The World AI Cannes Festival 2026 brought together more than 10,000 professionals and over 300 speakers at the Palais des Festivals for two intense days fully dedicated to the future of artificial intelligence in business and society.
Beyond the impressive concentration of technologies and use cases, the programme strongly emphasized AI governance, ethics and regulation, with dedicated tracks exploring how rules and values can drive innovation instead of slowing it down.
GlobalAI Association was present throughout the two days with Pasquale Falconio, President of GlobalAI Association France, and Marco Bena, Head of Communication of GlobalAI, to follow the sessions, meet partners and represent our commitment to ethical and internationally‑oriented AI.
Together, we used this opportunity to deepen existing relationships and to explore concrete collaboration ideas with several speakers, organizations and ecosystems active in responsible AI and global governance.
Across keynotes, panels and thematic sessions on AI for business, health, finance and new generations of AI systems, many discussions focused on the conditions for building trustworthy AI: transparency of models, accountability of actors, human oversight and the protection of fundamental rights.
Several debates highlighted the need for shared principles that can be understood and adopted across regions and cultures, rather than being limited to a single geopolitical bloc or to purely commercial interests.
In the spaces dedicated to democracy, digital governance and technology diplomacy, speakers underlined how AI can support more inclusive, evidence‑based public debate if developed within robust democratic frameworks.
This approach resonated particularly with our mission at GlobalAI Association: foster international cooperation around ethical and responsible AI, encourage dialogue between industry, academia, civil society and institutions, and promote standards that remain open, interoperable and independent of short‑term economic or geopolitical agendas.
Over these two days in Cannes, we met many partners who share this vision of an AI serving people first, and we leave WAICF 2026 even more convinced that ethics, trust and global collaboration are not constraints, but key levers for sustainable innovation.
