Podcasts about genai

Peter Giordano, Head of DoorDash Ads at DoorDash, argues that retail media stopped being an ad channel the moment the gap between an impression and a delivered order collapsed to minutes. He and Greg Kihlström get into what that changes for enterprise brands.Commerce platforms are becoming full-funnel media, not a lower-funnel add-on. DoorDash isn't a traditional retailer, and Espinosa explains what its data shows about consumer intent that a retailer's doesn't — and what strains first in an enterprise media plan built around flighting and frequency when the purchase happens in minutes."AI" hides very different decisions inside an ad system. Giordano draws the line between where a model is genuinely making the call — bidding, ranking, creative assembly — and where a person is still setting rules that a system simply executes faster.Retail media's credibility problem is that the network grades its own homework. On the LiveRamp partnership, what an advertiser has to be able to verify independently before an incrementality number means anything, and where DoorDash draws the line on data collaboration.When an AI agent places the order, there's no creative to persuade it. What has to be true about a brand's product data, pricing, and availability to get selected by a machine acting on the customer's behalf.About Peter GiordanoPeter Giordano is GM of Platform & Growth Services for DoorDash Ads. In this role, he is responsible for a variety of initiatives including global expansion; agency partnerships; scaling platform operations and productivity; and developing external integrations and offsite expansion.Previously he was COO at Seva, a venture-backed enterprise software business, where he led go-to-market for their early stage knowledge automation SaaS platform. Before Seva, he held various positions in Revenue Operations and Marketing at Simulmedia, a video advertising technology company, eventually serving as SVP of Sales Operations & Strategy. He started his career in various facets of the media industry in New York – including positions in strategy and marketing at Time Inc.; and roles in the network news division at NBC Universal, including that of producer on the “TODAY” Show. Peter received his undergraduate degree in Government cum laude from Harvard University, and an MBA with honors from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He lives outside of New York City with his wife and two daughters.Peter Giordano on LinkedIn---------- Resources ---------- https://www.doordash.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose.Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Giordano, Head of DoorDash Ads at DoorDash, argues that retail media stopped being an ad channel the moment the gap between an impression and a delivered order collapsed to minutes. He and Greg Kihlström get into what that changes for enterprise brands.Commerce platforms are becoming full-funnel media, not a lower-funnel add-on. DoorDash isn't a traditional retailer, and Espinosa explains what its data shows about consumer intent that a retailer's doesn't — and what strains first in an enterprise media plan built around flighting and frequency when the purchase happens in minutes."AI" hides very different decisions inside an ad system. Giordano draws the line between where a model is genuinely making the call — bidding, ranking, creative assembly — and where a person is still setting rules that a system simply executes faster.Retail media's credibility problem is that the network grades its own homework. On the LiveRamp partnership, what an advertiser has to be able to verify independently before an incrementality number means anything, and where DoorDash draws the line on data collaboration.When an AI agent places the order, there's no creative to persuade it. What has to be true about a brand's product data, pricing, and availability to get selected by a machine acting on the customer's behalf.About Peter GiordanoPeter Giordano is GM of Platform & Growth Services for DoorDash Ads. In this role, he is responsible for a variety of initiatives including global expansion; agency partnerships; scaling platform operations and productivity; and developing external integrations and offsite expansion.Previously he was COO at Seva, a venture-backed enterprise software business, where he led go-to-market for their early stage knowledge automation SaaS platform. Before Seva, he held various positions in Revenue Operations and Marketing at Simulmedia, a video advertising technology company, eventually serving as SVP of Sales Operations & Strategy. He started his career in various facets of the media industry in New York – including positions in strategy and marketing at Time Inc.; and roles in the network news division at NBC Universal, including that of producer on the “TODAY” Show. Peter received his undergraduate degree in Government cum laude from Harvard University, and an MBA with honors from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He lives outside of New York City with his wife and two daughters.Peter Giordano on LinkedIn---------- Resources ---------- https://www.doordash.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose.Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Strong execution might earn results, but it doesn't automatically build influence. In this episode of ThinkCast, Gartner Vice President Analyst Rob O'Donohue explains why CIOs can no longer afford to leave their leadership brand to chance. From understanding the difference between brand and reputation to diagnosing when a reset is needed, Rob shares a practical "4D" Framework to help leaders intentionally shape how they're perceived and trusted across the organization.   You'll learn: Why "doing a great job" is no longer enough to build executive influence The difference between brand and reputation, and why both matter The three events that signal it's time for a leadership brand reset How CIOs can use feedback, GenAI and behavior change to strengthen their reputation What it takes to turn a desired leadership brand into a lasting perception Dig deeper: Become a client to learn more about building your brand Join us at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ See why Gartner is the world authority on AI   Timestamps: (00:00) Understanding the difference between brand and reputation (03:44) The 4D Framework for shaping executive perception (08:53) How GenAI can help strengthen your executive brand (12:00) Identifying gaps between perception and reality (18:36) Turning your brand strategy into daily habits (22:10) Why reputation changes more slowly than behavior (24:22) How to protect and sustain your executive reputation (27:16)The first step to building a stronger executive brand  

What if, by the time a B2B buyer ever talks to your sales team, the decision is already mostly made, and somewhere you can't see and can't measure?For years, agility meant being quick with the latest tools. Now it means something harder: letting go of long-held assumptions about the buyer's journey and accepting that influence has scattered across a decentralized network of peers, creators, and AI — much of it happening in places brands don't control and can't track.Today we're digging into a fundamental shift in how B2B buyers, especially the next generation, actually make decisions. We'll explore:How generational change, led by the most AI-forward buyers yet, is reshaping the B2B buying landscape.Why linear demand-gen models strain in an era of communal buying and AI-driven discovery.The rising pull of peer reviews, independent creators, and AI-generated answers, and what that does to your brand's credibility.To help me dig in, I'd like to welcome Katie Allison, Senior Manager of Research and Insights at TrustRadius by HG Insights. About Katie AllisonKatie Allison, Senior Manager of Research and Insights at TrustRadius, HG Insights, looked into how generational behavior is reshaping go-to-market strategy. She brings a data-backed perspective on how AI, social proof, and digital-native expectations are colliding to change who buyers trust, with recent findings from the From Boomers to Zoomers report. Katie Allison on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kathryn-allison ---------- Resources ---------- TrustRadius by HG Insights: The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1 Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ubisoft uruchamia własną wersję wczesnegodostępu i przy okazji sprzedaje Heroes 3 bez plików gry, streamer pozywa Amazonza trenowanie AI na cudzych transmisjach, prawie co czwarta gra z Opening NightLive używa generatywnej AI, a była islandzka minister ma zrobić z EVE Frontierlaboratorium dla autonomicznych agentów. 

What if, by the time a B2B buyer ever talks to your sales team, the decision is already mostly made, and somewhere you can't see and can't measure?For years, agility meant being quick with the latest tools. Now it means something harder: letting go of long-held assumptions about the buyer's journey and accepting that influence has scattered across a decentralized network of peers, creators, and AI — much of it happening in places brands don't control and can't track.Today we're digging into a fundamental shift in how B2B buyers, especially the next generation, actually make decisions. We'll explore:How generational change, led by the most AI-forward buyers yet, is reshaping the B2B buying landscape.Why linear demand-gen models strain in an era of communal buying and AI-driven discovery.The rising pull of peer reviews, independent creators, and AI-generated answers, and what that does to your brand's credibility.To help me dig in, I'd like to welcome Katie Allison, Senior Manager of Research and Insights at TrustRadius by HG Insights. About Katie AllisonKatie Allison, Senior Manager of Research and Insights at TrustRadius, HG Insights, looked into how generational behavior is reshaping go-to-market strategy. She brings a data-backed perspective on how AI, social proof, and digital-native expectations are colliding to change who buyers trust, with recent findings from the From Boomers to Zoomers report. Katie Allison on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kathryn-allison ---------- Resources ---------- TrustRadius by HG Insights: The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1 Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fanis Mesologitis, MD in Banking, Profile SoftwareGenerative AI is moving from experimentation to enterprise adoption—what will it take for banks to scale AI securely, build trusted data foundations and deliver measurable business value? Puja Sharma of IBS Intelligence speaks to Fanis Mesologitis, Managing Director, Banking at Profile Software, about how financial institutions can move beyond AI pilots, strengthen data quality, balance innovation with governance and regulation, and identify where AI is delivering tangible ROI across banking. 

The gap between creative and media is closing, with large scale creative data and next-gen measurement tools combining to predict commercial outcomes, not just clicks. Boots' Peter Grant, CreativeX's Anastasia Leng and DAIVID's Ian Forrester join the pod to share the lessons from a pilot experiment at health and beauty retailer Boots, and what its taught them about the future of creative effectiveness. Hosted by WARC's David Tiltman.Guests:Peter Grant, interim media and marketing effectiveness director, BootsAnastasia Leng, founder and CEO of CreativeXIan Forrester, founder and CEO of DAIVIDChapters:[00:00] Boots, CreativeX and DAIVID's Real‑World Test[03:55] Boots' effectiveness journey[05:49] 3,500 assets at scale: how CreativeX built creative observability for Boots[07:43] What is a creative quality score?[09:32] Inside DAIVID's model: attention and brand recall metrics[11:41] Human ground truth vs synthetic data panels[12:52] Linking creative signals to real‑world commercial outcomes[14:55] Results of the testing on Meta and YouTube[17:22] Diagnosing boredom, confusion and underperforming creative at scale[20:02] How Boots uses creative data to reinvest, not cut, media spend[22:02] From one‑off analysis to always‑on optimization[24:34] Feeding signals into GenAI and creator workflows[27:26] Fixing long‑tail content waste in digital media[30:18] Common language for creative and media teams[38:06] Boots' 18‑month vision: operationalized creative effectiveness For 40 years, WARC has been providing the marketing industry with rigorous, unbiased evidence and expert effectiveness guidance. The WARC Podcast publishes a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe to The WARC Podcast here: https://www.warc.com/en/warc-podcasts Sign up to daily WARC News for free: https://www.warc.com/en/latest Book a demo: https://www.warc.com/en/subscribe

