PREVIEWING:
THE AI + INNOVATION STAGE
MAD//FEST 2026
In partnership with:
23 June 2026
AI has now moved past the buzzword stage, and is being integrated into both teams and processes across all functions of business. From a marketing perspective, discovering how to best use AI in a way that benefits your team and makes sense has never been more important.
From impacting search to idea generation, AI is becoming more and more sophisticated and discovering how to best utilise it, as well as leverage other emerging tech and media channels, will be essential for the future.
How you open creativity up to everyone, without losing the artist behind the work
Everyone’s trying to work out what “ethical AI” actually looks like once it leaves a slide deck. This is a proper, real-world example. Publicis London, Cathay Pacific and Bria launched ‘Asia Just Got Closer’, built on Artfair, an ethical AI platform that connects brands with artists so their work can be used, credited and paid for properly.
Developed as an end-to-end partnership between Publicis London and Bria, the campaign took the idea into the street and handed it to the public: a mural that lead into a QR-led platform where people created their own work, with shortlisted pieces then shown at a live exhibition moment at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 11 June.
With Lisa Delaney, Regional Head of Marketing and Lifestyle Europe, Cathay Pacific and Noël Bunting, Chief Creative Officer, Publicis London.
This is Your Brain on AI: What We Lose When the Machine Thinks for Us
Our industry is obsessed with whether AI will take our jobs. But the deeper anxiety is more intimate: what happens when it starts taking over our thinking, our relationships and our capacity to become who we want to be?
In this controversial talk, Alec Barr explores the cognitive and human cost of our AI obsession through a pop-neuroscience lens, from cognitive offloading to artificial intimacy, to synthetic empathy and the quiet erosion of human judgement.
The dystopian stories we’re told are rarely about the threat of our admin being automated; they’re about minds being hijacked. But is this valid? Drawing on behavioural psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and culture, with shades of Esther Perel, Tristan Harris & Rory Sutherland, this talk asks what AI is really doing to human thinking, identity, intimacy and work.
With Alec Barr, Head of Behavioural Science & UX, OLIVER Agency.
Your brand didn't say that. AI did. Dr. Cecilia Dones in conversation with Iesha White
AI has inserted an unaccountable middle layer into the brand-consumer relationship. Brands built their reputation infrastructure for a world where they controlled the channel and now must adapt.
- AI systems (e.g., LLM summaries, AI search overviews, agentic commerce) are now the first point of contact between a consumer's question and your brand, using data brands didn’t provide and can't audit
- That intermediary layer can be manipulated: poison SEO, synthetic impersonation, and hallucinated brand claims are already happening to brands that have no idea
- Ads in LLMs can pose further opportunities for brand manipulation and impact favourability
- Consent is the structural gap that makes all of it possible and closing it is the first act of brand defense
Key Takeaways:
The session moves through three questions brands should already be asking:
- Where are AI systems speaking for you — and what are they saying?
- Where are you exposed — to manipulation, misrepresentation, or simply being wrong?
- How do you reclaim authority — making owned content AI-legible, establishing provenance, and knowing when the layer is working against you?
With Dr. Cecilia Dones, Founder, 3 Standard Deviations and Iesha White, Director of Intelligence, Check My Ads Institute.
AI Killed the Funnel. What next? Motorway & 21st Century Brand On The New Brand Playbook for LLM-mediated Customer Journeys
Your brand doesn't exist if a machine can't describe it. We've spent decades building brands for humans. Then we optimised for algorithms. Now there's a third frontier. Machine-readable differentiation. The success of multi-million dollar GTM plans now depends on whether machines evaluate your brand as accurately as humans do.
With Neil Barrie, Global CEO & Co-Founder, 21st Century Brand and Naomi Walkland, CMO, Motorway.
Gaming as an Innovation Driver
This session will look at how gaming is an under-utilised channel and how it connects to other channels and can act as a place of innovation and ways to connect with consumers in new ways.
With Sam Wahab, Global Head of Gaming & XR, Charlotte Tilbury, Amanpreet Singh, Senior Digital Brand Experience and Gaming Partnerships Lead, Unilever, Jonathan Gustavii, Director of Strategic Partnerships, The Gang and Jascha Braeker, Senior Partnerships Development Manager, ESL FACEIT Group.
AI Agony Aunt
Stuck on where AI actually earns its keep? Drowning in pilots that never scale? Not sure if the hype is helping or hurting? Pull up a chair.
In this no-slides, no-jargon clinic, a panel of senior marketing and growth leaders takes your real-world AI dilemmas — live, unscripted and answered with the honesty you'd want from a trusted friend, not a vendor. From proving commercial value to getting teams to actually adopt the tools, no question is too awkward.
Bring your toughest AI problem. Leave with a clear, human answer.
With Patrick Williamson, VP of Performance Marketing, MPB, Alessandra Di Lorenzo, Adjust and Mike Pearson, Associate Director Head of Creative, Media and Promotions, Wayfair.
The fight to be distinctive: Why FMCG brands need human messiness in the Age of AI
In an era where AI can optimize supply chains, predict consumer trends, and write copy at lightning speed, FMCG faces a paradox: when everyone has access to the same hyper-efficient algorithms, everything starts to look the same. Private labels thrive on this sameness. It wins on the spreadsheet and price. But great brands are built on human imperfection.
This panel explores why the future of FMCG brands belongs not to the cleanest data and delivery, but to the real, messiest human moments.
While legacy and challenger brands deploy AI for unprecedented efficiency, the industry’s true innovators are aggressively protecting the "human friction" that AI simply cannot replicate. Iconic brands built on real, irreplaceable experiences: the unique ritual of how you flip and eat your Müller Corner, the joyful, messy chaos of Old El Paso fajitas passed across a crowded dinner table, or the simple, tactile human pleasure of getting your hands in the soil.
With Karen Wilkinson, Marketing Director UK and Ireland, Evergreen Garden Care, Mark Brown, Chief Marketing Officer, Hovis, Melissa Goffe, Head of Brand Experience and Marketing Excellence, Müller UK and Ireland, and Valentina Ciobanu, CMO Europe, Australia, and North Asia, General Mills.
BRAND
SPEAKERS INCLUDING:
The human hand in AI: The case for designed imperfection
What does it take to build an AI brand that feels genuinely human? Fresh from announcing a $125m investment at a $1.5bn valuation, Granola joins Ragged Edge to delve into the thinking behind the AI notetaking app's new positioning: an AI built by humans, for humans.
In a world of AI sameness and corporate bloat, Granola worked with Ragged Edge to choose a different path. Incorporating deliberate imperfection, handcrafted design elements and a human-first identity, they’ve created a brand that feels approachable and real.
Anti-corporate slop. Pro-human progress. This session explores why humanity is the ultimate competitive advantage in the age of AI sameness.
With Max Ottignon, Co-Founder, Ragged Edge and Jack Cully, Marketing Lead, Granola.
Join Our Mailing List
Speaker updates, ticket giveaways and exciting opportunities - don’t miss a thing and be the first to know about what’s happening at MAD//Fest
