DMEXCO 2026 bets everything on scaling AI

Sorrell, Hulme and Rezo among 1000 speakers across 220 hours of programming

DMEXCO returns to Cologne on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 September, filling halls 6 to 8 and the Congress Centre North at Koelnmesse.

The motto for this edition is "Scaling Intelligence". With it the organisers move the subject that has dominated the past few years onto new ground. What artificial intelligence can do is by now well understood. The question running through this edition is why so few companies get past the pilot stage.

The show backs that up with a figure from its own research. Among German companies, 2 percent manage to raise revenue and cut costs with AI at the same time. The rest get stuck on integration, data quality, unclear ownership and a lack of buy-in on the shop floor. "Wer jetzt nicht skaliert, verliert", says Verena Gründel, director brand and communications at DMEXCO: whoever does not scale now will lose. Dirk Freytag, president of German digital industry body BVDW, stresses the other half of the argument: the full potential of AI is only released in combination with human judgement, creativity and responsibility.

Four worlds, seventeen stages

The layout carries over from last year. The show floor is divided into four DMEXCO Worlds covering agencies, commerce, media and tech, alongside a Start-up Area. Each world has its own stage, in addition to the Center Stage that hosts the keynotes and fireside chats. There is also a Commerce Lounge Stage for marketplaces, checkout and customer experience, a Start-up Stage and an Innovation Stage.

In total the programme runs to seventeen stages, more than 1000 speakers and over 220 hours of sessions. Last year drew roughly 40,000 visitors across 80,000 square metres, with around 700 exhibitors and partners. DMEXCO puts 27 percent of its audience at C-level and 24 percent from outside Germany.

Eleven summits

The substance sits in the summits, half-day blocks built around a single theme. DMEXCO announced ten in May, with Screenforce's Future TV Summit added on top.

The Commerce Summit and the Retail & Commerce Media Summit, the latter powered by BVDW, deal with AI in commerce and international case studies. The Thought Leaders' Summit on the Center Stage and the CMO Summit cover platform strategy and brand stewardship. The AdTech Summit takes on agentic media buying and identity solutions, the MarTech Summit hyperpersonalisation and autonomous marketing.

The DOOH Summit looks at full-funnel strategies in out-of-home and the Agencies Summit at new agency models in the age of AI. The Creativity Summit, run with the Deutscher Digital Award, covers cultural marketing and AI filmmaking. The Creators' Summit, supported by Social Match and the VideoDays Festival, addresses content authenticity and influencer-owned brands.

The weight given to commerce stands out. DMEXCO itself calls the World of Commerce one of the largest and most relevant parts of the show this year, with two of the eleven summits and a lounge stage of its own.

Who is on the bill

A handful of names are worth planning around. Sir Martin Sorrell appears for S4 Capital, in a year when the company paid its first ever dividend while net revenue kept falling. Daniel Hulme speaks as chief AI officer of WPP, the group in the middle of a difficult rebuild of its own. Michael Komasinski, chief executive of Criteo, and Boris Ewenstein, chief executive of OTTO, cover the commerce side.

On the brand side the line-up includes Ulrich Klenke, chief brand officer at Deutsche Telekom, Boris Dolkhani, CMO at Robert Bosch, Tobias Seemann, chief digital officer at adidas, and David Sandström, CMO at Klarna. Douglas Lamont, chief executive of Tony's Chocolonely, brings the Dutch brand to the German main stages.

Analyst Benedict Evans does what he always does, which is the wide shot. From the creator side comes Rezo, one of the few German makers with genuine political weight. DMEXCO also lists executives from Netflix, Meta, Google, Nestlé, Douglas and REWE Group.

What the industry is watching

Three lines run through most of the programme. The first is agentic: media buying and marketing operations no longer steered by people but by AI agents that decide and execute on their own. It is the subject of both the AdTech and the MarTech Summit and it is the most concrete test of the motto.

The second is retail media, which has secured its place in the mix and now raises the harder question of how it is measured and bought alongside the classic channels. Identity solutions belong to the same conversation, because without a workable identity layer the whole structure stalls.

The third is the creator economy, where the debate is moving from reach to authenticity and to the brands that creators build themselves. That sits interestingly against the AI filmmaking block at the Creativity Summit, where the question is how much machine creative work can carry before an audience turns away.

Practical information

Doors open on Wednesday from 9.00 to 18.30 and on Thursday from 9.00 to 17.30. Admission is digital only and lands in the DMEXCO app, which also carries the hall plan and the personal agenda. Cologne is reachable by direct train to Köln Messe/Deutz station, and on show days the ticket doubles as a travel pass on the VRS network.

The full agenda is at dmexco.com

www.dmexco.com

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