If a growing share of your customers now begin their shopping journey on a platform you don't own — and can't see into — is your website still your most important marketing asset?Agility here isn't just about reacting to new customer behavior. It's about building an infrastructure that can meet customers wherever they show up, and still have the brand behave like one company when it gets there.Today, we're going to talk about:- The great fragmentation of product discovery and why traditional marketing funnels are becoming obsolete.- Strategies for maintaining brand and data consistency across countless channels when only 14% of consumers say it's done well today.- The role of AI and automation in not just personalizing experiences, but optimizing for new discovery engines.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Gary Lombardo, CMO at Athos Commerce.About Gary LombardoGary Lombardo is Chief Marketing Officer at Athos Commerce, where he leads marketing, brand strategy, communications, and thought leadership. With more than 20 years of experience in retail technology, ecommerce, and SaaS, he helps retailers navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered commerce. Gary is a frequent speaker on topics including artificial intelligence, digital merchandising, product discovery, customer experience, and the future of retail.Gary Lombardo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garylombardo---------- Resources ---------- Athos Commerce: athoscommerce.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don’t get left behind in the AI revolution. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this powerful episode, Vince Menzione sits down with Rebecca Jones of Bridge Partners and Mark Yaphe, Head of Consulting Partners for AWS, to uncover how AI is fundamentally rewiring the partner ecosystem. They explore the urgent shift from 90% stalled AI pilots to a new era of rapid execution, warning against the trap of “shiny object” syndrome. By unpacking the necessity of a “builder mindset” and a product-focused approach, this discussion reveals exactly what top-performing companies are doing to collapse six-month development cycles into four weeks and secure their place in the 2026 market landscape. Key Takeaways The transition from on-prem to cloud and marketplace is now entirely focused on AI transformation. Top companies approach AI with a product mindset rather than running scattershot pilots. Empowering frontline teams with a “builder mindset” can collapse solution cycles from six months to four weeks. Partners must avoid the $260 billion AI “FOMO” trap by specializing in specific industries and workflows rather than trying to do everything. Evaluating the “highest and best use” of AI models like Claude is essential for managing token economics and ROI. Thriving through AI disruption requires cultivating a strong growth mindset and prioritizing human connection and critical thinking. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags AI transformation, AWS partner ecosystem, hyperscaler alignment, builder mindset, product mindset implementation, Bridge Partners insights, GenAI solution cycles, AI token economics, Claude model utilization, GSI strategy, 2026 ecosystem shift, AI ROI measurement, agentic tools, workflow specialization. Transcript Rebecca Jones and Mark Yaphe AUDIO EPISODE [00:00:00] Rebecca Jones: You can either, um, think about being disrupted or being a disruptor. [00:00:07] Vince Menzione: You can feel it happening. The ecosystem is shifting beneath us the way hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel. And what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:18] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host. [00:00:23] Vince Menzione: And each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of [00:00:26] Vince Menzione: technology, partnerships and outcomes, the voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. It is the strategy because being in the room changes everything. [00:00:45] Vince Menzione: Let’s start. We have another incredible session today, right? So I get to invite another friend of, of ultimate partner who’s been around for a while and, uh, it’s just absolutely amazing. Rebecca has been in the studio, she’s been at, how many of events have you been with? Fourth, fourth one, and I’m gonna have you introduce Mark as well. [00:01:10] Vince Menzione: So come on, on stage. Rebecca. Rebecca Jones to many of you know. [00:01:14] Rebecca Jones: Thank you, sir. [00:01:15] Vince Menzione: Good to see you. Good to see you. And Mark, great, great to have you. I want to have you, Richard, we’ll have you, Rebecca’s gonna introduce you and then we want you to introduce yourself as well, sir. [00:01:23] Rebecca Jones: Wonderful. Well, [00:01:24] Vince Menzione: and another AWS exec. [00:01:26] Vince Menzione: I love this. Like, I know. Yeah, we’re finishing out the day Strong. [00:01:28] Rebecca Jones: Well, Vince, I have to say, you’ve got me, um, the last time we got together, it was the last session before happy hour. So I guess we’re closing. [00:01:36] Vince Menzione: Well, you know, we’re gonna close us [00:01:38] Rebecca Jones: out [00:01:38] Vince Menzione: really nicely. Know we, yeah. We’re serving Bloody Mary’s, by the way, while you’re guys are up here. [00:01:42] Vince Menzione: No. Good. [00:01:42] Rebecca Jones: So, um, we’re so excited to have Mark. Thank you, mark, for joining us here. Um, head of consulting partners for AWS and, uh. We’re gonna close this down, aren’t we? I love [00:01:54] Vince Menzione: it. I love it. Yes. I’m looking forward to it. [00:01:56] Rebecca Jones: Okay. [00:01:56] Vince Menzione: So Mark’s well, welcome. Good to have you. [00:01:58] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Do you wanna take a seat? [00:02:00] Vince Menzione: Uh, yeah, [00:02:00] Rebecca Jones: please do. [00:02:01] Rebecca Jones: All right. [00:02:01] Vince Menzione: Please do. I’m morphing the pillows up, by the way. [00:02:05] Rebecca Jones: Oh, are you [00:02:05] Vince Menzione: by the way, for those of who don’t know, these got shipped from my house because we got Oh, I was wondering. It’s hard to find, but yeah. Yeah, they’re, we take them from event to event. It’s so funny to have them. But I wanna, well, thank you for both being here. [00:02:17] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:02:18] Vince Menzione: I think it’d probably be helpful for those who don’t know, bridge Of course. Maybe just spend a moment because I know you well. [00:02:23] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:02:23] Vince Menzione: And we know the organization well, those of us. Those of us. [00:02:26] Rebecca Jones: But for me, uh, so let me talk to you a little bit about Bridge Partners and my role, um, the company has been around for almost two decades. [00:02:34] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. And so when you think about the transformation that’s happened within the tech industry. And our primary focus is the tech industry. Uh, and within that we focus on enterprise companies and we help them with product go to market and how they scale that through partners. Yeah. Uh, so that’s given us a really interesting and, uh, vantage point around the transformations from on-prem to cloud, cloud to marketplace and now marketplace and the transformation with ai. [00:03:04] Vince Menzione: I feel like you’re the McKenzie of the, of the partner business. Like I, [00:03:07] Rebecca Jones: I like that. [00:03:08] Vince Menzione: Can we get that? [00:03:09] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:03:10] Vince Menzione: I’ll, I’ll, I’ll sign an agreement with you, but I really do, I feel like as we work together, bridge was always like the organization we bring in to help us. Solve the big issues. Yeah. Like that I think about your organization. [00:03:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And Mark, talk to me about Global Consulting services. Sure. So is it all GSIs? Is it, [00:03:24] Mark Yaphe: uh, so I head up, uh, global Consulting Partner Marketing. Okay. So I focus really on, on two key categories for the, the more sig larger, uh, GSIs. Uh, I’ve got a team that actually partners very closely with them. Nice. [00:03:36] Mark Yaphe: That helps them develop the right strategies, go to market approaches, nice to unlock the opportunity. And then for the full consulting community, I look at those mechanisms. Go to market approach is leveraging marketplace to help our whole consulting community become successful with AWS. [00:03:51] Vince Menzione: And we’ve got GSIs in the room here, which is kind of cool actually. [00:03:53] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Um, where do we wanna start? Let’s, let’s, [00:03:57] Rebecca Jones: well, yeah, we’ve got a good list of questions to go through. How’s everybody feeling? We’re we’re good? We’re awake. One more session, everyone. Alright. Okay. [00:04:09] Vince Menzione: So Rebecca, uh, across the organizations you work with. What are you seeing from the highest ’cause? I, I say you’re like the McKinsey. [00:04:16] Vince Menzione: What are you seeing from the highest performing companies? Yeah, that they do differently. When it comes to turning your go-to market strategy into outcomes? [00:04:23] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Um, I will say the most important thing that we’re seeing from companies is they’re asking different questions, fundamentally different questions when it comes to ai. [00:04:34] Rebecca Jones: Interesting. [00:04:34] Vince Menzione: What do you mean by that? [00:04:35] Rebecca Jones: Well, we, we talked a lot this morning about there’s never been higher access, and I’ll say general adoption for tools and technology. There was a great stat this morning. Uh, I think Jay shared that, uh, from MIT. [00:04:50] Vince Menzione: We keep looking there as if he’s still [00:04:51] Rebecca Jones: sitting there. [00:04:51] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, I’m looking. Where was Jay? He, he was all over the place. Um, there was a great stat from MIT that there was, you know, if you looked at last year, 90% of pilots. Were stuck and they weren’t going anywhere. And now that’s dropped down to 70%. So there’s movement and transformation. And so when I think about that, and when I go back to the types of questions leaders are asking, um, that are really moving ahead, they’re looking at operating systems differently and they’re looking at, um. [00:05:25] Rebecca Jones: They’re asking the questions on where should I apply AI within those work streams, um, and within those operating systems, and the way in which they’re approaching that is with a product mindset. So that is fundamentally different than just the scattershot of let’s just do pilots everywhere. [00:05:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You’ve talked about product, uh, mindset with me as well. [00:05:48] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:05:48] Vince Menzione: And I think we were gonna talk about builder mindset as well, mark, that that is a kind of a different point of view. When you think about moving from strategy to execution, how does that mindset show up inside teams and organizations? [00:06:00] Mark Yaphe: No, absolutely. Yeah. You know, the notion of the builder mindset is about, uh, taking the notion of innovation and pushing it out to the edge. [00:06:07] Mark Yaphe: Of the organization, um, the greatest ideas for innovation, the greatest things that will help you scale. They’re in the minds of your customers and the people that can best understand them and best address ’em. They’re your teams. Yeah. Your, your customer teams or your technical teams, but unlocking it. You, you want these teams to do more than just have the conversations and understand needs. [00:06:28] Mark Yaphe: You want them to be tooled and equipped to build. Yeah. So the ones that are right in front of the customers. In that moment of need where they say, I’ve got these offerings and these motions, and it gets me this far, but if I could only do a little bit more, I could delight them. I could really power this up. [00:06:45] Mark Yaphe: And so you wanna unlock that. You want to give them the tools to build, to build the POC to address specific, uh, options in the meeting. And then when they’re showing some success, show the rest of the organization how they can scale that. [00:06:58] Vince Menzione: How do you think about, because I think about big GSIs. Having huge organizations like Accenture has half a million people, and then you have customer teams that may not, are, may not be as fluent in the technology side of things. [00:07:13] Vince Menzione: Like how do you make sure that’s getting from the customer all the way to the right people in the organization and driving that loaded question. I know. [00:07:20] Mark Yaphe: No, I, I, um, you, you, you want to think about how that process works. Yeah. And there are parts of the organization. That define how do we get go to market offers in motions out to the field. [00:07:34] Mark Yaphe: Um, and they look at the whole thing and they say, well, how effective are we and how quickly can we cycle through? Yes. These activities. There’s one partner I worked with, um, they looked at this and they measure the cycle time. How long does it take me to get from pushing on an offer? Working with customers, getting feedback, and then creating new updates. [00:07:53] Mark Yaphe: A long, long time ago, like two years ago, this would take, it was a hundred [00:07:57] Vince Menzione: years ago in AI terms. [00:07:59] Mark Yaphe: Well, that’s basically it. This took about five to six months. They get about two revs a year. Now. They literally implemented a geni solution that number one uses geni to push it out to the teams, makes it bespoke on an engagement by engagement basis. [00:08:14] Mark Yaphe: It makes it relevant for their industries and their use cases. And that same tool is the feedback mechanism. So in real time it’s providing feedback. So they’ve collapsed six month cycle times to four weeks. And the punchline here is we talked about builder teams. The people that figured out they needed the solution, built the solution, and piloted the solutions were the builder teams. [00:08:36] Mark Yaphe: They were the people working with the customers. [00:08:38] Vince Menzione: I love it. Yeah, I love it. Anything to add to that? Rebecca, I know you work again, being the McKinsey of the, of the partner world. [00:08:46] Rebecca Jones: Well, I’ll, I [00:08:47] Mark Yaphe: It’s gonna stick, [00:08:47] Rebecca Jones: stick. It’s [00:08:48] Vince Menzione: gonna [00:08:49] Rebecca Jones: stick. You say it three times, that’s stick. No, I, you know, mark just hit on some really important things with the customer mind. [00:08:57] Rebecca Jones: You’re really looking at what outcomes are you trying to drive for those customers and that builder mindset, you, you’re going to hear a lot about that because companies need, as you transform, you really need to be thinking differently. And transformation takes quite a while. And while there is massive opportunity and you see the, the quickness you have to have that long-term vision and then be able to work backwards from that. [00:09:21] Rebecca Jones: And so I couldn’t agree more with the, the focus on customer outcomes. [00:09:26] Vince Menzione: So we’re in a very interesting, I’ll call it, almost a seminal point, although that’s overused in terms of where we are with AI today, right? I you mentioned like two years, feels like 10 years. Yeah. Ago, right? I mean, we’ve seen such transformation happening, but it also doesn’t feel like organizations are keeping, like, I, I feel like small SMBs actually are further ahead because they, they have to be agile, but the bigger organizations are still trying to figure some things out, right? [00:09:53] Vince Menzione: So. What needs to change around organizations, culture management processes? Like how do we bring, how do we bring everyone along on this journey? [00:10:04] Mark Yaphe: There’s a lot that needs to happen. Um, [00:10:07] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:10:08] Mark Yaphe: One thing that struck, there’s a lot of things I, I wanted to anchor on. One that Yeah, please. It could be a relevant conversation. [00:10:13] Mark Yaphe: Both, um, as part of your, uh, partner organizations delivering outcomes to customers. And, um, it’s about focusing on the business outcomes. It can be very easy, uh, to talk about the technology and the services, but day to day, the sales organization is going into solve customer problems. They’re meeting line of business leaders in specific industries who have very specific business problems to tackle. [00:10:42] Mark Yaphe: And I think one thing that organizations can do is impress upon them that it’s critical to understand. What are the business problems that we solve for our customers that we’re serving? What are those use cases? What are the drivers for it? In the role that I’m doing in an organization, how does that move the needle? [00:10:58] Guest: Yeah. [00:10:58] Mark Yaphe: For the business outcomes, it’s, it’s not dissimilar to other things, and perhaps it’s a little bit of a pivot, but always thinking about business outcomes, I think is, um, a little bit of a change that needs to be instilled within [00:11:10] Vince Menzione: what, what are the best doing better, and where are you seeing the gaps? [00:11:16] Mark Yaphe: Couple of areas, uh, one area, um, nobody knows everything. Yeah. Nobody’s got all the knowledge. [00:11:23] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:11:23] Mark Yaphe: And so rely on your ecosystem of partners and stakeholders. Yeah. Recognize you’ll only have so much information, um, and reach out, whether it’s to your technology partners, your business partners, your hyperscalers AWS to find out what am I missing. [00:11:38] Guest: Yeah. [00:11:38] Mark Yaphe: Um, again, many years, you know, a hundred years ago, two years, two years ago, um. We’d have these conversations about, well, what use cases are you seeing and what business problems are you solving? But, but those would be in scheduled meetings quarterly. Now there are agenda items on weekly standards. [00:11:55] Mark Yaphe: They’re happening every single week. What are you seeing? What are you seeing? And further, I’ve seen some gen AI and agent solutions that actually automate how that information flows to, to make it, to accelerate. [00:12:06] Vince Menzione: Yeah, it’s, it’s absolutely amazing. Yeah. Anything on, I mean, certainly you’ve got a perspective ’cause you’re working with these organizations. [00:12:13] Rebecca Jones: I have a couple thoughts on this specifically for the partner organizations and the partner companies here. I can understand there’s a lot of, you know, we looked at a stat earlier about the AI partner opportunity and it was. $260 billion somewhere in that bracket. And that can create maybe some fomo, you know, maybe, uh, let’s go after everything in this area. [00:12:37] Rebecca Jones: Yes. And not pick and choose [00:12:39] Mark Yaphe: a [00:12:39] Rebecca Jones: shiny object. Shiny object and not prioritize. And it’s actually the opposite. It’s really understanding where your strengths are in the market. Um, who’s in your partner ecosystem? What are you bringing to market? Are you, uh, a tech company that are looking to break? Bridge and bring out services or your services company, and now that can build product. [00:13:01] Rebecca Jones: But really understanding your opportunity. What industry do you play, what specialization do you have? And go really deep and then know how to augment your partners and the ecosystem around you to make you stronger and better for the customer. So with that market opportunity, which is. Tremendous, how do you focus and prioritize? [00:13:21] Rebecca Jones: And that’s where I have observed partners. Oh, I’m a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here. And, and, uh, I would be curious, I mean, that’s probably pretty hard for you if a partner shows up and they’re a little bit of everything. [00:13:34] Mark Yaphe: Well, I, I resonated with a point that you made before. Yeah. I, I’ve spent, um, half my time at AWS on the consulting side working with enterprise customers, the us half the partners. [00:13:43] Mark Yaphe: It’s critical that partners understand what’s unique about them. [00:13:45] Exactly. [00:13:46] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:13:47] Mark Yaphe: You it. I mean, everybody here, they’re looking at cloud migrations and modernizations and agentic, but that’s kind of part of the noise. You’ve gotta know what uniquely you do in an organization to deliver value. Are you developing supply chain for transportation companies or drug acceleration pipelines for. [00:14:06] Mark Yaphe: Pharmaceuticals. Yeah. Starting with that anchoring on your differences, I think is, is really important. [00:14:11] Vince Menzione: When I first started in the partner world, that was one of the biggest challenges and dilemmas, and I’m sure you still see it today, where I do all things. You know the partner that does the big SI that does everything, they have all the certifications. [00:14:24] Vince Menzione: I have 10,000 people trained on every technology certification, right. And then like, well what do you do? Like, and they can’t clarify. Right. Have that conversation. [00:14:33] Mark Yaphe: And then how do people, customers, [00:14:35] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:14:35] Mark Yaphe: Or sales organizations choose you and why. [00:14:38] Vince Menzione: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So how do you get them to show up in that way? [00:14:43] Vince Menzione: Like especially if they’re like, how do you coach them through that? ’cause it feels like it’s still exists, right? This like mentality or this mindset. I can do all things, especially with the shiny objects that we’re facing today. [00:14:55] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. [00:14:55] Vince Menzione: And I feel like we’re almost, I, I almost feel like we’re at a point right now where we were getting clearer and we’ve had so many shiny objects, even just in the last few months. [00:15:03] Vince Menzione: Like you were talking about how like months feels like ears, uh, you know, I’ll, I’ll use the Claude example here. Yeah. ’cause we, a lot of us pivoted and shifted and like, what do I do now as a partner in the room? Again, I think you, you mentioned the solving for business outcomes for client outcomes as opposed to chasing the next shiny object. [00:15:24] Vince Menzione: Like how do you get, how do you coach them on that? [00:15:27] Mark Yaphe: It’s always on the agenda. It’s, it’s day one conversations. Yeah. Who are you? What’s unique about you? How do you deliver value? Which customers do you focus on and with? Which use cases, and if it is a jack of all trades. Then my team, my and my team will help ’em. [00:15:42] Mark Yaphe: We know that down to specific areas of focus. [00:15:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So how do partners need to evolve their capabilities? Like how do they, I mean, how do they actually hone in on this? Like, you know, okay, I can state one thing, but how do I hone in on my capabilities, offerings and teams to stay relevant during this time? [00:15:59] Mark Yaphe: Um, what I’m coaching them on right now? Yeah. That’s what I is, uh, use the technology internally. The agentic tools and the gen AI tools are. I’ve been at this for a while, and the tools that exist right now dramatically expand your capability and capacity. So the thing I coach ’em is embed them in your organization. [00:16:18] Mark Yaphe: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Tackle those key things organizationally. You need to change and leverage these tools to help you accelerate. [00:16:23] Vince Menzione: And they’ll help you solve, they’ll help you solve for absolutely any of them. Right. It’s like, it’s like hiring a consulting organization to come in and solve for that. [00:16:29] Mark Yaphe: Yeah. [00:16:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. How are you thinking through this? [00:16:31] Rebecca Jones: Well, uh, there’s a couple things I’m thinking about. Um, if you start to. I’ll stay with the customer for just a minute because you’re talking about Claude and just the dramatic improvement. [00:16:45] Guest: Yeah, [00:16:46] Rebecca Jones: that’s there. Just with Claude, uh, we start to think about highest and best use of the model because, uh, we had another talk earlier about the economic conditions and the. [00:16:58] Rebecca Jones: And so now we’re asking partners like, right, [00:17:01] Vince Menzione: the tokens. [00:17:01] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Yep. How do you specialize and be focused by industry, by workflow, by use cases, you’re gonna start to look at what is the ROI of that investment? Is this a good enough? Look at the models, look at how you’re using that, and you’re having a token conversation because the economics might not be there. [00:17:21] Rebecca Jones: And so as you’re a business and a customer looking to transform their organization. They’re going to look across the business and figure out what are the highest and best use cases that should get that focus. And as a partner, if you wanna be in that conversation and really helping that company or that. [00:17:40] Rebecca Jones: Customer transform from where they are. It’s not only industry specialization, but it’s functional and workflow and really helping them understand what they should be using in that particular use case. So specialization is king or queen and that, um, scenario, and that’s where, you know, you ask partners today to specialize because there’s a whole economic conversation coming behind that, around how do you think about the models as that new one shows up? [00:18:09] Vince Menzione: Let’s shift from the technical side to the human side. [00:18:12] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:18:13] Vince Menzione: Super important, right? I mean, we were having this conversation internally, like everybody’s saying, you know, jobs are going away, jobs are going away. I think I, I believe more jobs are gonna happen, but we’ve gotta get humans aligned properly to what their new roles will be. [00:18:29] Vince Menzione: Comments on this one? [00:18:31] Mark Yaphe: I think this is like a classic organizational transformation Yeah. Question. Mm-hmm. Where the 70, 80% of the problems are people process change. Um, I, I think there are these three areas that organizations need to focus on, and I’m gonna sound a little bit repetitive, but one, it’s okay. [00:18:46] Mark Yaphe: It’s, uh, the role of the team members have gotta be focused on outcomes, especially when things are moving quickly and there’s ambiguity. The one way that you can anchor on moving in the right direction is how do I let my customer, so one is outcomes. The second one is the builder mindset. Move from, I’m presenting, I’m hearing, but I’m gonna build things. [00:19:05] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:19:05] Mark Yaphe: And the last one is, uh, inspiring your team, making them competent and confident to navigate ambiguity because that is the premise upon which everybody’s operating. So those three, [00:19:17] Vince Menzione: Rebecca, what capabilities. Would be embodied in, in that organization that Mark describes. [00:19:23] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, I think that the growth mindset, you know, if you can package that around, you can either, um, think about being disrupted or being a disruptor. [00:19:34] Rebecca Jones: And if you have a growth mindset around the opportunity that’s ahead, it’s a whole different perspective of the challenges before you. I love that. And so when I think about what. Capabilities. You know, it’s the critical thinking and the judgment, human connection. We’re all here for a reason. Yes. Right? [00:19:50] Rebecca Jones: Yes, yes. And so as a leader, um, really helping set that tone and letting them see the art of the possible, um, around that vision. But it’s really, if I boiled it down to one thing, it’s having a growth mindset to the opportunity ahead. [00:20:05] Vince Menzione: Well, I wanna open it up. We have about five minutes left. Yeah. And this has been so insightful, but I. [00:20:11] Vince Menzione: I mean, I feel the energy. There’s gotta be some questions out here too. ’cause this, we have two incredible experts up here talking. I mean, and this is such an impactful conversation today. So John’s got a mic and uh, I think we’ve got some questions coming. [00:20:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:20:33] Rebecca Jones: this’s [00:20:33] Vince Menzione: a long way [00:20:33] Rebecca Jones: around. [00:20:34] Vince Menzione: Took a [00:20:34] Guest: thanks, long David Younger with. Thank you. That was great, great discussion. So, uh, you, you brought up a key statistic, uh, which is the MIT data and around the, the 90, I think it was 95%. Of, uh, businesses, uh, are not in production. And, and actually they, they went further to say that 95% of businesses. [00:20:56] Guest: Uh, we’re achieving zero ROI. And, and that was about a year ago, right? And now, and now you said the number, I think the number was quoted earlier today too, is, is shifting to about 70% of those, uh, projects in production. I’m curious to, to know as you, and I think you nailed it too, when you talk about product, right, have a product mindset or business mindset, right? [00:21:16] Guest: Not just how can I save money, but how can I actually generate revenue, whether it’s saving money or generating revenue. Where would you say. Uh, what, what percentage of companies you talk to are actually achieving real ROI would you say? [00:21:31] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. Really. Great. So I’ll go back and explain a little bit more about what I mean by product mindset. [00:21:39] Rebecca Jones: So a lot of companies did get stuck or there were just, uh, a. Large amount of pilots happening in the organization. And that’s not a bad thing. ’cause you think about, that’s a builder mindset, go and test and trial. But when you’re starting to look at true business transformation, you really need to think about where that, um, high value use case is. [00:22:00] Rebecca Jones: So a. The product mindset I’m talking about is taking a long-term view of the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and how are you going to measure those? And then look at that workflow, that function, and if you’re an expert in that function, whether that be a sales process or a marketing process, you know what KPIs your business is trying to drive today, and you start to unpack that. [00:22:24] Rebecca Jones: And so we’ve seen and what. Um, the most, uh, accelerated motion is knowing the KPIs and the measures you’re trying to achieve and then working towards that. And from there you can build, right? And you start to think and you have an ecosystem approach to that workflow or work stream. So we have seen, um, everybody wants cost on the system. [00:22:46] Rebecca Jones: Um, we have seen dramatic cost reduction in areas we’ve seen, you know. Two to three times, um, faster time to market. Um, there’s multiple things that we’ve seen as, uh, leaders really start to unpack that, understand what they’re trying to accomplish in the business, and I’m happy to go into greater detail. [00:23:06] Rebecca Jones: I know we have just a couple minutes left, but that’s just the product mindset up. How do you get started and how do you look at that long-term opportunity? [00:23:15] Vince Menzione: Really great answer. Mark, do you wanna add that? [00:23:17] Mark Yaphe: I think if you look at all use cases. Maybe 30% perform. But if you look at this across enterprise, I think each enterprise is finding very specific use cases where they’re driving ROI and and um, and so I think it’s about picking your spots, knowing who you are, identifying the top priority ones, not worrying about the broad enterprise transformation. [00:23:38] Mark Yaphe: Find those areas where you can drive value a little bit. Yeah, [00:23:41] Vince Menzione: that’s great that that’s almost a mic drop moment in my opinion. Yeah. That’s really great. Any other questions? I we’re holding every, oh, we got one in the back. I was gonna say I’m holding people up from happy hour. Yeah, [00:23:53] Rebecca Jones: just, we’ll just bring the cocktails in here [00:23:56] Vince Menzione: pretty soon. [00:23:57] Guest: Uh, Jeremy with Integral, um, um, a money question, something comparable. Uh, activator portfolio, the programs for founder firms that are trying to really get off the ground with new ideas. And there’s some comparable programs, I think with different providers. How much of that is a strategy, and I don’t wanna put you on the spot if activating portfolio aren’t the things you’re covering, but, but that money investment for startups that are trying to grow and really focus on AWS uh, the thousand dollars is the founder version that gets us in and then a hundred thousand dollars. [00:24:26] Guest: It’s a bit difficult to get into. And then there’s bigger ones after that if we attend the schools and all these things. But I’m thinking about as we all are trying to grow and really focus in AWS, which a lot of folks really wanna do with Bedrock and all the things that are kind of cool going on, it’s just. [00:24:40] Guest: Great AI focused conversation, but how is that playing into attracting more of the MSPs that are, that are trying to grow and more of the startups to really funding this idea of, of startup mentality. Hopefully that’s not too off topic, but your, your fair game [00:24:57] Mark Yaphe: was, was the question, how does funding. [00:25:01] Mark Yaphe: Attract startups in specific categories, process. [00:25:04] Guest: I think it’s, it’s about if there’s, uh, the other hyperscalers also have programs comparable. So Microsoft’s program is, uh, 150 grand to to, to build out the founder kind of, and it’s fairly easy to get into. Aw. WS is a bit harder to get into, but is that going to change as far as using that as a, as a key strategy for incubating more and more ideas to accelerate the velocity of everything you guys were talking about? [00:25:25] Mark Yaphe: I’m really not the right person. Definitely outta my wheelhouse on that. No problem. [00:25:31] Guest: Yeah. [00:25:37] Vince Menzione: And we’re about seven seconds away from uh, happy hour. [00:25:41] Rebecca Jones: I know, [00:25:41] Vince Menzione: I know. This was fantastic. I know. It was so great. [00:25:44] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:25:45] Vince Menzione: And I think the McKenzie thing is gonna stick. I think it is, it is. [00:25:48] Rebecca Jones: Now, mark, I’m gonna make [00:25:49] Vince Menzione: sure it does. And Mark, it was great to have you up on stage with us today. So, so great to have AWS supporting us and sponsoring the event with us and, uh, and having just this broad audience of people just so interested in. [00:26:02] Vince Menzione: Being in the room and and learning from each of you. So thank you so much today. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. [00:26:09] Mark Yaphe: Thanks for listening to The Ultimate Partner [00:26:11] Vince Menzione: Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the ultimate partner.com. [00:26:22] Vince Menzione: For show notes related content and the resources for this episode. And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live Event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time, keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.

