The AARON Awards has released AARON Signals 2026, a global report exploring the creative, operational and cultural shifts reshaping advertising and brand storytelling in the AI era. The report, developed from insights gathered through the inaugural AARON Awards, which attracted entries from 45 countries, captures the patterns emerging as AI moves from experimentation into real-world production pipelines.
It’s part industry analysis, part creative snapshot. AARON Signals 2026 draws from awarded work, jury discussions, creator interviews and observations from across agencies, AI-native studios, brands and independent artists globally. The report examines the broader transformation happening underneath creative industries as AI becomes embedded into workflows, production systems and creative decision-making itself.
At the centre of the report is a growing industry reality – making something with AI is no longer impressive on its own. The real difference now is whether the work is actually good.
As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into commercial production, AARON Signals 2026 argues that competitive advantage is no longer simply about access to technology. Differentiation is increasingly being shaped by creative judgement, workflow design, production capability, governance and the ability to direct AI systems with clarity, craft and intent.
The report explores themes including:
• The rise of workflow-led creativity and agentic production systems
• Why hybrid production is emerging as the dominant commercial model
• The growing divide between premium AI craft and commoditised content
• The hidden operational complexity behind AI production
• How brands are navigating governance, risk and creative opportunity
• Why having a creative point of view matters more now that content is easy to generate
• The emergence of AI-native studios and new production roles
• The shift from tool fascination toward systems thinking
One of the clearest insights identified in AARON Signals 2026 was the dominance of speculative and self-initiated creative work across the global AI community. The most-entered category in the inaugural AARON Awards was Best AI Spec Ad for Brand, reflecting an industry still heavily in experimentation mode, with creators using self-initiated projects to explore the boundaries of AI storytelling, craft and production. In comparison, the volume of fully commissioned commercial AI work remains relatively limited globally as brands and agencies continue navigating governance, workflow and operational adoption.
The report also highlights Australia’s strong creative performance on the global stage. While only 7% of total submissions came from Australia, Australian work accounted for 21% of all shortlisted entries. Among the winners was Australian independent creative agency, Thinkerbell, that won Best Hybrid Production for The Last Order, created for Menulog Australia.
Marie-Céline Merret Wirström, co-founder of the AARON Awards and MC&V, stated, “For us, it was important to document and share what we’re seeing through AARON to help the industry evolve. Through the submitted work itself and conversations with the people actively making this work every day. There’s a huge amount of learning happening across the community right now, but not enough of it is being properly captured or shared.”
Vinne Schifferstein Vidal, co-founder of the AARON Awards and MC&V, added, “We’ve built a global community of more than 2,000 AI artists, creatives and makers around AARON, and many of the insights in this report come directly from the people shaping this space in real time. Voices like Rory Flynn, Hugo Barbera and many others who’ve been experimenting, building workflows and pushing AI production forward for years now. What makes this report different is that it’s grounded in the day-to-day reality of making the work, not just high-level theory of corporate forecasting. These are the people actually building what the industry is seeing out there.”
The release continues the broader mission of the AARON Awards – recognising AI as a legitimate creative discipline, setting a benchmark for creative excellence in the space, and celebrating the human direction, originality and craft behind the work.
Named after pioneering AI artist system, AARON, the awards were founded to spotlight excellence in AI-driven advertising and brand storytelling, independent of specific tools or platforms.
The inaugural AARON Awards featured a global jury spanning creative, production and technology leadership from companies including Monks, Google, Jellyfish, Code and Theory, Edelman, Springboards, Envato and LTX Studio.
AARON Signals 2026 is available now as a free download.
