As algorithms fracture consumer attention into ever-shorter bursts, marketers are being forced to rethink what actually earns a durable connection with an audience. That tension anchored a panel conversation at OpenAP’s Cannes Audience Summit moderated by Alex Heath, author of Sources and co-host of ACCESS, featuring Human Ventures's Joe Marchese, Microsoft's Bryson Gordon, and Publicis Collective's Gretchen Saegh-Fleming, where the group unpacked how AI is reshaping attention, advertising effectiveness and the future of video.
"We don't seek attention. We don't seek to optimize for attention. We seek to optimize for business outcomes, but often attention explains why you achieve them." - Bryson Gordon
Gordon argued that chasing quick wins and sound bites that grab momentary attention fail to build lasting value, using Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's viral long-form essay as proof that substance travels further than brevity. Marchese pushed further, noting AI can only measure what it can see: "the AI doesn't actually know" why a purchase happened, he said, only that it did–leaving the upstream attention that actually drove it unmeasured. Beyond that, he expressed skepticism of agentic search itself, warning that as real publishing struggles to sustain a business model, the models risk feeding on little more than subpar advertorial or branded content dressed up to look credible.
"In a world of AI, being good at human relationships will matter even more." - Joe Marchese
Panelists agreed that infinitely personalized, agent-delivered content can't replace culture. Marchese put it plainly: brands like Rolex "advertise Rolexes to other people so that they know what you're wearing when they see you wearing a Rolex," a signal that only works if there's a shared audience watching. Saegh-Fleming pushed the point further, arguing that AI has simply raised the stakes on marketing's core job of doing it well.
"Marketing is magic and math. The magic is the attention and the human connection... and the math is how that all flows through the algorithm." - Gretchen Saegh-Fleming