If a growing share of your customers now begin their shopping journey on a platform you don't own — and can't see into — is your website still your most important marketing asset?Agility here isn't just about reacting to new customer behavior. It's about building an infrastructure that can meet customers wherever they show up, and still have the brand behave like one company when it gets there.Today, we're going to talk about:- The great fragmentation of product discovery and why traditional marketing funnels are becoming obsolete.- Strategies for maintaining brand and data consistency across countless channels when only 14% of consumers say it's done well today.- The role of AI and automation in not just personalizing experiences, but optimizing for new discovery engines.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Gary Lombardo, CMO at Athos Commerce.About Gary LombardoGary Lombardo is Chief Marketing Officer at Athos Commerce, where he leads marketing, brand strategy, communications, and thought leadership. With more than 20 years of experience in retail technology, ecommerce, and SaaS, he helps retailers navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered commerce. Gary is a frequent speaker on topics including artificial intelligence, digital merchandising, product discovery, customer experience, and the future of retail.Gary Lombardo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garylombardo---------- Resources ---------- Athos Commerce: athoscommerce.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hilary Smith, CMO at Linnworks, argues that most ecommerce brands believe their operations are already automated — and that the manual work quietly grows as they scale. She and Greg Kihlström get into where it hides and what it costs.AI's most consequential move in retail is happening in the back office, not the front end. After years of chatbots and personalization, the investment is shifting into inventory, fulfillment, and order management — where being wrong is expensive and visible.Peak season is a volume-and-velocity problem, not a basket-size problem. Smith on which parts of the traditional peak playbook break first when order throughput climbs, and how a tech freeze changes what a brand can realistically fix in-season.A stockout is a brand moment. Operational failures are where customers decide what a company is actually like — which puts a CMO on the hook for outcomes they don't directly own.About Hilary SmithHilary Smith is Chief Marketing Officer at Linnworks. She brings 12+ years of experience driving growth through data-informed strategy across supply chain, ecommerce and FinTech. Hilary thrives at the intersection of brand, product and demand, translating complex customer and commercial data into campaigns that drive revenue, sharpen positioning and move the business forward. Her leadership style is grounded in empathy, curiosity and a deep understanding of how customers discover, convert and keep coming back.Hilary Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilarypaigesmith/---------- Resources ---------- Linnworks: https://www.linworks.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bbReach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the greatest investment bubble in economic history in happening right in front of our eyes, with the distinct possibility of a godawful bust in the not too distant future, and persistent memories of promising technologies that crashed and burned, it is necessary, and urgent, to consider how India should play this game of generativeAI now and into the future, whether that future is boom or bust for the technology.What adds criticality to this matter is the serious but hidden concern about three things: epistemology, values, and national security. The vacuuming up by Big Tech of Indian data gratis (hey, what happened to “data is the new oil”?) as well as the increasingly sophisticated manufacturing of narratives are at least as important as the threat to traditional knowledge systems that India has preserved more or less, under duress, for millennia.Is there a bubble?Irrational exuberance almost always ends up in grief, or at least that has been the experience in past cycles. We may be reminded of the Dutch Tulip Mania of 1634, as described in the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, wherein tulip bulbs were sold at enormous prices based on speculation about increasing value, which turned out to be baseless.Those of us with moderately long memories will also remember the 1999-era Internet bubble, where just having a web site and a cool online retail idea was enough to generate speculative investment. The net result was a huge bust, but there was a good outcome: the infrastructure left on the ground by bankrupt investors was useful in other ways in later iterations of the internet, which proved to actually generate value.But there indeed is irrational exuberance regarding generativeAI. The Wall Street Journal noted that Anthropic seems to believe its Total Addressable Market (TAM) is an eye-watering $30 trillion. For comparison, that was roughly the US' GDP in 2025. Goldman Sachs goes one step further: it estimated in July 2025 that the global TAM may be as much as $40 trillion.In any case, The Economist magazine estimates that the current generativeAI mania is the daddy of all speculative bubbles in western history, surpassing others in the last few centuries.The problem is that there doesn't appear to be enough revenue and profits being generated to justify the literally trillions of dollars that are being ploughed into capital investment by the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta, i.e. US Big Tech. The Economist magazine, again. Sorry, folks, there does not seem to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.The bottom line is that at least at the moment, there is a fair chance that there will be the mother of all busts from generativeAI. This is not investment advice, of course, but I'd say caveat emptor.The two potential business outcomes: the Linux way vs. the Windows wayI am fundamentally an operating systems guy, having spent years working on UNIX internals at Bell Labs. I have observed how that market has evolved over the last forty years, and I believe there are good lessons to be learned from the experience. For, the OS is perhaps the most critical software on any machine, and strangely enough those who focused on it may have made either no money whatsoever, or lots of money.The “no money” category belongs to UNIX and its descendants, Linux, Android, Apple iOS etc. UNIX was developed at AT&T Bell Labs, and was given away for free to universities and other companies for complicated reasons having to do with AT&T's status as a regulated monopoly. UNIX is now ubiquitous, running everything from data centers to smartphones to Internet servers through its progeny. Alas, AT&T made absolutely no money from it.I know this because I moved to Sun Microsystems from Bell Labs, and I was product manager for Sun's UNIX OS Solaris. If I remember right, I suggested the name ‘Solaris' in homage to Stanislav Lem. I was active in AT&T and Sun's attempt to unify the slightly different variants of UNIX (HP-UX, IBM AIX, DEC Ultrix etc.) that had proliferated because experimentation and enhancements on especially the BSD (UC Berkeley) version of UNIX was very easy. We failed in this unification attempt in the “UNIX wars” of the late 1980s/early 1990s.The result was that UNIX lost a tremendous opportunity to be the desktop/laptop OS, because rival Microsoft was able to do disruptive innovation (see Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail) and capture the customer base that these firms had earlier served through mainframes, mini-computers and engineering workstations. Before the mid 1990s, Microsoft Windows had relatively little market share.What is really interesting is that Microsoft then proceeded to “make lots of money”, the second business outcome alluded to above, by realizing that Windows was not just an OS, but a distribution channel for third-party applications. At Sun, I knew this too, but basically as hardware companies, Sun, IBM, etc. didn't think much of the OS. Apple figured it out, and has made good money off the App Store.I make a direct analogy between the OS and LLMs. Both are core software in that they both have a clear impact on the hardware requirements, and that they are part of a stack in which many things can be written in layers above. In my opinion, the LLM, just like the OS, could possibly become either background noise (like UNIX/Linux) or the main thing (like Windows).It appears to me that Anthropic, OpenAI, the hyperscalers et al hope to make their own LLMs the inevitable choice (like Windows), whereas the Chinese are on the way to, intentionally or otherwise, making LLMs immaterial (like UNIX and descendants). This, incidentally, fits into the standard operating procedures of the respective countries: the US likes to use overwhelming force (the metaphor here is American football), whereas the Chinese use scale, overproduction, and crashing prices to destroy the competition.From India's point of view, in either case, this dictates that pursuing foundational models is the wrong game to play. If American Big Tech wins, they become money-minting machines like Microsoft and Windows, and resistance is futile; if Chinese Tech wins, the foundational models become commodities. Therefore, the right place to compete would be on the layers above, that is vertical applications for real problems faced by real people.India could emulate a major Big Tech company that has taken a similar approach: Apple. Instead of jumping headlong into the LLM race, and spending billions like Alphabet (Google's parent) and Meta (owner of Facebook and Whatsapp), Apple has preferred to stay on the sidelines, perhaps seeking out market niches or waiting for an LLM winner to emerge. There is a chance that Apple may emerge the victor, intact after the possible bloodbath.Sovereign AI and dancing with elephantsWhat, then, does AI sovereignty mean for India? In my humble opinion, India needs to find the “white spaces” that neither G2 giants (i.e. the US and China) are attempting to occupy. Therefore, India should look at areas of the overall stack that are open to it, and which it can profitably involve itself in. Even though the most obvious thing that comes to mind when you talk about sovereign AI is a Made-in-India foundational model or LLM, that is overkill considering the enormous expense it would entail, literally in the billions of dollars. It's also something that has been done already by both American and Chinese players, so there's nothing novel about it.On the other hand, unique applications that take into account peculiarities in the Indian environment, and provide real value to Indian consumers/businesses may well be of considerable value. Once again, there is an analogy: the India Stack, which has not only provided us with the wildly successful UPI, but also ONDC, and various other applications, such as Account Aggregator, FASTag, UMANG, Government e-Marketplace.Here we have a stack that is building domain-specific applications atop a standard backbone, e.g., Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. That is where the value addition for India as a nation may come. One example, already explored by Sarvam AI, is that of multi-lingual capability. This could have a revolutionary impact on mother-tongue education, for instance if school textbooks are seamlessly translated by AI that would likely improve early-education comprehension.Just as the 10-year-old UPI, imagined for Indian conditions, has revolutionized payments, there surely are applications, most importantly in such areas as public health, jurisprudence, and governance, that will have a massive payback if implemented.Furthermore, there is the layer below, which is the hardware/computing infrastructure. Even though there are concerns about the availability of power and water, the fact that there is both less expensive skilled labor and increasing amounts of solar power, and the significant amount of opposition to them in developed nations, may well make India attractive to hyperscalars and others. Keeping a lot of Indian data on Indian soil is a good idea, too. Bonus: In case of a bust, all that infra will be available at big discounts.By the way, here's a graphic I found on X, from an investor named Himanshu Sinha. He's a little pessimistic, and his diagram shows the layers in the opposite direction from me, but it captures the entire stack concisely. The question, of course, is how well India can do in the applications layer and the “AI infrastructure” layers according to Sinha.It may be a question of glass half-full, but I believe India can play in the white spaces of applications and infrastructure.The goodies generativeAI may bringEvery day brings new news about advances based on generativeAI: humanoid robots that can run as fast as Usain Bolt, Andrew Ng's new plans to build a custom one-on-one tutoring system, and news of agentic AI escaping from its sandbox and roaming about unhindered, as in the case of OpenAI agents' exploits on HuggingFace. Now comes the ‘proving' of the Navier-Stokes equation by OpenAI, amidst allegations of IP theft from NYU/Anthropic researchers.There are clearly things to marvel at, but also to worry about. One of the big concerns is the massive hoovering up of Indian data by Big Tech, with neither compensation nor respect for copyright. This means both large-scale current financial, health and other data, but also the troves of Indian Knowledge Systems that may have precious, untapped knowledge in them.Big Tech is cavalier about knowledge, treating it as free for it to plunder. There was a recent story about how Anthropic was buying up old and rare books, cutting up their bindings, speed-scanning, and then pulping them. We can expect similar treatment of Indian data.Similarly, the OpenAI habit of offering its products free to researchers, and then apparently monitoring what they did with them – which is the point of contention between them and Tristan Buckmaster (NYU) and Levent Alpoge (Anthropic) in the Navier-Stokes case – is also an interesting analogy with the classic “first hit for free”. You get my drift.Wait, there's more: an allegation of straight IP theft by OpenAI in yet another case. As Goldfinger said memorably, “Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action”.Then there was Jensen Huang of Nvidia posting that OpenAI has reached Artificial General Intelligence.We certainly live in interesting times. Too interesting, perhaps. India has a lot to lose if genAI turns out to be the panacea its boosters claim it is, if India is not invested heavily enough. On the other hand, we have seen this movie before: unrestrained cheerleading for new technologies that disappointed (virtual reality, crypto currency etc). India needs to hedge its bets to ensure it can survive whichever version of reality finally materializes.1970 words, Sept 9, 2026 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

