From AI Films to Canon’s New Cinema Camera: My Takeaways from DMEXCO 2025

Last week, I attended DMEXCO 2025, and wow, what an experience! Unlike other conferences where I’m usually behind the camera, this time I went purely to attend, learn, and get inspired.

A few reflections & takeaways that really stuck with me:

• Cultural storytelling > consumption storytelling

• Creator-driven content continues to outperform traditional campaigns

• AI is not replacing creativity. It’s amplifying it (but it needs a human touch)

• Local relevance matters more than ever in global campaigns

• Lidlize campaign by LIDL is an inspiring example of smart, creative AI application in marketing. Check it out if you haven’t.

• And one of the most powerful reminders: home, sadly, is the most dangerous place for women worldwide, shared through AXA’s award-winning, emotional ad focusing on domestic violence.

One of the most eye-opening moments was during a panel with TaxFix, Dominos, and award-winning AI filmmaker Axel Schilling. The consensus was clear: if someone claims they can produce an AI film or ad in just two days, they’re not telling the full story. The reality? Great AI films take time, creativity, and iteration. Even Dominos shared that their very first AI-generated ad took them 6–8 weeks to create. That perspective really grounded the conversation around AI. It’s powerful, but it’s no magic shortcut.

But beyond the sessions, DMEXCO was about conversations. And oh boy, they were sooo cool.

At the Canon booth, I played around with the new Canon EOS C50 Cinema Camera even before its release, and loved discovering it could shoot RAW just like a Blackmagic! That sparked a one-hour geek-out with a Canon expert, where I kept insisting why I’m a proud Lumix fanboy.

At the Google booth, I spoke with some Veo3 experts and learned new workarounds for uploading human realistic references, and also got a first-hand look at ViGenAiR, Google’s new tool that can convert, resize, and edit video content for multiple platforms using AI. A complete game-changer for content creators! What made it extra fun: All these conversations I was having with Google auf Deutsch, switching back to English only when I got stuck, and the Google folks were super sweet about it. They even registered me into a bootcamp in German to explore Veo3 further. 😬

To me, DMEXCO felt like an intersection of technology, creativity, and culture. I left with so many ideas and reassurance that I’m still a Lumix fanboy at heart, but I have to admit… I’m very curious about the Canon EOS C50 after seeing how the footage looked.