen angst. I don't know. I mean, there's so many different factors going on for Gen Z. We've never been more. The, the global media is, is, is a lot for us, right? So you gotta think back when I was like, I don't know, I don't even know how old I was during the Iraq War. I was like scared, you know, like, and could you imagine now like being a kid and seeing all these TikTok shorts and blah, blah, blah, like all this stuff going on. So there's that aspect, right? So they feel powerless over that. They feel powerless over all these affordability stats that are now coming out, and we're starting to see how much, um, reactions to the pandemic, etc. really change things. Um, there's just so many things. There's the AI conversation, right? There's so many things going on, um, that it's hard for Gen Z to understand what they can and can't control. And so oftentimes the things that they can control, they'll equate to, well, I can't control that either. And so that's where you're seeing that nihilism, that disgruntledness, um, and that's like an important conversation between the distinction of us as well because sometimes my lazy girl job or other trends that I come up with or just my media company as a whole will get. Co-opted by this like disgruntled thing and I, I, I never, I'm not, I'm not into that at all. I think it takes two to tango, right? So it's like you're, you're only a victim for so long with the, with the job that you don't like if you're continuously staying, staying for 6 to 9 months. That's your choice, right? So yeah, I, I think that it's important that we like overall just really touch on that nihilism for Gen Z. I know you all aren't their parents and you shouldn't have to be, but at the same time there's a lot going on for them. It's a different media. Landscape and yes they may say things like they want 100K out of the bat and that sounds crazy. I live in Colorado. You need to make 250K just to like live and breathe. So it's just, it's a different time, you know, that's, that's where that energy is coming from. Yeah, I agree. You know, as you think about it, I don't see it as much as disgruntle as them questioning what are the reasons to believe in what they're doing. Like why am I here? They're like, we only have so much time. There's a lot of negativity that they see or perceive in the world, and they're like, Is this what I want to spend my time doing? Have we done our jobs and saying, hey, align to our mission, do this work, and if not they're going to question you and they're asking those questions not to be angry and not to be bitter they're asking those questions to say, do I continue to invest in this and they're doing it in a way that generations before them couldn't. And because of that it comes off as very angry. If you look at how many generations we have in the workforce, some people would never question their manager. They would never, you know, speak in a meeting unless they were spoken directly to. And then you have people who are taught you ask questions to truly understand the answer like you need to know these things before you start to make decisions and so they do and they bring that to work. Sometimes people are offended by that, but that's what we've evolved into and if you're doing your job right, you should be able to answer those questions and if you don't have the answer or if you don't have an answer that they like, they will still respect you more by giving them the transparent answer and communicating with them instead of trying. To belittle them by title or age or level and you know kind of discrediting the fact that you know they're negotiating whether or not they still want to show up for you. Yeah, very quick last question fire round for you both. What parts of the traditional workplace do you think are going to die either because of Gen Z or Gen Alpha's expectations or because of AI? Is it the 9 to 5? Is it 40 hour work weeks? Anything you think is not gonna be around in 10 to 15 years? The 9 to 5 shift for sure. Reid Hoffman's done a really good job of breaking that down of like what autonomous agents are gonna look like in the workplace. I think it's the death of that 40 hour 9 to 5 here very soon. I think that and it's very relevant to our field that uh growth for you know growth as an employee looks like a hierarchical move up as opposed to it'll it'll evolve more into the development and skill acquisition. Oh yeah, those are great ones. Well, thank you both so much for all your insights. Thank you so much. Thank you.

AI can analyze, remix, and replicate — but can it help us create something genuinely new? That question now sits at the center of modern design. IDEO CEO Mike Peng argues that AI can be used to generate original work, but only when humans lead with curiosity and intent, using intelligent tools not to repeat what’s been done but to provoke what hasn’t. How can designers push AI beyond familiar patterns, harness it to challenge assumptions, and build workflows where machine intelligence sparks unexpected directions? How can AI be used to produce work that surprises, delights, and stands apart in a world where sameness or even plagiarism is only a prompt away?

The Creative Edges of AI

Companies everywhere are racing to turbocharge their products and services with AI. How can we harness the power of this new technology in a way that enhances our humanity rather than eclipses it?  Mauro Porcini argues that the next era of brand leadership depends on a straightforward equation: AI multiplied by emotional intelligence and human warmth. AI × (EI + HI). He explains how design can be used to restore narrative and meaning to products built on advanced computation, how leaders can craft a voice that stands out in an age of automated sameness, and why even the most technologically driven companies must double down on humanity.

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