As companies invest billions in AI and automation to scale customer interactions, are they unintentionally building a wall between their brand and the very people they're trying to serve?Agility requires that as technology accelerates, our ability to listen to and understand the customer must accelerate even faster.Today, we're going to talk about how organizations can maintain and deepen their connection to consumers in an era increasingly defined by technological distance. We'll explore:- Why the more we lean on AI for efficiency, the more we need to invest in genuine human understanding.- How to translate abstract consumer insights into tangible actions that resonate across the entire organization, not just the marketing department.- The skills and cultural shifts necessary to prepare marketing teams for a future where empathy is as critical as data analysis.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Melissa Blunte, Director, Consumer Experience at Georgia-Pacific. About Melissa BlunteKnown for: A “get it done” attitude. With an ownership mentality, strategic thinking, clear communication, persistence, and a willingness to do things differently, I will find a way to get things done.I am a strategic brand and commercial leader with 20 years of experience driving growth and innovation across Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar brands such as Zyrtec®, Lipitor®, Similac® Infant Formula, Quilted Northern®, and Angel Soft®.Throughout my career, I've thrived at the intersection of brand building and business results. From launching products and crafting integrated marketing strategies, to leading high-performing teams and managing P&Ls, my focus has always been on delivering measurable impact.I bring a unique combination of big-company discipline, cross-functional leadership, and entrepreneurial agility — and I'm energized by the challenge of crafting strategy and turning them into actions that drive value.Melissa Blunte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-mapp-blunte-b452359/---------- Resources ---------- : https://www.gp.com/The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big Tech is pouring more than $1.4 trillion into AI, prompting investors to ask: Is it worth it? Our U.S. Internet analyst Brian Nowak looks at three business models that could earn 25 to 50 percent returns for Gen-AI-enabled technologies.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Brian Nowak: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Brian Nowak, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Internet analyst.Today, can the enormous investment behind Gen AI actually pay off?It's Wednesday, September 9th, at 9am in New York.AI has moved quickly into everyday life. It helps people write software, research purchases, automate work, find information, among myriad[s] of other use cases.But we need an infrastructure build-out of extraordinary scale to support all of this activity and more activity to come.In all, we estimate that the major cloud providers are going to spend more than $1.4 trillion on this AI build-out next year alone. But compute capacity is potentially going to quadruple from 2025 to 2028, reaching roughly 120 gigawatts.But all of the spending has raised a lot of questions for investors. One of the most common questions is: What kind of return on invested capital can these companies earn from all of these trillions of dollars of data center infrastructure investment?Well, our bottom-up work points to encouraging answers to this question.We see paths to roughly 25 to 50 percent return on invested capital, or ROIC, across three emerging AI business models. Now, ROIC is a useful way of measuring whether investments pay off. Think of it as how much after-tax operating profit can be generated relative to the capital required in the first place.The first business model we've analyzed is renting compute power. This is the infrastructure layer of the AI economy. Cloud providers build data centers filled with advanced graphics processing units, or GPUs, and rent that compute capacity to customers. In our base case, a large next-generation data center can generate a return on invested capital of roughly 30 percent simply renting AI compute power.And even if rental prices move around, our scenarios still produce returns ranging from low 20s percent to nearly 40 percent. So, despite the enormous cost of building and capital being deployed for these facilities, we think the economics here are quite attractive.The second business model we've analyzed is where an AI lab has their own model, and they also own their own infrastructure. They give access to their model through an API to consumers and enterprises who then build upon it, they utilize the model. In some cases, they build applications using that model that can be future sources of productivity or efficiency for the economy.In this scenario, we think the economics can be even stronger. When the model developer owns their own underlying infrastructure, our base case generates a roughly 75 percent incremental operating margin and a return on invested capital of 40 percent plus.These returns on invested capital are impressive, but what determines whether these returns can actually materialize?Well, two things matter a lot. The first is the price the developers are able to charge for tokens, which are the units of information that AI models process. The second factor that matters considerably is how efficient[ly] can this infrastructure process these tokens.This is why continued improvements in chips and software to drive higher token throughput – or more tokens per GPU per second – are critical to the long-term unit economics across this AI ecosystem.The third model we've analyzed is when the AI developers rent their compute infrastructure rather than owning it. So, effectively, they are paying someone else for the data centers and the GPUs that they need. While this lowers their returns on invested capital because another provider takes a piece of the unit economics, our base case still produces roughly a 30 percent incremental operating margin and 25 percent post-tax return potential.So, while the AI build-out requires enormous investment, the size of the spending alone doesn't tell the whole story about whether or not there are economic returns to come.What ultimately matters is the revenue and profit that the infrastructure can generate. And as more of the infrastructure shifts from training AI models to serving customers through emerging products and inference, we think we're going to get a much clearer answer to this question investors are asking today.Was all this spending worth it? Our research suggests: Yes.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Audacity’s new major release makes it more like a proper digital workstation, Debian finally gets off the genAI fence and disappoints some of us, California exempts Linux from terrible age verification laws, and Asahi boots on M3 Macs. With guest host Shane from Hybrid Cloud Show. News Audacity 4 Debian Votes To Allow “Responsible Use Of Generative AI” Results for LLM usage in Debian Retiring from the Project (vv221) California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law M2: Episode 1 (or, Asahi Linux on M3) Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Audacity’s new major release makes it more like a proper digital workstation, Debian finally gets off the genAI fence and disappoints some of us, California exempts Linux from terrible age verification laws, and Asahi boots on M3 Macs. With guest host Shane from Hybrid Cloud Show. News Audacity 4 Debian Votes To Allow “Responsible Use Of Generative AI” Results for LLM usage in Debian Retiring from the Project (vv221) California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law M2: Episode 1 (or, Asahi Linux on M3) Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

