AI assistants are fundamentally changing how consumers express intent in the digital world - discovering and researching products and services and validating purchase decisions. The creator economy continues to redefine where audiences spend their time, who they trust, and how brands earn attention.

As I shared during my conversation with the Global CTO of Stagwell, Merrill Raman, at Sport Beach during Cannes Lions , the next opportunity isn’t simply understanding these shifts independently. It lies in bringing intelligence from AI conversations and creator-led viewing together, and equipping sales and marketing teams with a more complete picture of how modern consumers discover, engage with, and ultimately choose brands.

That convergence also raises another question: once brands understand where there is creator partnership potential, how do they activate against it at scale without losing the authenticity that made it valuable in the first place?

It’s a key question we explored during Comscore’s program in Cannes, where our off-stage events brought brands together with creators for some candid, off-the-record conversations about how creators can stay true to their craft while building successful brand partnerships. It’s also why we partnered with tubefilter, the Whalar Group and Gospel Stats in the lead up to the event, to curate a list of creators attending Cannes.

"Hundreds of brands and agencies requested access to The Creators List, each looking for a practical way to find and reach the creators who mattered most on the ground. In Cannes, creators showed up eager to connect with brands and strike their own deals - the demand for The Creators List reflected exactly that shift toward direct engagement.” Drew Baldwin, tubefilter CEO

One conversation in particular stood out as will.i.am and creator Baylee Lefton joined Comscore’s panel in the Owners Suite at Sport Beach alongside YouTube’s John Battaglia and UPROXX’s Jarret Myer to explore today’s media buy and how trust in established creators, and trust in an era of AI are increasingly intertwined.

“I love hearing that brands are choosing to work with the creator environment or creator TV, not just as a one-off, but on a calendar. That says to me that they value what's been built for a long time with fandom - over virality”. Jarret Myer, UPROXX CEO

You can watch the full recording here to see these experts articulate why trust will become even more pivotal to online communities as the technology reshapes how they discover, validate, and engage with content.

Intent Signals

Ultimately, the quality of the signal matters more than ever.

As AI tools have moved from emerging to widely adopted, high-value intent signals from consumers have become harder for marketers to discern. Similarly, creators have evolved from being an additive part of viewing to commanding audiences that are as large as - or larger than - content produced within the traditional studio ecosystem.

For years, marketers measured attention, tomorrow they'll measure influence. AI now influences decisions and creators now influence trust. Brands need to understand both. That distinction is strategically differentiating.

The success of the modern CMO is going to be, at least in part, dictated by a fundamental question: what signal are you calibrating your business around? It's not enough to know what answers an LLM produces when given a specific prompt - real insight comes not from the LLM, but from the consumers using it to express their intent. Choosing the wrong signal to optimize on can be the difference between success and failure.

In a world currently trying to understand these changes with synthetic data, Comscore is harnessing the intent signals that can only come from real users engaging with these tools. With our large, opt-in digital panel, we're surfacing this intent on a massive scale in order to help our clients reach consumers in the right place, at the right time.

As we stand at this period of change, we have a solid footing with the data, technology and signals available to build a path forward.

By surfacing true consumer intent, we’re helping brands and advertisers partner with creators to reach the right audiences to drive their business and fuel their growth. With that purpose in front of us, I’m frankly excited to see where it leads.