What We Heard at the 2024 CMO Summit

AI and change management

Hope and fear. Excitement and trepidation. Ever since ChatGPT burst into the public consciousness, generative AI has drawn particularly strong feelings in creative areas, where artificial intelligence offers opportunities to improve the way work is done while posing some genuine existential questions about computers taking over creative jobs that once seemed safe from incursion by technology.

One CMO shared how her team is split between what she called “early adopters and Luddites,” people eager to try out the new technology alongside those who are keen to protect their territory. She is trying to let these feelings play out naturally, institutionalizing curiosity, awareness and exposure to the technology to find out what’s now possible thanks to AI.

AI: From cost savings to value creation

AI’s sudden rise in the public eye has led to immense pressure to make an immediate impact with the technology, and to generate value as quickly as possible. While the temptation is to do everything you can with this new technology, our group of marketers agreed that the ability to capture AI’s full value will come from more robust, more organized, longer-term efforts.

The goal is not to just have an AI solution just because you should, but rather to have one because it can offer a better way to market your products and services to the target audience. As one CMO said during the discussion, “When you have these powerful technologies, you can quickly default to doing it because we can, as opposed to doing it because it’s the right thing.”

Risk

The two topics above dovetail naturally to another topic for marketers and C-suites as they incorporate AI into operations: risk. It’s impossible to look at that journey from cost savings to value creation without taking a serious look at the legal and reputational perils of using AI.

Our attendees shared some interesting anecdotes about how their firms are monitoring AI-related risks. One CMO told us about a CEO who is reluctant to lean too hard or fast into using generative AI in creative, because of many still-murky legal and copyright issues to be worked out. Another CMO mentioned a fear of preexisting biases being perpetuated by AI. A few marketers from companies in highly regulated industries also spoke of how regulatory risks had limited their experimentation for the time being.

Talent

An interesting portion of the discussion touched on how, perhaps paradoxically, liberal arts backgrounds have become valuable in the AI era. More than technologists, you need talent that can think critically, ask good questions, and apply the lessons they’ve learned.

There was also a lot of talk about how to share learnings and spread them throughout the organization. As with adopting any new technology, a lot of time can be wasted repeatedly having the same conversations when true success demands learning fast.

“We need self-starters who are able to become proficient fast,” one CMO said. “They need to be able to know how to use the model, quickly validate the findings, and then go back and improve upon that.”

Organization and structure

Access to generative AI has in many ways turned marketing processes on their head. Many participants talked about how more siloed setups are proving less effective than those inspired by scrum or agile. There was general agreement that everyone needs to be in the room, sharing ideas, testing them out and learning from the outcomes.

The implications go beyond marketing. A few of the bigger companies represented around the table are centralizing AI plans within strategy or transformation teams. Those companies are giving the teams the breathing room to develop longer-term solutions without undue pressure to pull it off too quickly.

AI: The leadership implications

Much has been written about how AI in general, and generative AI in particular, can offer assistance with more basic tasks like writing emails and finding themes in large blocks of text. But the true value for marketing will come when AI can help drive insights that deliver a positive impact for customers, and ultimately the company.

Through it all, the “human touch” remains critical. Several of our attendees spoke about AI’s potential to facilitate better connections with customers through better insights, driving more effective personalization and customer targeting efforts. As one CMO suggested, the next generation of AI is about better delivering on brand promises, as technology enables “personalization at scale.”

That said, the pace of change is incredibly fast — perhaps faster than any person or organization can incorporate them. The leading marketers will be those that build organizations that can innovate smartly, and convert AI-driven insights into happier customers.

Attendees