Google Canada’s Laura Pearce: It’s time to claim Canada’s AI advantage

For decades, Canadian marketing has arrived at Cannes Lions with a trademark mix of pride and polite reserve. We punch above our weight in craft, creativity and trust. Yet as the global industry confidently marches into the Age of Intelligence, we’re cautiously hanging a few steps back. 

Laura Pearce, head of marketing at Google Canada, sees this gap as our greatest opportunity. Ahead of Cannes, we sat down with her to talk about how to shift from pilots to scale, and why human judgment matters more – not less – as AI changes how creative work gets done.

Canadian research helped invent modern AI. Why have we been slower than other countries to adopt it? 

Through past technological shifts, Canada has tended to wait and see. We lagged on e-commerce until we caught up in a hurry during the pandemic. That instinct is a little bit in our nature. But the pace of global innovation and the size of the prize demand that we step up. It doesn’t mean charging into places where we’re uncomfortable. It means a genuine spirit of adoption: moving from pilots to substantive use of AI across the whole of marketing – everything that happens before a campaign exists, the campaign itself and the media that amplifies it.

The opportunity is enormous: A 2025 economic impact report by Public First found that AI represents a $230 billion opportunity for the Canadian economy and could save the average Canadian worker around 270 hours a year. That’s time you can give back to people’s lives, or time they can redirect from busywork into thinking, strategy and creativity.

You talk about transforming not just the work, but the way the work gets made. What does that actually look like?

At Google, we think about this in three pillars. The first is: Follow the user. Users are moving at the speed of culture – fast, and seamlessly, between what we call the four Ss: searching, scrolling, streaming and shopping. They’re hugely empowered by AI, so we have to move along with them.

The second is: Follow the models. At I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, we announced Gemini 3.5 Flash, our fastest and highest performing model yet. These models are improving at a pace we haven’t seen before – at Google, we’ve delivered a decade’s worth of innovation in the last year. As marketers, we have to make those models work for us, because they’re getting us to places we didn’t think were possible.

The third is: Follow the money. There are real savings and efficiencies when you bring AI into your marketing – both in how you get it out the door and in how you optimize your media. As we said at Google Marketing Live, the Gemini advantage is your business advantage: The better these models get, the more efficient your media spending becomes.

What is the single biggest shift a Canadian CMO needs to make in the next 12 months?

Have a plan for how you’ll transform the way you work, and start implementing it today. This won’t happen to you – you’ll make it happen. You’re the leaders of your company, and marketing is at the forefront of the AI revolution. CMOs have a real opportunity to lead the whole organization and show that marketing is the tip of the spear.

In an era of infinite, automated content, what role does human judgment play and how can we capitalize on it as a (scarce) valuable export?

When you build human judgment into the process itself, and not just the final output, that’s what gets you to better results. All of us want to protect the value of our brands and the standards we’ve built. At Google we have a concept we call “Google-grade creative,” and we evaluate our work against that bar at every point in the cycle. Every organization has its own version of Google-grade. Human judgment is what makes sure the output of this new, transformed process still meets – and exceeds – the quality you’ve always expected.

What does creative leadership actually look like in 2026?

I’ve been challenging my team to ask not “What can you build with AI?” but “What could we not have built before that we can now with AI?” That’s where the creative opportunity is.

If you’re a creative today, the world is your oyster. There are possibilities we couldn’t have imagined before. In the old world, someone would have a great idea and we’d say, “Yes, but there’s production issue A, and cost issue B.” Today, with these tools and models, creatives can pitch bolder ideas because there are so many more ways to get the work done. That’s the exciting part.

Canada is known for its trusted brands. How can businesses use that as a competitive advantage when people are still a little skeptical of AI?

