Decoding AI for Marketing

Jeff Lunsford, CEO of Tealium, says that as enterprises rush to deploy agentic AI, batch processing and siloed systems won’t cut it: AI strategy lives or dies on the quality — and speed — of your data. In this episode, we explore what a true real-time data layer looks like, why most companies are underutilizing their marketing tech, and how brands must prepare for a world where AI agents — not humans — are initiating customer inter...

Konrad Feldman, co-founder and CEO of Quantcast, explains the shift from rule-based “expert systems” to goal-driven, autonomous AI, the evolution of DSPs, the hidden limits of “AI-washed” platforms, and why measurement—not targeting—is the biggest bottleneck holding marketing back. Drawing on three decades of experience in neural networks, machine learning, and programmatic advertising, he shares where he thinks digital advertising...

Michael Walrath, Chairman and CEO of Yext, says today’s AI is fundamentally rewriting the rules of search, discovery, and brand visibility. Drawing on his extensive ad tech experience at DoubleClick, Yahoo, Moat, and now Yext, Walrath explains why AI-powered search is so much more powerful than traditional search—and why many current assumptions about GEO, SEO, and advertising are headed for a fast reckoning. Expanding on our episo...

Shelly Palmer, professor in residence at Syracuse and expert in all things AI, returns to the show to offer up what trends he saw at CES, and where the marketing industry is going. He explains how fast AI is changing every day, what marketers need to be doing to keep up, and why the technology is still underhyped.

For Further Reading:

CES 2026 Day 1: https://shellypalmer.com/2026/01/ces-2026-day-1-robot-wars/

How to Install and Setup ...

Sid Sudhakaran, Head of Data Strategy & Engineering for North America at Kantar, explains the benefits of the company’s ambitious AI assistant: KAiA. He explains how it democratizes data, when chatbots work for marketers (and when they don’t), and the real customer pain points they are tackling each and every day. 

For Further Reading: 

Embedding Artificial Intelligence in the World’s Largest Companies

Leveraging GenAI for Connected I...

Bill Gross, founder of Overture (the company that created paid search) and now ProRata.ai, says that generative AI is fundamentally rewriting the rules of search - which means marketers, advertisers, and customers must all adapt to new ways of discovering products. Gross explains ProRata’s business model, how advertising will evolve inside AI-generated results, what a fair-value model for publishers and creators might look like, an...

Jacob Bank, Relay.app founder and CEO, says the days of building up a huge marketing department might just be over. The Relay.app platform helps teams design and deploy custom AI agents, without losing impact. Bank explains why the old model of hiring is on the way out, why he offers step-by-step guides to users on how to effectively build agents, and how marketers can rethink scale, autonomy, and leverage in this new age. 

For Furt...

Diaz Nesamoney, Founder, President, and CEO of Jivox, says that commerce media is fast becoming the next big wave in advertising, thanks to transaction-level data that makes personalization more precise than search and social media ever could. He explains how commerce media is growing beyond retail and how AI allows that scale, as well as the complexities marketers face when handling diverse product catalogs across multiple retail ...

Hannah Elsakr, Vice President of New GenAI Business Ventures at Adobe, hears from enterprise marketing leaders every day about what they really need from their AI tools. She talks about why so many marketers are still hesitant to adopt AI into their workflows for true transformation, and how Adobe Firefly is helping to create commercially safe and ethically sourced generative AI to open new doors for your brand.  

For Further Readin...

Wade Foster, CEO and cofounder of Zapier, says the next frontier for marketers isn’t just shiny AI agents, but practical AI workflows. By weaving automation and intelligence into the systems teams already use, marketers can reduce manual tasks, accelerate lead management, and unlock new personalization at scale. Wade explains how Zapier has moved beyond basic integrations to become an orchestration layer for AI, and why this shift ...

Sandeep Menon, cofounder at Auxia, says AI is quickly enabling the marketing industry to enter the age of “supermarketers” - where individuals can do the jobs of all different kinds of specialized marketers with the help of AI tools. He unpacks how agentic AI is changing the game by creating tools to compress roles, accelerate experimentation, and drive deeper personalization at scale. From lifecycle decisioning to AI-powered analy...

Paul Yacoubian, founder and CEO at Copy.ai, is on a mission to cut down go-to-market bloat. One big way that AI can help marketers, especially at larger organizations, is in creating standardized content creation processes - and integrating those outputs into existing companies at the organization. It can mean efficiency and scale that saves thousands of employees time, and can increase the satisfaction of thousands of customers. P...

Steve Erbentraut, Managing Director at Marketbridge, works with clients every day in highly regulated industries who are caught in a tug of war: innovate with AI enough to beat out the competition, but minimize risks so as not to break down the trust of customers. It’s a delicate dance, and Erbentraut spells out what it means for implementing AI solutions in the marketing arms of organizations in the financial services, healthcare,...

Vikrant Batra, cofounder of Maximon.ai and former CMO at HP, says that if you aren’t already well on your way in your AI journey, your marketing organization is in serious trouble. He details why he left his former corporate employer to strike out in an AI business, how fast change is coming, and why the financial side of companies will be coming for the marketing department - if they haven’t already. And he shares why traditional ...

Mark Polyak, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MINT.ai, says that embedding agents is transforming every step of the advertising resource management process. He explains how his background in counterterrorism helps shape his approach to AI and data integration today. Plus, he shares how MINT.ai is using multi-agent systems, synthetic data, and emerging protocols like MCP to help marketers do their jobs better. 

For Further Rea...

Doug McColgin, Director of Marketing Strategy at UScellular, says that AI tools aren't enough to build an effective marketing strategy. As more and more companies adopt AI, the playing field will be leveled when it comes to productivity gains. But McColgin thinks AI can be used in more creative ways to differentiate from your competitors. He explains the tests his organization has done, and how two foundational frameworks—Clay Chri...

Jen Kattula, CMO at Microsoft Advertising, has been testing out ways to improve the jobs of marketers through AI - while at the same time trying to improve organizational effectiveness. She shares use cases from Microsoft, how she thinks about agents and human intervention, and the hurdles around getting people trained up and in the habit of using AI. 

For Further Reading:

More about the AI Agents Hackathon from Microsoft: https://mi...

Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute and Smarter X, left his agency world behind and now spends his days training marketers on how to better use AI to move their organization forward. When it comes to AI adoption at marketing organizations, there’s still a wide range of adoption - and Roetzer shares what he’s seen in terms of what trips people up, and where they should be putting their resources. Plus, how the ag...

Sadie Thoma, director of US B2B marketing at Google, and Derek Rodenhausen, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, say that artificial intelligence is having a major impact on marketing - especially when it comes to the consumer journey. They partnered on new research that shows that the four main consumer behaviors today are streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping - and that they are often done in tandem. ...