“AI has transformed the way a lot of us work,” said Alison Herzog, Head of Global Corporate Marketing at Visa. Marketers are putting the technology to work in a wide swath of functions, such as adapting existing creative to improve personalization, crunching data to make decisions easier or roughing out first drafts to break though creative blocks. 

AI has the ability to take the data compiled in an organization’s brand book and turn it into a “brand engine for all business functions, ” said Chelsey Susin Kantor, co-founder and co-CEO Brand.ai. A brand book is “kind of a dark art” to the rest of the organization, and those other functions didn’t have the bandwidth before to check that communications were brand-appropriate. Now, AI can power software that enables brands to strategize and create better brand experiences, so teams such as sales can use the brand book effectively and become better ambassadors for the brand, she said. 

“Innovation is the sharing of that collective knowledge,” said Federico Salvitti, VP of Growth, at MINT. AI can gather and orchestrate “all the micro decisions that are made every day,” and help the CMO delegate tasks, freeing the executive to focus on more important strategic goals, said Salvitti. 

Freeing marketers from drudge work is the greatest contribution AI can make to the organizations, said speakers in the Summit’s AI and Digital Innovation track. By roughing out first drafts of creative, AI can break through writer’s block and by versioning multiple executions of existing creative—to accommodate personalization or different markets—it leaves room for creatives to work on other things. 

“Chat GPT is that first draft” that gets the humans past the procrastination that they may call writer’s block, said Herzog. 

But AI-generated creative is not a replacement for what humans produce, said Liz Bacelar, founder of the Global Tech Innovation Team at Estee Lauder. “It never gives the output I’d like, because great creative is human-based,” she said. But those renditions are useful to communicate and model concepts to the artists who can produce the creative quality that’s necessary for the brand, she added. 

Joseph Janus, Global Chief Executive Officer & Chief Marketing Officer, of streetwear brand WeSC said his organization uses AI on a daily basis for content creation and personalization. It makes personalization possible, as well as enforcing brand guidelines across 47 countries the brand does business in, as well as adapt to multiple languages. 

“It doesn’t replace your DNA,” he said. “It’s only going to guide you as the most useful tool you’ve ever had.”

Indeed, AI remains a tool, not a replacement for marketers, said speakers. The insiders warned leveraging AI can’t be simply about saving money by eliminating manual processes and reducing headcount, but needs to be a part of a strategy that fits into the objectives of the brand.

“AI enables growth,” said Jeanniey Walden, CMO of Rite Aid. “But that growth is people-centric,” she added. 

Humans will always play a role in AI, providing the “why” that guides decisions requires human input, said Joshua Nafman, vice president, digital, data, & AI marketing, at Diageo. The liquor company has been experimenting with using AI for content creation that combines “creativity with precision” but he warned that AI is most useful to figure out the core concept in creative, not make the ultimate call. “AI doesn’t make choices. It gives you options,” he said. 

Ultimately, marketers can use AI as a collaboration partner, said Kantor. “We have all of these answers,” she said. “We need to be the ones with taste and curation ability.” 

Speakers warned marketers need to take the reins on this technology now. Future-proofing is a matter of learning about AI and experimenting to avoid the threat of obsolescence, and for their organizations, the imperative is to set processes and guidelines for AI use, because employees are already experimenting with the technology. 

“Everyone’s using it,” said Bacelar. “Wake up.” 

AI has to be placed within the organization’s strategy, said Bacelar. The process has to start by looking inward and assessing how the goals and strategy of the organization intersect with the technology, she said. She suggested talking to stakeholders to identify key concerns and pain points and incorporate them into a plan and guidelines for responsible AI use. For example, they should bar the use of AI in human resources decisions. 

“It has to serve the strategy that you already have in place,” Bacelar said. Merely jumping on the technology without thinking through the strategy piece is short-sighted, she explained. 

Another potential pitfall is looking at AI as merely a cost-cutting tool to automate tasks and reduce headcount, said Nafman. “If the goal is ‘cheaper,’ I don’t think that’s the best thing,” he said. “Cheaper is not always better. Better is better.” 