Melissa Ryan, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Federated Hermes, moved a global investment manager's website onto Optimizely and found the technology was the easy part. She joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon.A migration surfaces the questions nobody had to answer before. Who owns a page, who signs off, and what finally gets retired all become unavoidable once the platform changes — and settling them is harder than the build.Segmentation runs on self-declaration until it doesn't. Financial advisors, institutional investors, and individual investors need genuinely different content, and Ryan gets into the gap between what visitors tell you about themselves and what their behavior reveals."AI" hides two very different decisions. A tool that speeds up a human's draft is not the same commitment as a system that produces and ships on its own — Ryan on which one is realistically usable inside a regulated firm in the next year.About Melissa RyanMelissa Ryan is Vice President and Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Federated Hermes, where she leads strategic digital initiatives that strengthen the firm's global brand and advance key marketing objectives. She specializes in transforming business goals into scalable, data-driven solutions that improve efficiency, enhance stakeholder engagement, and drive innovation across digital channels. Melissa has extensive experience leading complex cross-functional projects and delivering executive-level insights that support strategic decision-making. She holds an MBA in Management from Point Park University and a BA in Media Communications and Social Science from the University of Pittsburgh.Melissa Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-ryan-9a446411/---------- Resources ---------- : https://www.federatedhermes.com/The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we unpack the growing "Misdiagnosis Effect" in the age of GenAI, where organisations often focus on the technology they think they need rather than the problem they are trying to solve. Casey Ballard (Head of Strategic Applications, UK, US & EMEA), Suzanne Cowan (Head of Corporate & Construction, UK & EMEA) and Uchi Jayawardhena (Head of Data Analytics) explore why successful transformation starts with the problem, not the technology. Drawing on real client conversations and delivery experience, they discuss the value of navigating the often messy discovery process, balancing people, process, technology and data, and choosing the right solution rather than defaulting to GenAI. They also examine the challenges of consistency, governance and repeatability, highlighting why workflow redesign and automation can often deliver greater value than AI alone.

For all the doom and gloom in the world surrounding GenAI, there are glimmers of hope. Ritu Java, CEO of PPC Ninja, is one of those glimmers. She joins us on this episode of The Longer Game to talk about how she's leveraging GenAI and creating superpowered teams, not replacing people. Amazon is complex. And the ability to synthesize and then analyze data takes a lot of time. GenAI has allowed her to cut that time down significantly and focus more on creating solutions. It's not just the time to create solutions. It's the quality of the outputs that are significantly better. While GenAI will certainly take some jobs away, she sees this as an exciting time for technology and advances of what us humans are able to do. Grab a splash of positivity and get ready to look into the future.What they cover:1. We live in an exciting era, where an individual's quality has improved dramatically, giving them a super power. 2. The speed at which change is happening makes it a much different day and age than previous tech advancements like the Industrial and Internet Revolutions.3. The process is greater than an SOP. SOPs can limit creativity and create monotony. 4. Anticipating certain kinds of anomaly detection is difficult because it's very hard, if not impossible, to predict something that's never happened before.5. Intent based shopping goes even deeper than getting what you want. 6. We're moving away from an era of keyword only shopping and driving the direction of "ranking" with demographics, i.e. showing up as the most relevant product for a specific group. The Longer Game explores the future of retail across Amazon, ecommerce, and brick-and-mortar.The goal is simple: help brands grow by understanding how all channels work together.Retail is evolving. The brands that win are the ones willing to adapt.Subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Learn more: https://thelongergame.comAbout the Guest:Ritu Java is the founder of PPC Ninja, a Advertising and Creative Services agency for the AI era helping brands scale with omni-channel advertising and AI-ready content. She's an award winning speaker and keynote speaker, spoken at over 200 industry events, including Amazon Accelerate, Billion Dollar Seller Summit and Prosper Show.Connect with Ritu:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritujava/Website: https://www.ppcninja.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ppcninja/About the Host:Michael Maher is Chief Idea Officer of Cartology, an Amazon-focused agency helping brands grow revenue and profitability.Connect with Michael:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/immichaelmaherEmail: michael@thinkcartology.comSponsored by Cartologyhttps://thinkcartology.com

Jim Rucinski, Solution Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association, runs IFPA's entire digital experience with a team of two — personalization, content management, and platform support included.He joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon to walk through what a constraint that tight actually forces you to decide.A two-person team changes the question from what to build to what to refuse. Ruckinski on the test he applies when a request lands, and how much of the week is already claimed by maintenance before anything new gets considered.Handing content tools to non-technical colleagues means handing out the ability to break consistency. What had to be standardized inside Optimizely's CMS and Content Marketing Platform before the organization could self-serve without the experience coming apart."AI" covers both a faster draft and a system that executes on its own — and a lean team can only absorb one of them. How Rucinski separates technology that removes work from technology that adds something new to supervise.About Jim RucinskiJim Rucinski is the Solutions Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), where he oversees the evolution of the organization's enterprise digital ecosystem. A self-taught programmer with more than 30 years of software engineering experience, Jim specializes in turning operational friction into automated, reusable capabilities. Partnering with solution provider Perficient, he focuses on leveraging modern CMS architecture, GraphQL, and practical AI tools to run a global digital presence efficiently.Jim Rucinski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-rucinski-925004258/---------- Resources ---------- : https://www.freshproduce.com/The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greg Heinz, Senior Director of Brand and Digital Strategy at Optimizely, led the company's rebrand — and he argues AI should amplify creative work rather than automate it away. Recorded live at Opticon 2026 in New York City.A rebrand is repositioning, not a new logo. Heinz walks through the research behind Optimizely's brand evolution, the market signals that made the case internally, and what the company had to give up to make the new promise credible.The line between amplification and authorship gets drawn on purpose. "AI" covers everything from a tool that speeds up a designer to a system that ships work with nobody in the authoring seat. Heinz on where he insisted a person stay in the seat, and why.A brand is proven by behavior, not messaging. What had to change in product decisions, sales conversations, and the digital experience for the new positioning to be true — and what keeps the brand recognizable as one company as the volume of expression goes up.Greg Heinz and Greg Kihlström also get into what changes when the first thing evaluating your brand is an AI system researching on a buyer's behalf rather than a person.About Greg HeinzGreg is a marketing manager with over fifteen years of professional experience in B2B software solutions and services, Healthcare, Sports and Entertainment. My goal is to help organizations achieve rapid growth through brand development and demand generation. I am a strong believer in creating amazing experiences and lasting impressions through UX design and storytelling.Greg Heinz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gjheinz/---------- Resources ----------Optimizely: www.optimizely.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As AI adoption continues to accelerate, how can organisations maintain control of their data, infrastructure, and AI strategy? Sovereign AI is rapidly moving from planning and discussions to practical implementation, making it more important than ever for IT decision-makers to understand what it is and how it works. So, what does it take to deploy sovereign AI effectively while maintaining control, meeting compliance requirements, and protecting valuable data? This week, Technology Now is joined by Trish Damkroger, SVP & GM, HPC & AI, to find out: What sovereign AI looks like in 2026, and how it can be achievedThe five imperatives that organisations must consider when implementing sovereign AIWhy an effective AI strategy must come before decisions are made 

-A group of climbers set out to climb Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County, California thinking it would only take them eight hours, because that's what Google's Gemini chatbot told them. - Mayor Mamdani said this move was made to protect "human connection" in classrooms, suggesting that kids should develop problem-solving and social skills via teachers and peers instead of chatbots. -A service called Nexus went live to sell these documents and many others, which included medical cards, employment records and residence cards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Proč si to myslí? - Jak je používání generativní umělé inteligence (GenAI) spojeno se školními výsledky žáků sedmých tříd? - Roční období a lidé ? to jsou zatím nejtěžší překážky pro robotická vozidla. Odborníci z ČVUT jich vyvíjejí několik typů. Uslyšíte, kdy je lepší mít tři kola a kdy šest. - Vědci v Plzni vyvinuli novou rehabilitační pomůcku po úrazu kolene. Pomáhá s pohybem a sleduje i mozkovou aktivitu. Moderuje Lucie Vopálenská.

Esther Birnbaum, Executive Vice President of Data Intelligence at EDRM Trusted Partner HaystackID, returns to sit down with EDRM's Mary Mack and Holley Robinson. She first appeared on the podcast in Episode 202 in March 2025. In this episode, Esther discusses how the conversation around GenAI has shifted from whether it works for document review to where it fits within legal work and how to use it responsibly at scale. She describes how the next generation of CaseBot uses agentic retrieval and Specialized Skill Agents to iteratively investigate the case record, follow evidentiary threads, and complete tasks such as building chronologies, developing fact narratives, and checking witness accounts against the record. The conversation also explores how Case Insight provides an early, contextual understanding of a dataset and how CaseBot can help teams investigate specific issues in greater depth. Esther addresses defensibility and source traceability, explains the importance of purpose-built tools, and emphasizes that legal professionals must understand a tool's limitations before relying on its output. Looking ahead, she discusses persistent saved sessions, client-specific custom agents, and the movement toward AI that supports legal teams throughout the life of a matter. We ended with a family-centered fun fact from Esther and how best to reach her.

About DavidDavid Berner is the Technology Integration Program Coordinator at the SWWC Service Cooperative in Marshall, MN. He directs SWWC's A.I.D.E. (Artificial Intelligence Development in Education) program, coordinates newsletter content, leads AI trainings for school districts, and consults with districts on developing GenAI district guidance. He holds an M.S. in Educational Technology, is an ISTE Certified Educator, and is a CoSN AI Regional Trainer.David Berner LinkedIn: David Berner | LinkedInAbout Jeremy MiklaInstructional Technology Specialist - ECMECC (East Central Minnesota Educational Cable Cooperative)Jeremy Mikla spent over 20 years as a classroom social studies teacher prior to becoming an Instructional Technology Specialist. He has extensive experience supporting PK–12 educators in the effective and ethical integration of emerging technologies. He regularly presents at regional and statewide conferences on topics such as AI in education, instructional design, and digital literacy. Jeremy co-hosts the Integrate This! podcast, which explores practical and innovative approaches to educational technology with diverse voices from the field.Jeremy LinkedIn: ⁠Jeremy Mikla | LinkedInTheir podcastIntegrate This LinkedIn: ⁠(2) Integrate This! Podcast: Company Page Admin | LinkedIn⁠Integrate This TikTok: ⁠IntegrateThis! (@integratethispodcast) | TikTok⁠Integrate This YouTube: ⁠Integrate This! - YouTube⁠Integrate This Apple: ⁠Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast - Podcast - Apple Podcasts⁠Integrate This Spotify: ⁠Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast | Podcast on SpotifyAbout RachelleEducator, AI Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Consultant, Attorney, Author, Blogger, and PodcasterLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelledenepoth/Subscribe to my ⁠newsletter. bit.ly/pothnews1Check out my ⁠ blog www.Rdene915.comContact me for speaking & training related to AI, AI & the law, AI and Healthcare, Cybersecurity, STEM, and more! bit.ly/thriveineduPDInterested in a sponsored podcast or collaboration? Contact me! Rdene915@gmail.com

Marketing leaders are under increasing pressure to answer a deceptively simple question:What commercial value is marketing actually creating?In this episode of the LT Marketing & Leadership Show, Kevin Britz and marketing and communication expert Craig Page-Lee continue their exploration of McKinsey's State of Marketing Europe 2026 report — this time focusing on effectiveness, measurement, ROI and C-suite credibility.The challenge is significant.While 72% of CMOs planned to increase marketing spend through 2026, marketing leaders are simultaneously facing greater scrutiny from CFOs and CEOs about where that money goes and what it produces.The report identifies profit growth, revenue and market share as key objectives, signalling an important shift: marketing needs to speak the language of the business, not simply the language of marketing.And that creates a measurement problem.An extraordinary 90% of marketing spend is not covered by formal ROI measurement systems, while only 3% of CMOs can formally explain more than half of their marketing spend through ROI metrics.Kevin and Craig unpack why this is happening, including:Lack of sufficient dataPoor data qualityMeasurement capability gapsThe limitations of deterministic attributionIncreasing privacy restrictionsThe difficulty of measuring long-term and upper-funnel brand investmentThe conversation explores why leading marketers are turning toward approaches such as Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) and incremental lift studies to develop a more complete picture of marketing effectiveness.But measurement isn't simply a technology or analytics challenge.It's also an organisational alignment challenge.Craig introduces a three-layer measurement operating model consisting of central owners, decentralised doers and cross-functional users, and discusses how organisations can build measurement capability across the business.One statistic highlights the problem: only around 50% of European CMOs report regular, meaningful collaboration with their CFOs.That relationship matters.Synchronising metrics, planning budgets together and developing a shared understanding of the customer can fundamentally change marketing's position in the boardroom.We also examine where CMOs are investing next, with Gen AI, measurement capabilities and customer insights emerging as major priorities.And perhaps most importantly, Kevin and Craig challenge the assumption that difficult economic conditions automatically mean marketing budgets should be cut.Evidence suggests that organisations continuing to invest strategically in marketing during downturns can emerge stronger — particularly when they balance short-term performance with long-term brand equity and consistent media investment.The takeaway?Measurement isn't simply about proving that marketing worked. It's about giving marketing the commercial credibility to influence where the business goes next.#Marketing #MarketingROI #CMO #MarketingStrategy #MarketingMeasurement #MarketingMixModeling #MMM #GenAI #BrandStrategy #CFO #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #MarketingEffectiveness #CustomerInsights #LTS #LeadershipByDesign

Losing her job wasn't exactly the plan, but it gave this caller the reset she needed. She talks with Geth about ADHD, burnout, GenAI, and just how much drama happens offstage in community theater. Sign up for Beautiful/Anonymous+ to get ad free episodes and access to exclusive audio including 5 Random Questions with this week's caller. Leave us a voicemail at (973) 306-4676 Head to chrisgeth.com for tickets to Gethard's upcoming shows, including This Helps Day in San Diego featuring Dinosaur Improv. You can try VeryVery Good Tea yourself by using code BEAUTIFUL for $5 off your first purchase at veryverygoodtea.com Upgrade your sleep with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at BollAndBranch.com/beautiful with code beautiful. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/beautiful  to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com/beautiful. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too.  

