CANNES – At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, artificial intelligence dominated conversations across the Croisette, and the Beet.TV stage was no exception. In a panel discussion moderated by Beet.TV contributor Tameka Kee, executives from United Airlines, LiveRamp, Newton Research and Microsoft discussed how AI is reshaping data collaboration, media analytics and creative possibilities across industries.
Making data ready faster with AI
Frederick Stanichev, vice president of sales for LiveInsights at LiveRamp, said AI is fundamentally streamlining how companies prepare data for use.
“We actually [are] using AI to simplify the way that actually data is being made ready for consumption,” Stanichev said.
What once required extensive work from data scientists and engineers is now happening much faster.
“We actually here kind of see a much faster time to actually get that ready and getting the insights all kind of the data ready for over analytics agent to actually kind of go and pick it up,” he added.
United Airlines turns to AI for personalization and accessibility
For United Airlines, AI is not only enhancing data processes, but transforming the travel experience. Mike Petrella, managing director of strategic partnerships at Kinective Media by United Airlines, explained how AI curates personalized recommendations for travelers.
“We use AI to curate answers like where’s the best food in Tokyo? What’s the best thing to do at the beach?” Petrella said.
The airline is also leveraging AI to improve accessibility.
“We think about accessibility, AI helping with the creation of audio articles for those who may be blind,” Petrella shared.
Behind the scenes, AI enhances collaboration by making outcomes more efficient.
“It’s the opportunity for us to essentially make outcomes more efficient,” he added, highlighting how AI accelerates data analysis that benefits both travelers and brand partners.
Value of industry-trained AI agents
While large language models like ChatGPT are powerful, they lack domain-specific knowledge, said John Hoctor, co-founder and chief executive of Newton Research.
“They’re not trained on the media industry,” Hoctor said, adding that companies often experiment with general chatbots for media analytics and end up disappointed.
Newton Research takes a different approach.
“We show up with agents that are specifically trained on our industry so that when our agents are deployed within your environment, they come with what feels like seven, eight years of media analytics experience,” Hoctor said.
AI drives efficiency in complex clean room environments
Clean rooms, designed to enable privacy-compliant data collaboration, have historically introduced new layers of complexity. AI is now helping solve that. Petrella described AI as “human-fueled, AI-executed,” emphasizing that AI efficiency depends on human inputs, accurate prompts and constant model iteration.
“What would take 1,000 people could take up 15, 20 minutes,” he said.
Stanichev agreed, pointing to the challenge of aligning disparate datasets from different companies.
“You actually need to go through a process of normalizing the data across all the different partners to make sure that there is a common schema,” he said. AI simplifies that process and reduces the reliance on heavy data science teams, accelerating time to market.
Hoctor shared how Newton agents trained specifically on LiveRamp’s Clean Room API streamline the process further.
“You can ask our agent based upon what’s allowed, what sort of analytics can I do?” he said, noting the agents understand permitted queries and can chain them together to solve real business problems.
Building AI capabilities: buy, build or both?
As AI becomes central to data and media operations, companies face a key decision: build in-house or buy specialized solutions. Hoctor says it depends on complexity.
“The agents that we’re building are more like data scientist agents. They’re complicated,” he said, adding that Newton focuses on building “the best of breed media analytics agents” that can integrate with other platforms.
Tom Koch, director of enterprise sales and partnerships at Microsoft AI, said the answer varies by use case.
“Different levels of spectrum, there will always be a need for build with versus sort of buy or rent solutions,” Koch said.
AI-enhanced partnerships and creativity
Beyond operational efficiencies, AI is also unlocking new creative opportunities. Petrella shared how United’s AI-driven collaborations generate personalized travel experiences.
“It’s that surprise and delight and the experiences that money can’t buy that you’ve curated based on the insight you’ve had through the automation AI extraction,” he said.
Stanichev described how AI is already enabling real-time creative adjustments based on external events, pointing to an example tied to Paris Saint-Germain’s recent Champions League victory.
“Can you actually kind of go and take that signals of that PSG winning, informing kind of a segmentation of a campaign level for Nike, and then Nike can actually kind of go and deliver you kind of the right products for you to go and buy based on your affiliation and demographics? Could be quite amazing,” he said.
Hoctor added that as AI enables more creative variations, it generates valuable signals for further analysis.
“When there’s a ton of creative, it creates a ton more signals and it’s more stuff for us to do analytics on,” he said.
Koch highlighted Microsoft’s Copilot AI developments, which are already enhancing consumer experiences.
“We just announced sort of two new features. One is memory, so your Copilot agent remembering that you prefer to fly United. The second being Actions, which is the collaboration or handoff of I’m searching for a flight and my agent can actually go and book my tickets on Booking.com,” Koch said.
New era of data collaboration
As the conversation wrapped, the panelists agreed that AI is only beginning to reshape how companies collaborate with data, with both technical and creative implications. Whether building bespoke solutions or integrating with specialized partners, organizations across industries are rethinking how they use AI to drive smarter, faster and more personalized outcomes.
You’re watching Beet.TV coverage from Cannes Lion 2025. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