As a trusted brand, you want to be the one that delivers the answer the user is searching for rather than just delivering an ad. AI Mode, our Gemini-powered search, passed one billion monthly users within its first year, and the more people use it, the more they treat it as a conversation – in fact, the average search query is now about three times as long as it used to be. For example, instead of typing “hiking boots Vancouver,” someone might write, “I’m going to Vancouver, I need hiking boots for an expert trail, and I want them to be comfortable and easy to pack.” If a brand has integrated its data in its search advertising, it’s not just “here are the right boots,” it’s “they’re in stock near you, and here’s the link to buy them.” And we know this works – 75 percent of users agree they are able to make faster, more confident decisions because of AI Overviews and AI Mode. 

Which Cannes trend from last year do you think should have gotten more attention?

So much of the conversation focused on whether brands should use AI to create their spots – an important question, and my answer is: Use it where it opens up opportunities or drives efficiency, but don’t let it replace the expertise, the insight, the idea or the quality. Because so much energy went there, I think we talked less about the deeper shift: transforming the entire marketing process, not just the output.

For 20 years, Google has helped brands reach people at the moment of intent. As AI changes how people search and decide, what does that mean for the way brands reach them?

Google will keep helping brands be the confident answer when consumers are looking for one. That doesn’t change – what changes is how we do it. We now have what we call the “super-empowered consumer.” People have an unprecedented number of tools and an unprecedented amount of information at their fingertips. In the old model, you went shopping – you set out, online or in person, to buy a specific thing. Now shopping is much more simultaneous with discovery. I might be watching a YouTube video from The Sorry Girls, and spot a lamp I like in their room. I can use Google Lens to find that lamp instantly and with AI Mode, I can determine things like what colours are available, where to buy it and what the return policy is. The journey from inspiration to decision is shorter than ever.

Can you point to a Canadian campaign where Google’s AI didn’t just optimize the work, but made something entirely new possible?

One I’ve been talking about a lot is a co-marketing campaign we did with Telus. Their famous critters are a long-held, premium brand asset. We were able to create spots featuring two of them, a chameleon and a peacock, without ever bringing an animal onto a set. We simply didn’t have the time or the production budget to do it the old way – so, in collaboration with Telus and Cossette, we built high-fidelity critter performances with Google AI. 

We also built something we call the “AI Sports Engine,” which we use in our work with the Toronto Raptors and alongside other key sports moments. We combine a uniform creative wrapper with individual AI agents trained to fulfil unique roles – for example, a fan agent for real-time social listening and insights, an idea agent to generate concepts based on trends, and testing and effectiveness agents to help us build high-performing assets. We are able to ship culturally relevant creative within 12 to 24 hours, helping us move at the speed of sport – and our users. 

How is Google levelling the playing field for smaller, independent Canadian shops competing on the global stage?

That’s the best thing about AI: Small businesses now have the same tooling as the biggest companies in the world. One of the hardest things for any marketer is creative variety, which is a major driver of success but a lot of work and expense: making six to 10 versions of an asset instead of two. Democratizing that through AI lets a small shop play at the same level as a major marketing company.

When a CMO pulls you aside at Cannes, what do you think they’re going to say they are most worried about – and what should they be excited about instead?

The fear is usually that AI will somehow diminish your current marketing – but I think it’s the opposite. You’ll still need human judgment, and you’ll still protect your brand the way you always have; none of that changes. But how you get there changes. And the potential it creates for bigger ideas is what makes this moment so exciting.

What’s something in your Cannes carry-on that probably isn’t on anyone else’s packing list?

My Pixel chargers, definitely. And SPF 60. I’m pale and headed straight for the sunshine. Right now I’m into a Supergoop sunscreen; it’s only a 40, but it leaves your skin glowy. I also love Sun Bum. It smells like a vacation in a tube.

What’s something that you’ve read, watched or listened to that has taught you something about the future of the industry?

I’m a big podcast listener. I love that you can go deep on a topic in a way you couldn’t before, and because I’m usually listening while walking my dog rather than multitasking, it actually sinks in. I always come back to Pivot, with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, which does a great job breaking down whatever’s top of mind, sometimes AI, sometimes something else entirely.

I’m also reading Twist by Colum McCann right now. It’s about the subsea internet cables that connect the world, and the crews sent out to repair them. It’s a great reminder of how astonishing it is that the whole planet is linked by cables running along the ocean floor.