Steven Walchek is originally from the Bay Area in California, but lives in Denver now. He's been there for 8 years with his family. He comes from a family of risk takers and entrepreneurs - for example, his Dad was a tech guy who did his thing and had success in Silicon Valley. Outside of tech he is a family man, married with kids. He enjoys doing anything he can with them, as they are his "why". He plays hockey, coaches hockey, and rides dirt bikes and mountain bikes. Steven and his team built an application security platform, and ended up hitting every branch on the way down from the startup tree. When they sat down to figure out what they needed to do next, they combined their deep security tooling with a multi-modal platform, to enable complete AI governance in one central hub for regulated companies. This is the creation story of Liminal. SponsorsTiger DataProtected HarborRenderLinkshttps://www.liminal.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/swalchek/Checkout our episode stacks on Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/ Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.Our Sponsors:* Check out Perplexity and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://www.perplexity.aiAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What if AI could help us understand people better, rather than simply replacing what humans do?Episode summaryHow can we use AI to become better at persuasion, communication and understanding human behaviour? My guest on this episode is Roger Dooley, author of The Persuasion Engine, a new book exploring what happens when behavioural science meets rapidly evolving technology.Roger argues that tools once available only to large organisations — from behavioural science expertise to eye-tracking — are becoming accessible to almost anyone. We explore how AI can act as a personal “nudge unit”, helping us apply ideas from behavioural science, test communications and understand how different audiences might respond.We also discuss why simply asking an AI for an answer isn't enough, how to push LLMs beyond predictable responses, and why human judgement remains essential.Roger introduces his idea of a “60-second audit” — using AI to identify how communications might be misunderstood or backfire before we send them.Along the way, we talk about Cialdini, cognitive biases, invisible calls-to-action, board papers, cultural disasters, AI collaborators, rally driving, long division and why the best analogy for AI might be a power tool rather than a replacement for human thinking.Guest bioRoger Dooley is an author, speaker and behavioural science expert who has spent years exploring a deceptively simple question: why do people do what they do?His latest book, The Persuasion Engine (Wiley, 2026), looks at what happens when behavioural science meets AI — and how tools once available only to big companies with big budgets are now becoming accessible to almost anyone.Roger is also the author of Friction, named a Top 3 Management Book by PwC's strategy+business, and Brainfluence, which has been published in 11 languages.He brings an unusually practical perspective to the subject. Roger co-founded College Confidential  and today he combines that entrepreneurial experience with behavioural science in his writing, speaking and teaching.He is a lecturer at McCombs Business School, a Forbes contributor and host of the Brainfluence podcast — and his work focuses on helping organisations understand people better, remove unnecessary friction and communicate in ways that actually work.AI-Generated Timestamped Summary00:00 — What if AI could be your behavioural scientist?05:00 — Cialdini, behavioural science and why people don't know why they decide10:00 — Eye-tracking, attention and what people actually notice15:00 — Making important information more visible20:00 — Board reports, visual hierarchy and designing for human attention25:00 — Better prompting and getting AI beyond obvious answers30:00 — What happens to human expertise when AI knows the theory?35:00 — Reactance, unintended consequences and communications that backfire40:00 — Cultural context, reputation and Roger's “60-second audit”45:00 — Using AI to become better at understanding other audiences50:00 — Roger's lifelong interest in technology and what comes next55:00 — Cognitive offloading, critical judgement and rally driving57:00 — Why AI is best thought of as a power toolLinks to topics discussedThe Persuasion Engine — Roger's latest book on how AI, behavioural science and neuromarketing tools are becoming accessible to organisations of all sizes.Roger's previous appearance on this podcast talking about Friction.RogerDooley.com — Roger's website, including his books, articles, speaking and latest work.Roger on LinkedIn — where Roger regularly shares ideas on behavioural science, persuasion, AI and marketing.The Brainfluence Podcast — Roger's podcast exploring behaviour, persuasion, neuroscience and business.Roger's episode on The Persuasion Engine — his own introduction to the ideas behind the book, including what he calls “Neuromarketing 2.0”.Friction — Roger's previous book, and the subject of his earlier appearance on The Human Risk Podcast.

What if the moment where the buying decision actually gets made is still the part of the journey we understand the least?Agility depends on seeing what customers actually do — not just what they clicked — and being able to act on it while the promotion is still running.Today we're talking about the gap between where brands are putting their media money and where they can actually see it working. Retail media budgets are climbing, stores are getting reinvested in, and yet the shelf itself remains one of the least instrumented parts of the customer journey. We'll be covering:- Why the surge in retail media spend hasn't automatically produced better measurement.- What it takes to connect a digital impression to what a shopper actually does in the aisle.- How marketing, merchandising, and store operations have to work differently to act on any of it.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Angie Westbrock, CEO at Standard AI.About Angie WestbrockAngie Westbrock brings 20+ years of experience in retail, CPG and tech to her role as the CEO at Standard AI, the retail analytics startup valued at $1B that's helping retailers and brands understand shopper behavior so they can improve the customer experience and their bottom lines. Angie specializes in scaling teams, culture, and business operations to support massive growth. She's bucked the mold of what's expected of women since the start of her career; she was one of the first brewing managers at Anheuser-Busch, one of the youngest women to run a plant at CPG giant Sara-Lee, and helped lead Lyft's global Covid-task force with a young family at home.Angie Westbrock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angie-westbrock-a2581111/---------- Resources ---------- Standard AI: standard.aiThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why can't most companies show their ROI on GenAI? Because their implementation is backwards.If you're using the same digital transformation playbook that you used for the social media and cloud eras, you're in trouble. On this 'Start Here Series' episode, we break down what your company is doing wrong and the 7 Step process to properly calculate ROI on your AI efforts. Measuring AI ROI: Why you're doing it wrong and the 7 Steps to fix it -- An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Proving and Measuring AI ROI in CompaniesOpenAI's GDP Benchmark: AI vs ExpertsDebunking MIT's Viral Zero ROI StudyQuantitative AI ROI Data from Business StudiesInvisible Productivity: AI Savings Pocketed by WorkersLimitations of Pre-AI Job Roles and MetricsROI Calculation: Time Saved and Cost ReductionFive Main Reasons AI ROI Isn't MeasuredSeven-Step AI ROI Measurement BlueprintImportance of Ongoing AI Model RetestingAI ROI: Training, Education, and Implementation GapsTimestamps:00:00 "AI ROI: Fixing the Debate"04:50 "AI ROI Debate is Pointless"08:03 AI Implementation Yields Positive ROI12:13 AI Reshaping Work Structures15:08 AI ROI Challenges20:11 "Baseline Assessment Before AI Implementation"23:49 "AI Operating System Discussion"24:35 "Standardized Testing for AI Models"28:26 "Rethink AI ROI Urgency"31:37 "Everyday AI: Subscribe & Explore"Keywords: measuring AI ROI, AI return on investment, generative AI ROI, GenAI ROI measurement, ROI on artificial intelligence, AI productivity, time saved with AI, cost reduction with AI, AI-driven revenue increase, AI risk avoidance, AI implementation, baseline assessment of AI, BASE framework, pre-AI baseline, digital transformation and AI, quality metrics in AI, cost per task AI, error rates AI, throughput AI, AI utilization rate, AI pilot evaluation, AI business impact, AI model benchmarks, Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)

The Boreal Summer brings a bunch of cool new albums, maybe even an AOTY contender, and some awesome updates from Mad With Power Fest and Epic Fest for 2027. For the Impatient: 00:00:00 PreRoll 00:02:58 Sup Nerds 00:05:17 I've been pronouncing "Falaschi" wrong all this time 00:07:06 Elisa C. Martin announced for MWP 2027 00:10:53 Epic Fest 2027 Full Lineup announced 00:20:33 Hagane - Metal Quest 00:24:24 Galneryus - A Cry from the Sky Above 00:30:09 Novareign - Shifting the Axis of the World 00:34:40 Triosphere - Oceans Above, Stars Below 00:39:48 Edu Falaschi - Mi'raj 00:47:59 Jupiter - The Pantheon ~Age of Heroes~ 00:52:29 Kamelot - Dark Asylum 00:55:11 GenAI images tangent 00:57:50 Back to Kamelot 00:59:48 Wrapping Up Support us on Patreon!https://www.patreon.com/powerfulpodcast Follow us! Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc - powerful. a power metal podcastFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/powerfulpodcastInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/powerfulpodcastTwitter - https://twitter.com/powerfulpm Music by Fernando ReyEdited by Fernando Rey

With trillions spent on digital ads to capture consumer attention, is the most powerful and effective channel for product discovery the one your brand is overlooking?Agility requires brands to move beyond a digital-only mindset and recognize that the modern customer journey fluidly moves between online and offline moments. It means building the capabilities to engage and measure impact in the physical world with the same precision we've come to expect from digital.Today, we're going to talk about the next evolution of retail media and why the physical store, far from being obsolete, is becoming the next great frontier for data-rich, high-impact customer engagement. We'll explore how brands can bridge the gap between their digital strategies and in-store realities to not only drive discovery but create measurable, full-funnel marketing moments.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Matt Eichorn, CEO and Co-Founder and Dilini Fernando, CMO at Freeosk.About Matt EichornVisionary entrepreneur Matt Eichorn has been at the forefront of evolving brand and shopper marketing experiences for the better part of 20 years. As the current CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Freeosk, Eichorn has built a one-of-a-kind technology platform to deliver multi-sensory experiences at scale. His foresight to digitize millions of real-world intent signals in-store, as they happen, is unlocking new insights and shaping the landscape of retail media 3.0 for brands, category managers, and retailers alike.Dilini Fernando is the Vice President, Marketing at Chicago-based Freeosk – the only omnichannel discovery platform with in-store automated sampling. Dilini joined Freeosk in October of 2020 to lead integrated marketing programs, including brand, product and partner initiatives. Prior to Freeosk, Dilini spent ten years at MolsonCoors in brand marketing, digital innovation, new product development, and portfolio strategy. Dilini received her BA from Brown University and her MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a previous recipient of Brand Innovators “40 Under 40”.LinkedIn: Matt EichornAbout Dilini FernandoDilini Fernando is the Vice President, Marketing at Chicago-based Freeosk – the only omnichannel discovery platform with in-store automated sampling. Dilini joined Freeosk in October of 2020 to lead integrated marketing programs, including brand, product and partner initiatives. Prior to Freeosk, Dilini spent ten years at MolsonCoors in brand marketing, digital innovation, new product development, and portfolio strategy. Dilini received her BA from Brown University and her MBA from the University of Chicago. She is a previous recipient of Brand Innovators “40 Under 40”.LinkedIn: Dilini Fernando---------- Resources ----------FreeoskThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose.Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more.Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia—the wiki for marketing technology.Produced by Missing Link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast episode, Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel interviews Dr Elida Cena (Queen's University Belfast) and Dr Ashley Robertson (University of Glasgow) about their recent study on “Studying with GenAI: Student views on the opportunities and risks of GenAI in higher education”. Their study centered students' voices in discussions about generative AI (GenAI) in higher education, aiming to explore how they use these tools, their perceived benefits, and concerns about the impact on learning and assessment. Conducted at Queen's University Belfast and the University of Glasgow, the research sought to uncover common experiences across different institutional contexts while recognizing the influence of local cultures.

