Marketing AI Blog
Insights and strategies for marketing leaders exploring AI
What Is MCP, and Why Should CMOs Care?
Model Context Protocol is changing how AI assistants connect with marketing platforms, moving the market from information retrieval toward execution. HubSpot, Adobe and Salesforce are already shipping MCP servers of their own. CMOs need to understand how MCP works, its governance risks and what to do about it now.
Inside the Marketing AI Pulse Executive Forum: A Fireside Chat with McKinsey’s Julie Lowrie on AI in Marketing
At the Marketing AI Pulse Executive Forum, McKinsey’s Julie Lowrie offered a grounded look at how AI is reshaping marketing leadership. The clearest lesson: successful CMOs are not chasing tools first. They are starting with customer pain points, aligning with CFOs, scaling disciplined pilots, and pairing creativity with governance.
Unlocking Human Potential with AI
Most AI implementations follow business's dominant Trade-off Paradigm, treating people as a means to an end. Dr. Paul Nieminen and Rita Farin of The Humanized Co. argue for putting people at the center instead. Their framework — agency, people-first implementation, shaping AI, and feedback loops — keeps humans leading, not just in the loop.
AI ROI in Marketing: Why AI Alone Is Not Enough
AI can speed up marketing execution without improving results. This piece outlines seven factors — strategy, customer context, brand intelligence, governance, technology, human judgment and change management — that determine whether AI investments actually drive marketing ROI.
The Human Equation: What AI Is Really Doing to Marketing Careers
Hire Profile CEO Nancy Gamble shares takeaways from two executive marketing forums on how AI is reshaping marketing careers, entry-level hiring and the human judgment that still anchors good decisions.
How AI Is Reshaping Consumer Insights and Marketing Research
David Jacobson of The Coca-Cola Company explains how AI is reshaping synthetic personas, audience segmentation, creative testing and marketing agents, and why human validation still decides which AI insights make it into a campaign.
Marketing AI Pulse Brief (June 2026): Cannes Lions, CMO AI Gap, NY Disclosure & AI Love-Hate
The June 2026 Marketing AI Pulse Brief unpacks a marketing world splitting in two. From Cannes Lions, Aby Varma and Matt Cyr trace AI becoming the platform default, just as in-camera, human-made work from Apple TV and Coinbase wins the top awards. A BCG study finds 96 percent of CMOs call AI transformational, yet only a third have truly restructured around it. New York's synthetic performer law forces brands to disclose AI-generated humans. And while 60 percent of consumers reject AI in messaging, AI-referred shoppers spend 53 percent more, redrawing the acquisition map.
How AI Search Is Changing Brand Discovery and Paid Media
As a guest on the Off the Rails podcast with Jeff Mason, Spark Novus founder Aby Varma explains generative engine optimization (GEO): the practice of structuring brand content so AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity can find, trust, and cite a company. As buyers shift from clicking search links to asking AI for recommendations, GEO determines whether a brand shows up in the answer.