Creatives will always have a place, and the fear that marketers will lose their jobs to AI is a myth, said Sharad Vivek, vice president, partnerships, at Jacquard. 

“AI is not going to take your job,” he said, “but someone who knows AI will.”

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“We shouldn’t be having this particular panel,” said Emily Freed, global account lead at TikTok. “It should be a given.”

Indeed, many panelists in the conference’s women in leadership track acknowledged exasperation with the need to keep pushing to increase female representation in the top ranks of the industry. Marketing organizations are seeing more women in the C-suite, but challenges remain, said Marc Sternberg, co-founder and co-CEO of Brand Innovators. 

In spite of the progress women have made in the workplace, there still remains some residue of “this scarcity mindset” where women still expect to be the only female in the conference room, said Erin Malone, senior director of marketing, analytics and insights at apparel brand Free People. Fortunately, the industry is also seeing more women working together “to bring ourselves up,” she said. 

Despite recent pushback against diversity and inclusion drives at many corporations nationwide, the drive is “a mega continuing trend” that won’t fall to pressure, said Amanda DeVito, CMO of Butler/Till. She noted that she worked with the agency’s two female founders when they wanted to turn over management to continue its efforts to remain an inclusive workplace. 

“The age is shifting,” she said. “I don’t even know why we would have the discussion about walking it back.” 

The pandemic pivot, paradoxically, helped many executive women, as remote work and videoconferencing highlighted the “second shift” that many still face, and their efforts to balance both. Being an executive and a mother is like being a superhero, with the struggle of managing work and home going unnoticed, “but during COVID we got a glance,” said Jessica Ricaurte, chief revenue officer at Adsmovil. 

“COVID happened, and now there are no more secrets,” said Ashley Schapiro, VP, marketing, media, performance and engagement at American Eagle. She remembered being on a video call with her boss, who was consistently distracted because Schapiro’s young daughter was—quite literally—on her head. 

The remote work pivot gave the industry a glance of what executive women—and mothers in particular—have to juggle, said JulieAnne Evanina, senior VP, brand marketing and creative at SiriusXM. “Balance is sort of a myth,” she said. 

Women need to keep pushing forward, finding allies and avoiding the trap of self-imposed perfection, said speakers. “Successful men didn’t do it by themselves,” said Jen Vianello, CMO of Cars Commerce. Find allies and champions in the organization—whether they are male or female—document and celebrate the successes to build your personal brand, and learn from failures, they advised. 

Executive women in marketing have to learn to let go of overhyped expectations, accept will fail sometimes and learn from those failures, said speakers. “Trust yourself. You know so much more than you think you know,” said Kathy Maurella, CMO of sparkling water brand Waterloo. 

Allies are important, as is finding a supportive partner who will hold down the domestic front sometimes, and having both mentors to advise and champions to empower a woman’s work. “Find someone else to bring you into that session, into that conversation, into that room,” said Amy Lanzi, CEO North America at Digitas. She credited her predecessor, Sharon Love, with helping her ascend and building a network for women at the holding company, Omnicom.  

Jennifer Halloran, CMO, head of marketing and brand at MassMutual noted that she often has to teach young women in her team to step up and take the spotlight. In meetings, women often gravitate to the outer ring of chairs in the conference room, rather than sit at the table. “If you were invited to the meeting, your name on the invite was the same as anybody else,” she said. 

“I don’t care who’s in the room. If you did the work, it’s your turn,” said Maurella. Women have to take credit and document their successes, including keeping tabs on all praise and recognition for a job well done, said Sukhmani Mohta, chief marketing and partnerships officer, display division, Samsung Electronics America. “It really helps in end-of-year conversations.” 

Indeed, asking for pay equity and recognition remains a barrier for women in many organizations, said speakers. “If you won’t do it for yourself, Do it for a hundred women that are in the industry, so you’re establishing a baseline,” said Lanzi. Women still face obstacles, but they can be overcome with effort and using skills that come more naturally to them, such as emotional intelligence and persistence. Alison Herzog, head of global corporate marketing at Visa, likened EQ to a “superpower” that allows women to “read a room” and adjust. “To some degree we all hustled to get to where we were, but also used our superpowers to overcome the obstacle of being the only female in the room.”

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