What Silverpush Saw at Cairns Crocodiles 2026: The AI Conversation Finally Got Honest

Last week, the Silverpush team was on the ground at Cairns Crocodiles 2026 for three days of panels, networking, beachfront conversations, and one very public ChatGPT meltdown. (More on that in a moment.)

The festival drew over 2,100 attendees this year and added two new tracks: Travel Marketing and Film & Screen. The agenda spanned attention recession, brand-as-culture, artists' rights in an AI age, sustainability as leadership, and protecting Indigenous cultural IP. Six conversations on paper. In the corridors, one. How real is the AI shift, and how do we use it without breaking something we cannot fix.

Here's what we took home.

1. The Hemingway's Panel Set the Tone for the Week

On Day 1, Silverpush hosted a panel at Hemingway's Brewery under the banner "Bullsh*t vs Reality: 2026 Media Trends". IAB Australia CEO Gai Le Roy and Chemist Warehouse's Head of Digital Media Rohan Kohli took the stage with our Silverpush’s Head of Sales ANZ, Jarryd Gaggin, in the moderator's chair.

A surprise third panellist, ChatGPT itself, was called in to play Celebrity Heads. Introduced live on stage, it promised "sharp takes" and "unexpected angles" before fumbling several questions and collapsing entirely during the game, to roars of laughter from the 100-plus crowd.

The metaphor wrote itself.

"I do worry about this middle period," Le Roy said. "I do feel for everyone in the industry who is trying to do two or three jobs before the tools are ready to run on their own." Kohli put it plainer: AI is augmenting his team, not replacing it.

That distinction, between augmentation and autonomy, defined every serious conversation we had across the three days. The industry has finally stopped pretending the tools are ready to run on their own.

2. ANZ Is Leading APAC in Adoption. Most Teams Aren't Ready for It.

The data underneath the festival mood backs the panel up almost exactly.

ANZ leads APAC in generative AI adoption, with 29% of brands deploying or evaluating it in 2025, doubled from 14% a year earlier. That's the fastest growth rate in the region.

But only 12% of executives report that operational AI delivers consistent ROI. 59% cite governance and privacy as their top barrier to scaling.

That isn't a contradiction. It's the most honest snapshot of a market in transition you'll see this year. ANZ is moving fast and openly admitting it isn't ready, which is the most useful thing a region can do at this stage.

3. The Money Is Already Moving Toward Context

If the AI conversation was the headline, the spend data was the under-told story.

Internet advertising in Australia hit $18.4 billion AUD in 2025, growing 11.5% year on year. Video led the charge, climbing 19.8% to $5.4 billion and now representing 29% of total digital spend. Social video jumped 35.1%. The money is leaving the parts of digital that depend on third-party identifiers and pouring into video-rich, content-led environments where contextual relevance actually works.

This is the terrain Silverpush has been built for. AI that reads video at scale, decodes context, and surfaces intent signals without relying on identifiers that are quietly disappearing. Contextual intelligence isn't a hype topic in ANZ. It's where the spending is already going.

4. Travel Marketing Earned Its Own Stage. We Brought Receipts.

One of the festival's biggest shifts this year was the launch of the Travel Marketing Track, signalling that tourism, aviation, hospitality, and destination brands are now central to the regional creative conversation. Sessions covered youth travel rebrands, AI-shaped discovery, and Gen Z engagement, all circling the same question: how do you reach travellers in the moments where decisions actually form?

That's a question we've been mapping. ANZ generated 33 billion travel content views over the past year, growing 28% to 32% year on year, with the region delivering over 17 million monthly impressions of high-value long-haul travellers. 35% of Aussies have booked trips based on inspiration from YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Discovery here is video-led, and it starts well before search.

Our newly released ANZ Travel Playbook 2026 maps where that intent peaks across seven travel content categories, who drives demand, and when to activate. A regional tourism brand applying these signals through Silverpush's Mirrors platform recently drove 160% higher CTR and 18% higher VCR against benchmarks, not by buying more impressions, but by buying the right moments.

Looking Ahead

Cairns 2026 didn't end the AI conversation. It demanded a better version of it. The brands that win in this market will be the ones who choose AI partners based on what the technology actually delivers, not by how loudly it markets itself.

Huge thanks to Gai Le Roy and Rohan Kohli for being terrific on the panel, to Jarryd for steering it brilliantly, and to everyone who packed Hemingway's or shared a beachfront chat across the week. See you in the deep end next year.

If your 2026 travel campaign is in build, download the ANZ Travel Playbook here.