The modern CMO role is data-driven and steeped in analytics. Long gone are the days of marketing being considered the “arts and crafts” department. CMOs today have earned a seat at the strategic decision-making table and the role continues to evolve as new technology emerges to capture and organize customer data. There is no shortage of AI-powered ad-tech and martech solutions that promise to deliver more accurate insights faster than ever. 

The big question for CMOs is whether AI will arm our teams with more credibility in the organization, or will create stumbling blocks where the newest and shiniest products and solutions take us down the wrong path. The goal of any AI investment or project should not be to end in the stalemate of a deuce. It should be to create a competitive advantage that lets your organization emerge with a win—whether for a single marketing campaign or as the dominant player in your market.

John Copeland believes that in many ways, everything new is old again. CMOs are being held responsible for revenue, not just leads, but also what happens after revenue. AI has a huge role to play here, but the question remains if it’s adding credibility yet to the CMO role. A lot of this depends on the vertical. When it comes to the marketing function in the payments and fintech space, AI is exciting, but it is not yet providing a tangible and scalable advantage. The real challenge now is how to use AI to connect marketing and CX. Simon Benarroch says that focusing on the needs of the customer can help unite areas of the business.

For years, we have heard about the power of AI for better personalization in marketing. CMOs are presented with all kinds of AI-powered personalization solutions to evaluate. Amidst all the noise, they still have to get their campaigns out the door and hit their targets for the quarter. AI and other lofty words are lovely, but concrete deeds count, right? It’s important to remember that the customer’s emotional or functional attachment to the brand is the same as it has always been. AI will not change and shouldn’t change the way the customer views the brand.

What AI does have the power to do is provide true 1:1 experiences and speak the language of target customers every time, and at scale, across all customer-facing touchpoints. The advent of GenAI raises a new crop of challenges, however. Once again, there are limitations to scale. Everything that GenAI creates requires a human to check before it goes out. To date, this must be done manually, which is not scalable. There are emerging tech-enabled solutions to help with this—but this raises questions about tech vetting tech.

As more AI-powered tech enters the marketer’s toolbox, more questions arise about how they don’t lose their fundamental skills and their baseline credibility. Continuous education can help, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be formal. Staffing projects in creative ways can challenge team members to flex muscles that have gone dormant. Having an upskilling plan is part of the responsibility of the CMO, however, everyone is ultimately responsible for owning their own learning agenda.