Expert Advice for Marketing Leaders on MarTech, AI, & CX
Insights, ideas, and best practices for marketers that utilize artificial intelligence in their marketing.
We are on the cusp of an era where our carefully crafted brand messages, sophisticated user experiences, and multi-million dollar campaigns may be interpreted not by a person, but by a machine. This is the world of agentic commerce, where consumers deploy their own AI agents to research, negotiate, and purchase on their behalf.
By 2026, market research won’t be defined by tools, methodologies, or new data streams. It will be defined by something far simpler: the choices researchers make about how to work with artificial intelligence.
The transformative potential of AI in customer experience (CX) is undeniable. While the hype around AI can be overwhelming, its practical applications are already reshaping how businesses interact with their customers. For marketing leaders, understanding how to effectively leverage AI is no longer optional, but a critical competency for success.
The rapid adoption of generative AI is transforming the customer experience landscape in profound ways. We’re moving beyond simply automating tasks and entering a new era where AI-powered interfaces adapt to individual needs, creating seamless and personalized interactions.
The decision of whether to build, buy, or license software has long been a challenge for enterprise marketing leaders. The rapid advancement of AI adoption has only intensified this dilemma, introducing new complexities and considerations. While cost and time remain important factors, AI brings with it a need to carefully evaluate data control, contextual relevance, and the ever-increasing pace of technological change.
The question is no longer if we can use AI to create content, but rather how we can do so without inadvertently dissolving our brand identity into a generic, machine-written slurry. The promise of exponential content volume and velocity has brought with it a paradox: the more content we can create, the greater the risk of losing control over what that content actually says and, more importantly, how it says it.
In today’s ever-shifting marketing landscape, brands face the constant challenge of keeping pace with their customers’ evolving needs and preferences. The ability to adapt quickly, experiment, and personalize experiences is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for survival.
For years, the promise of one-to-one personalization at scale has been the holy grail of digital marketing. We, as leaders, have sat through countless presentations and read innumerable whitepapers on the subject. We’ve invested in platforms, hired data scientists, and run pilot programs. Yet, for many enterprise organizations, personalization has often remained a “sidecar”–an interesting set of experiments running parallel to the core business, but never fully integrated into the engine itself. The sheer volume of data, customer signals, and potential touchpoints made true, dynamic personalization at the scale of a global enterprise feel more like a theoretical ambition than an operational reality.
The current marketing landscape presents a paradox. While the transformative potential of AI has become increasingly evident, many marketers find themselves grappling with uncertainty, hesitant to fully embrace its power.
While generative AI has captured the imagination of marketers with its ability to create content, agentic AI represents a significant leap forward. This emerging technology moves beyond generating outputs and empowers marketers to automate actions, personalize experiences, and gain deeper insights from their data.