The Customer Service Department Is Dead: What the Future Service-Centric Organization Looks Like Customer service cannot remain the department responsible for cleaning up problems created by the rest of the company. If an organization is serious about becoming service-centric, every department must understand how its decisions shape the customer experience—and one accountable leader must ensure the entire system works. In Episode 268 of the Customer Service Revolution Podcast, Denise Thompson and John R. DiJulius III examine what the future service-centric organization will look like as AI reshapes customer behavior, frontline roles, organizational design, and the economics of service. The future will not belong to the company with the fastest chatbot or the fewest employees. It will belong to the organization that uses technology to remove friction behind the scenes while making the experience more human in front of the customer. Customer Experience Must Be Enterprise-Wide—but Someone Still Has to Own It "Customer experience is everyone's responsibility" sounds inspiring, but it can become an excuse for having no accountability. John argues that successful organizations need a clear experience champion—someone who loses sleep over the experience and has the authority, KPIs, and executive access to challenge decisions that could hurt customers or employees. In a large enterprise, that may be a chief experience officer supported by a customer experience department. In a smaller organization, it may be a shared role assigned to an HR, training, operations, or other senior leader. The title matters less than the clarity of the mandate, the time committed to it, and the metrics tied to it. The role should also extend beyond the customer. A truly service-centric organization manages the entire experience ecosystem: customer experience, employee experience, and vendor experience. AI Should Remove Friction, Not Humanity AI is changing customer service, but using it only to reduce headcount can create expensive unintended consequences. Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of the companies that cut customer service staff because of AI will rehire people to perform similar functions under different titles. Gartner has also reported that only 20% of customer service leaders had reduced agent staffing because of AI. As AI handles routine questions, human employees inherit the escalations, emotional customers, sensitive conversations, and high-stakes decisions. That work can be more meaningful—but also far more demanding. Organizations must protect employees from empathy fatigue, make access to a human easier, and train people in the skills technology cannot replace: empathy, curiosity, listening, rapport building, judgment, and the ability to defuse an upset customer. Your Customer May Send an AI Agent Instead of Visiting Your Website The customer journey may no longer begin on a company's website, app, or contact center. Gartner found that customers were approximately three times more likely to use a third-party generative AI tool than a company-provided chatbot when trying to resolve a service issue. Among customers who already used generative AI, 58% had used it to complete a task—not merely find information—and that figure reached 74% in B2B settings. That creates a new strategic threat: the company can become invisible while an outside AI platform recommends brands, compares choices, completes purchases, and resolves problems. Technology is easy for competitors to copy. Human connection, trust, community, and a distinctive brand experience are harder to duplicate. Access to a Human Could Become the Next Competitive Advantage Pega research found that 77% of consumers believed they always or often achieved better outcomes when dealing only with a human, while two-thirds preferred human-led support. Nearly half said they did not trust businesses that used AI to handle customer service interactions completely. Despite that preference, many organizations continue to make people fight through layers of self-service before reaching an employee. John's answer is blunt: a customer should be able to reach a human when the customer wants to. Companies that preserve convenient human access—and equip those employees to deliver empathy, expertise, and judgment—may be able to turn humanity itself into a powerful brand differentiator. Personalization Without Integrity Becomes Exploitation More customer data creates more opportunities to personalize an experience, but not every technically possible use of data is ethical. The public controversy over Delta Air Lines' AI-supported pricing illustrated how quickly personalization can be perceived as surveillance pricing. Using customer knowledge to anticipate a need or make someone feel cared for is service. Using a customer's identity, vulnerability, income, or presumed willingness to pay to extract the highest possible price is exploitation. Customers should be allowed to choose and pay for clearly defined service levels; businesses should not quietly decide that a particular customer can be charged more. Integrity cannot become collateral damage in the race to personalize. The Best Model Is People-Led and Technology-Powered Walmart and Starbucks offer a more promising blueprint. Walmart has introduced AI tools designed to support approximately 1.5 million U.S. associates, including real-time translation and technology that reduced shift-planning time from 90 minutes to 30 minutes. Starbucks' Green Apron Service model combines staffing, workflow improvements, and technology to give employees more time for craft and customer connection. These organizations are not presenting technology as the experience. They are positioning it as the infrastructure that helps people deliver the experience. That is where AI creates real value: transcribing workshop notes, organizing information, handling repetitive tasks, accelerating internal processes, and giving employees more time to think, connect, and solve. Stop Measuring Speed at the Expense of Loyalty Average handle time, ticket volume, and cost per contact can reward speed while quietly damaging the relationship. Fast service that makes a customer feel dismissed is not a win. Neither is a warm interaction that fails to solve the problem. The future service-centric organization must measure both efficiency and experience. John recommends tracking earned sales growth—the percentage of business generated through repeat customers and referrals rather than purchased through advertising—along with the operational and experience measures that explain why loyalty is rising or falling. The most important question is not simply, "Was the issue resolved?" It is, "How did the customer feel after doing business with us?" What Leaders Should Build Now The future service-centric organization will: Assign one accountable experience champion with clear authority, priorities, KPIs, and executive access. Make every department responsible for understanding its internal or external customer and its effect on the end experience. Use AI for repetitive, administrative, and low-risk work while preserving human judgment for sensitive, ethical, financial, and health-related decisions. Train employees continuously in AI readiness and service aptitude skills. Give frontline employees the authority to solve problems without unnecessary permission-seeking. Protect easy access to a skilled human whenever a customer wants or needs one. Measure loyalty, repeat business, referrals, complaints, certainty, and customer outcomes—not speed alone. Refuse uses of customer data that exploit vulnerability or presumed ability to pay. Build strong customer service systems first, then layer AI on top of them. Customer service may stop being a department, but service must become the operating system of the entire company. Chapters 00:59 — Why the customer service department is dead 01:51 — Enterprise-wide ownership still needs one accountable champion 05:06 — Does every company need a chief experience officer? 07:34 — Breaking silos through cross-functional CX leadership 08:26 — Are companies using AI to improve service or cut headcount? 11:14 — The new role of the human service professional 13:30 — Preventing escalation overload and empathy fatigue 15:17 — When customers send third-party AI to handle your company 19:36 — Will access to a human become a premium service? 23:08 — Why community and brand experience are returning 26:11 — AI costs, disappearing entry-level roles, and the talent pipeline 30:14 — Walmart, Starbucks, and the people-led, tech-powered model 34:03 — Personalization, surveillance, and the integrity line 38:59 — Which traditional customer service metrics now work against CX? 42:23 — A practical blueprint for leadership, employees, technology, and measurement 48:05 — The first question every CEO should ask Key Takeaways Customer experience can be enterprise-wide without becoming leaderless; one person must still own the system and its results. AI creates the most value when it removes repetitive work and gives employees more time for judgment, empathy, and connection. Automating simple interactions can leave human agents with a relentless stream of emotionally difficult cases, increasing the risk of empathy fatigue. Third-party AI platforms may become the new front door to the customer journey, making a distinctive human brand experience even more important. Easy access to a knowledgeable human can become a powerful competitive advantage. Personalization crosses the line when customer data is used to exploit vulnerability or presumed willingness to pay. Metrics such as average handle time can produce unintended behavior when they are not balanced with loyalty, customer outcomes, repeat business, and referrals. A company needs clear service systems before it layers AI onto the customer experience. Quotes "Someone has to lose sleep at night over the experience the company is providing." — John R. DiJulius III "When answers are everywhere, questions become the scarce resource." — John R. DiJulius III "When the world gets more artificial, we need to become more human." — John R. DiJulius III "The more digital we become, the more human is the competitive advantage." — John R. DiJulius III "Integrity shouldn't be something that is outdated." — John R. DiJulius III "EX equals CX. Employee experience equals customer experience." — John R. DiJulius III "Customer service may stop being a department, but service must become the operating system of the entire company." — Denise Thompson Resources Mentioned in This Episode Gartner: Half of companies that cut customer service staff because of AI will rehire by 2027 Gartner: 85% of service leaders are expanding human-agent responsibilities Gartner: Customers are three times more likely to use third-party GenAI than company chatbots Pega: Consumers demand more from AI-powered customer service PwC: 2025 Customer Experience Survey Walmart: AI-powered tools for 1.5 million associates Starbucks: Green Apron Service and improved service performance Delta Air Lines: Response regarding AI-supported pricing Links: ROX Dashboard:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/rox-dashboard/ The DiJulius Group Methdology: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/x-commandment-methodology/ Company Service Aptitude Test:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/c-sat-forms/individual-c-sat/ Schedule a Complimentary Call with one of our advisors:  tdg.click/claudia Ask John!  Submit your questions for John, to be aired on future episode:  tdg.click/ask Customer Experience Executive Academy: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/project/cx-executive-academy/ Experience Revolution Membership:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/ Books:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/shop/ Contacts:  Lindsey@thedijuliusgroup.com , Claudia@thedijuliusgroup.com If you want to learn how world-class organizations build cultures customers cannot live without, explore The Experience Revolution Membership. Inside the membership you'll gain access to livestream workshops, practical frameworks, and proven strategies used by organizations around the world. Learn more at https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/ Learn More If your organization is working to improve customer experience but struggling to connect it to measurable business outcomes, The DiJulius Group can help. Visit: https://thedijuliusgroup.com Listen to more episodes: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/the-customer-service-revolution-podcast/ Subscribe We talk about topics like this each week; be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss an episode.

How much of your marketing technology budget is quietly underperforming, not because the software is flawed, but because your teams can't, or won't, fully adopt it?Because real agility was never about buying faster tools. It's about having an operating model that can actually turn a tool's potential into results, and keep doing it as the tools keep changing.Today we're digging into the phase that quietly decides whether any martech investment pays off: what happens after the contract is signed with things like implementation and adoption. We'll get into:- Why rollouts stall — and why the real cause is usually the operating model, not the tool.- What it takes to move a team from "trained" to genuinely changed.- How to measure real value without fooling yourself with usage metrics.- And what shifts once the platform starts doing some of the work itself.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Kate Dalbey, Chief Client Officer at Qualified Digital.About Kate DalbeyAs CCO, Kate leads client management and growth initiatives at Qualified Digital, bringing over 20 years of digital marketing experience from both client-side and agency-side roles. She's responsible for driving organic and net new growth by leading multi-disciplinary teams who turn light-bulb ideas into fantastic outcomes for the brands QD works with. Kate is guided by the client philosophy that "we grow because they grow." Kate has consistently delivered year-over-year growth in her portfolio within fast-paced, high-growth start-up environments. She passionately believes that digital experiences can change people's lives for the better and works diligently to see these outcomes arrive in real time. In her daily life at QD, Kate enjoys what she calls "the relentless pursuit of better business results" and takes pride in building the teams that can create them, from idea to strategy to plan to execution and measurement. Because what's next isn't enough, it's what's north that really gets her excited. Kate's career experience is deeply rooted in healthcare, across provider, payer, and life sciences. The client roster she's managed includes category powerhouses CVS Health, CommonSpirit Health, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, Aetna, Sunrise Senior Living, Gelesis, UNCH, Jefferson Health, Cedars-Sinai, Spaulding Rehabilitation, UHS, and Wedgewood Pharmacy. She's also led digital transformation for AmeriGas, Hitachi Vantara, Thomson Reuters, ScanSource, U of Pennsylvania, and the Am. Board of Internal Medicine. When Kate isn't delivering her unique brand of magic at QD, she's with her husband and 2 sons. She loves cheering on Philly sports teams, coaching youth soccer with her husband, and traveling with her family.Kate Dalbey on LinkedIn---------- Resources ---------- Qualified DigitalThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more.Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Product Momentum team reached out to Barry O'Reilly, seeking his expertise in helping product leaders rethink how organizations make decisions, innovate, and perform in the age of artificial intelligence. After a quick review of his CV – co-founder of Nobody Studios (a global Top 10 AI venture studio) and author of Artificial Organizations: Build Better Judgment, Speed, and Results with Human and Machine Intelligence (March 2026) – and we knew we had identified the ideal guest for this episode. In this conversation with Product Momentum, Barry explains that AI's greatest value comes not in replacing human judgment. Instead, it is in building systems that give humans greater capacity, better information, and stronger decision-making capabilities. Use AI to Bolster Human Judgment As Phil Hornby shared in episode 178, “decision-making lies at the heart of the product manager job.” AI can accelerate analysis, synthesis, and execution, Barry argues, but humans must remain responsible for the decisions themselves. AI is a powerful thinking partner that can plow through data, but it must not be the autonomous decision-maker some want it to be. “Judgment is like a muscle,” Barry continues. “If you stop using it, it starts to erode.” That erosion happens gradually. To product teams that are already overwhelmed, a polished AI response can feel good enough. That's why Barry recommends challenging AI rather than simply accepting its first response. Ask your new partner to expose blind spots, test assumptions, and provide disconfirming perspectives. The goal is not to eliminate human judgment. It is to use AI to make that judgment more informed and effective. Turn Administrative “Grunt” Work Into Product Intelligence AI can also give product teams more time for the work they find most valuable. Barry describes a common imbalance in product organizations: teams frequently spend only a small portion of their time actually solving complex problems. The rest goes toward meetings, documentation, status tracking, and other necessary administrative work. AI can reduce that burden by turning everyday interactions into useful organizational data. “Every time I'm sitting on customer calls, I transcribe them and put them into a database,” he says. My AI tool is constantly churning through customer comments to where I'm able to extract the key problems that keep coming up.” It's an approach that changes the role of AI from simple task automation to decision infrastructure. For product teams, these conversations become searchable sources of customer insight. Prototypes ≠ Production-Ready Products No one can argue the benefit of Gen AI's ability to dramatically lower the effort required to turn an idea into a working prototype; it creates exciting opportunities for product teams and executives. But it also introduces risk when over-anxious teams mistake prototypes for finished software. Barry has observed teams build impressive experiences quickly, only to discover serious problems when usage increases. “It's very easy to prototype these days; but it's still quite hard to productionize software.” Production software still requires thoughtful architecture, performance, security, and engineering discipline. For organizations operating at enterprise scale, that distinction matters even more. Responsible product development still requires the expertise needed to make the resulting system secure, reliable, and resilient. Listen to the full conversation with Barry O’Reilly to learn how product leaders can put the human-machine partnership to work. [04:58] Think about your decision-making process. Most of us never evaluate the way we make decisions; we're unaware of the internal algorithm that we're using to make them. [07:08] Machines are terrible decisionmakers. Machines are great at capturing information and synthesizing it. But they’re terrible at making decisions. That’s what humans are really, really good at. [15:02] The 80-20 rule applied. Before using these tools, I spent only 20% of my time on creative problem solving; now I’m at 40%…that’s a 100% improvement. [21:31] Judgment is like a muscle: if you stop using it, it starts to atrophy. [22:06] Ceding our agency is a road to perdition. Every time I don’t actively participate in a judgment call, I’m giving up my agency. I’m deferring my responsibility. The moment you start to give up on making the decisions is it’s a road to peridition. [31:09] It's very easy to prototype these days; but it's still quite hard to productionize software. The post 195 / Barry O'Reilly: AI Should Strengthen Product Judgment, Not Replace It appeared first on ITX Corp..

