I spent what felt like a long six days in the South of France for my first Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Somehow, it also went by incredibly fast. Judging by what I experienced, and what has continued to fill my social feeds, there's a good chance many of you were there too.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity returns June 22–26 in Cannes, France. While the Festival has existed for over 70 years, this marks only the third edition of LIONS Creators, its dedicated creator economy program and space, which launched in 2024.

YouTube will begin integrating Veo 3, Google DeepMind’s latest video generation model, into Shorts later this summer. During a keynote at Cannes Lions, CEO Neal Mohan announced the rollout but didn’t share specifics. Shorts are also now averaging over 200 billion daily views.

In 2024, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity debuted LIONS Creators, a dedicated program built to reflect the rising role of creators in today’s marketing landscape. As the initiative heads into its second year (June 16 to 20, 2025), it’s returning bigger.