What if the biggest barrier to scaling your retail media investment isn't technology, but a fundamental disagreement on what success even looks like?Agility requires not just adopting new tools, but also being willing to challenge the measurement frameworks we've grown accustomed to.Today, we're going to talk about the nuanced world of in-store retail media measurement and why the old rules no longer apply. Specifically, we'll cover:- Why the standard approach to measuring in-store media, often borrowed from digital, is creating friction and stalling budget growth.- How to create a unified measurement language that aligns brands, retailers, and agencies around a common definition of success.- Practical steps to move in-store media from experimental budgets to scalable, repeatable investments grounded in actual product movement.To help me discuss this topic and ISM and IAB's recent report, I'd like to welcome Paul Brenner, SVP, Global Retail Media and Partnerships at In-Store Marketplace (ISM) and Collin Colburn, Vice President, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB) and Collin Colburn, Vice President, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB.About Paul BrennerPaul Brenner is Senior Vice President of Retail Media and Partnerships with 25+ years of leadership in media, entertainment, and ad tech. He has led innovation in audio and broadcast, driving advancements in audience measurement, in-car experiences, and data attribution, and later scaling in-store audio advertising through strategic growth and partnerships. Known for identifying high-impact technology and revenue opportunities, Paul now focuses on evolving the in-store retail media landscape.Paul Brenner on LinkedInAbout Collin ColburnCollin Colburn serves as Vice President, Commerce & Retail Media at IAB where he leads the Commerce Center of Excellence. In this role, he drives innovation, education, and standards across the commerce ecosystem to help brands, retailers, and technology partners deliver better media opportunities, customer experiences, and business outcomes. Prior to IAB, Collin led Growth and Go-To-Market Strategy at Horizon Commerce and spent over a decade at Forrester, where he pioneered the firm's performance marketing and retail media practice. He partnered with B2B and B2C CMOs to advance their marketing strategies, while also expanding Forrester's Fortune 500 client portfolio. Collin's insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Digiday, and MediaPost. A popular industry speaker, Collin has keynoted global industry events in addition to being a quarterly guest on Bloomberg TV.Collin Colburn on LinkedIn---------- Resources ----------In-Store Marketplace (ISM)The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.Read the report mentioned in the show.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose.Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more.Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the biggest screen in the home could be treated less like a billboard and more like a direct response channel?Agility requires moving beyond the "set it and forget it" mindset of traditional media. It means having the data and the tools to react to performance signals in real-time, whether that's on a social feed or a living room screen.Today, we're going to talk about unlocking the full potential of Connected TV. We'll explore how marketers can move beyond treating CTV as a simple awareness play and start leveraging it as a true performance channel, driven by first-party data and connected to a full-funnel measurement strategy.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Alison Clark, GTM/Strategy Lead at AdRoll. About Alison ClarkeAlison Clark is the Head of GTM Sales Strategy for AdRoll. She developed her career building and scaling advertising solutions across digital and programmatic, with a focus on driving real results for clients. She is the AdRoll customer's number one champion to inform CTV product priorities that solve your biggest challenges.Alison Clarke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-clark-7566265/---------- Resources ---------- AdRoll: https://www.adroll.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Download MP3 | Watch Video Episode Full Timestamps: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQXzUWeL7-kPfvD63XJEQDoLYOUTIG0ZABPETWD7Czvy9RPxhs_Jny13GyOTCka4M3iXHq_WrvW9iXl/pub Watch full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@CastleSuperBeastArchive New Steam Controller Review Durability is Just Ammo for your Sword XenoLIES How Asterdam 1666 Just Lost Everybody Rooting For It Super Bosses: I Love This, Now Get It Away From Me NEW CASTLE SUPER BEAST "LEGACY" SHIRT & DESKMAT AVAILABLE NOW: https://www.orchideight.com/collections/castle-super-beast Visit http://drinkag1.com/SUPERBEAST to get a FREE AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro Welcome Kit. Head to http://factormeals.com/castle50off and use code castle50off to get 50% off and 1 free breakfast item per box for a year! Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat, Aspen, and Walden frames at https://on.auraframes.com/SUPERBEAST. Promo Code SUPERBEAST Docket: (Aftermath) 1666: Amsterdam uses so much GenAI they've essentially forgot which are AI assets Twitch now uses your channel to train generative AI by default. You can opt out of some training It's on by default because if it was opt In nobody would opt in Twitch isn't sure whether Amazon has used Twitch creator VODs prior to today to train its AI models. ︀︀The opt-out will apply to your previous and future content, so it will not be used to train future models. Saber Interactive has denied renewed claims that it replaced a former Lead Writer so it could "use ChatGPT" in the development of the recently announced title, Rideshare "Stimulator." In a statement to PC Gamer, Saber also acknowledged previously undisclosed genAI use elsewhere in the title. this CEO comment is how you know with 1000% certainty Stella is right  Hey everybody. I've seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me. I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he's lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game. Invincible VS Developer Reportedly Laid Off "Something Like 75%" of Staff Tokon got cracked in less than 2 weeks and not only does it run better than the retail version, it also works on Linux. What was even the point of Sony shooting itself in the foot with all of that DRM? Not entirely so it turns out you can terminate the Playstation SDK in task manager and the game and online will still work you just won't be able to matchmake against PS players. So the PSN login BS is just for crossplay nothing else Retail version of the game is encrypted and decrypts the game in real time in 64kb chunks on 1 CPU core. Kingdom Hearts The Series announced for Disney+ Kingdom Hearts 4 - Official Coco Showcase Trailer | D23 2026 https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1vrklpn/comment/p4dyhik/  

What happens when your e-commerce platform treats your most valuable professional clients like everyday consumers?Agility means looking past a platform's out-of-the-box features and building an experience that reflects how your different customer segments actually do business.This episode is brought to you by The Office of Experience, a design-driven, digital-first, vertically integrated and collaborative agency that believes in the power of ideas and the strength of people. Learn more at www.officeofexperience.comToday, we're talking about the complexity of building a single e-commerce experience for two very different audiences. Specifically, we'll explore:- Balancing the distinct needs of B2B and B2C audiences on a single digital storefront.- Knowing when to lean on an e-commerce platform's native capabilities versus when to invest in custom development to close critical experience gaps.- Integrating physical retail and showroom data, like real-time local inventory, into a seamless digital experience.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Jenna Kennedy, Senior Director, Client Strategy & PMO at Office of Experience and William Webster, General Manager, Guy Gunter Home.Jenna Kennedy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennabkennedy/---------- Resources ----------: https://www.officeofexperience.comThis episode is brought to you by The Office of Experience, a design-driven, digital-first, vertically integrated and collaborative agency that believes in the power of ideas and the strength of people.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whose job is it to ensure the brand promise you market is the same one your customers and employees actually experience?Real agility isn't just rapid execution — it's a whole organization responding as one to what customers, employees, and the market actually need.Today, we're talking about "Total Experience" and what it takes to make brand, customer, and employee experience add up to one company, not three. Specifically:- How to orchestrate brand, customer, and employee experience so they reinforce each other instead of competing.- The operational shifts that turn siloed functions into a single, trustworthy experience.- Why the CMO is uniquely positioned to champion this, and where that means owning parts of the business marketing hasn't traditionally touched.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Mack McGee, CMO at CareFirst, which was recently recognized at Forrester's CX Forum West as the top insurer in Total Experience.About Mack McGeeWith more than 20 years of experience in marketing and storytelling, Mack excels at connecting people and communicating impact in creative and meaningful ways. He also brings extensive fundraising experience, evidenced by his success in helping the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation raise nearly $5 million as chair of their annual Passion for Food and Wine event.Mack McGee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackmcgee/---------- Resources ----------: https://www.carefirst.comWe're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ChatGPT can do what now?

What if the AI tools you bought to make your team faster are quietly making that team harder to coordinate?Agility depends less on how quickly you adopt new technology and more on how well you understand the work that technology is supposed to improve.Today, we're going to talk about:- The operational costs buried inside customer-facing work — and why they're so hard to see, let alone measure.- Why layering more automation onto a coordination problem often makes the problem worse.- What it takes to build AI into core workflows so that efficiency and customer experience improve together instead of trading off against each other.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Kevin Yang, Director of AI at Front.About Kevin YangKevin Yang is the Director of AI at Front, the only customer operations platform built for B2B complexity, where he leads the company's AI strategy across automation, analytics, and customer insight. His work is grounded in the belief that the most valuable business intelligence lives inside customer conversations. At Front, Kevin is building AI systems that operate within real workflows—helping over 9,000 businesses better understand what their customers are saying and translate those insights into action with full visibilityKevin joined Front through the acquisition of Idiomatic, the AI-powered voice-of-the-customer platform he founded and led as CEO. Earlier in his career, Kevin worked in frontline support while building his first company, EAT Club, a leading virtual cafeteria serving over 1,000 companies, including Google, Netflix, and Tesla. Kevin Yang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yangkevin/---------- Resources ---------- Front: https://www.front.comFront is a customer operations platform that helps organizations manage customer communication across email, chat, voice, SMS, and other channels in one place. The platform is designed for teams handling complex customer relationships, where resolving an issue often requires coordination across multiple people, systems, and departments.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The next 12 months of AI leaked. Kinda. For the past 90ish days, we've been quietly collecting evidence of what's next.1,030 saved posts. 90 Podcasts. Countless conversations. Every model drop, every leak, every quiet product update the big labs hoped you'd scroll past.Then we connected the dots.What came out the other side: 19 calls on where AI goes over the next 12 months. And some of them are uncomfortable.We're walking through all 19. Bring your team's AI roadmap. You'll want to edit it.

What happens to a brand when the story it tells about its AI adoption moves faster than the results it can actually show?Agility isn't about telling that story faster. It's about being able to change what you say — repeatedly, as the technology changes — without losing the thread of what your company is actually for.Today, we're going to talk about the widening gap between AI ambition and business reality, and what that means for enterprise marketing leaders. Specifically, we'll cover:- The shift from selling an AI vision to proving tangible value.- How AI is pushing marketing into closer alignment with product and revenue.- What it takes to build trust — inside the company and out — when the outputs of AI systems are hard to explain.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Mark Abramowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at Dataiku.About Mark AbramowitzMark Abramowitz is Chief Marketing Officer at Dataiku, The Platform for AI Success. In his role, he oversees global brand and demand strategy, and is responsible for building awareness of Dataiku as the platform that unifies people, governance, and AI systems to deliver real results at scale.Mark brings extensive experience scaling enterprise platform businesses. Prior to Dataiku, he served as SVP of Product and Solutions Marketing at ServiceNow, leading product marketing as the company scaled from $6 billion to nearly $11 billion in revenue and spearheading the launch of Now Assist—the fastest-selling product in ServiceNow history. Before ServiceNow, Mark spent 15 years at Salesforce and 5 years as SVP of Product Marketing for Service Cloud.Mark Abramowitz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markabramowitz/---------- Resources ---------- Dataiku: https://www.dataiku.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the real risk in your AI adoption plan isn't that the pilot fails — it's that it succeeds, and you still can't get it into production?Agility isn't how fast you can launch a pilot. It's whether the organization can absorb what works and still behave like one company while it does.Today, we're going to talk about moving enterprise AI from theory to practice in customer experience. Specifically, we'll cover:- What separates an AI pilot that scales from one that quietly stalls.- How to govern AI agents proportionately — enough accountability to be defensible, not so much that nothing ships.- How to tell a program that's creating business value from one that's simply handling volume.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Kevin Lee, CTO at NiCE.About Kevin LeeKevin Lee serves as Chief Technology Officer and Key Pursuits Leader at NiCE, where he leads the company's technology vision and its most strategic customer engagements by aligning platform capabilities, AI strategy, and architectural vision to deliver differentiated outcomes.Kevin joined NiCE in 2021 and has held multiple leadership roles across the company's digital and go-to-market organizations. He founded and scaled the Customer Service Automation team, transforming it into a cornerstone of NiCE's growth strategy. He has played a pivotal role in many of NiCE's most competitive and highimpact pursuits, shaping both technical and commercial strategy across global opportunities. Prior to his current role, Kevin served as Global Head of Digital Sales & Strategy, where he led the growth of NiCE's digital portfolio and helped customers transition into the self-service era. With more than 15 years of experience in cloud and software sales, Kevin brings a comprehensive approach to account strategy, technical storytelling, and executive engagement. Kevin Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thekevinlee/---------- Resources ----------Coca-Cola FEMSA, NiCE: https://www.nice.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a brand says it "used AI," that could mean anything from a tool speeding up a human's first draft to a system generating and shipping work on its own — and almost all of the real risk lives in the difference. So as AI moves deeper into creative work, which decisions are you certain still belong to a human?Real agility here isn't being quick with the latest tools. It's moving fast without losing the through-line that makes a brand recognizable — the ability to know exactly where human judgment stays non-negotiable.Today we're recording live at Ai4 2026 in Las Vegas at the Venetian, and we're going to talk about:- Drawing a clear line between where AI sharpens creative work and where it introduces unacceptable brand risk.- A practical look at how AI was used in a national campaign to improve the creative process, not just automate it.- The strategic shift as consumers move from traditional search engines to AI-powered platforms for discovery and research.To help me dig into this, I'd like to welcome Taryn Crouthers, CEO at Big Spaceship.About Taryn CrouthersTaryn Crouthers is the CEO of Big Spaceship, MSQ Partners' award-winning creative agency. A passionate leader, Taryn has spent her decades-long career inspiring teams to create work that moves both people and business. Her work spans advertising, media, entertainment, and the distribution and commercialisation that scale them. She is the former President of social-first global media company ATTN:, where she helped lead the company from pre-revenue through its $100M acquisition.Along the way, she earned recognition including Campaign's Inspiring Women (2026), 40 Over 40 (2025), Ad Age Leading Women (2024), Cynopsis' Corporate Visionary, and Top Women in Digital.An entrepreneur at heart and a nationally recognised voice on the future of creativity and AI integration, Taryn brings a founder's mindset to scaling creative businesses and developing new revenue models. She has served on juries for Cannes Young Lions, The One Show, ADC, Webby Awards, and other prestigious industry competitions. She serves on the Advisory Board of Miami Ad School and is an active investor in emerging creative and technology-driven companies.She is also a co-founder of the Women in AI Summit for the Creative Community and launched the Women in AI Creative Cohort, which selects 15 top global executives for a six-month AI mentorship program.Taryn Crouthers on LinkedIn---------- Resources ---------- Big SpaceshipThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show.Connect with Greg on LinkedInDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more.Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.