Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for a special episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. Through our podcast, we’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, our special guest is none other than Susan Westwater. Susan works at the intersection of marketing, customer experience, and innovation, helping leaders turn AI from experimentation into a disciplined, business-driven strategy.

As co-founder of Pragmatic Digital, she helps organizations move beyond the fragmented pilots and the vendor noise to operationalize AI across marketing, customer experience, and internal work floors. She’s been thinking about and working with applied intelligence systems since the early 2000s. Before this current rave of generative AI, her experience spans algorithmic learning and driven decisioning, automation, and pattern recognition through data that informs both practical and strategic approaches to today’s AI. It’s with more than 25 years of experience in leadership roles like Leo Burnett that have shaped the foundation of her approaches to AI. She is co-author of Voice Marketing, which includes a forward by former guest of the podcast, Philip Kotler, and she was named last year’s 2024 American Marketing Association Foundation’s Berry Book Award finalists for this volume, Voice Strategy. Susan, very warm welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Susan Westwater

I am doing great. Thank you for having me.

Bennie

We know we’re talking about things that shape marketing when Phil Kotler gives you your forward. So, talk about the experience. How do you, how do you go from writing a text to having the modern godfather of marketing provide the forward?

Susan

That I still pinch myself and still think it might have been a dream. Because if you had told me back when I was in school that I would be writing books about AI and voice marketing, back when I thought I was going to go into PR and be a copywriter, I would have laughed. The way that that works is when you start to look at the pattern recognition and you start to put the dots together.

The writing voice marketing was a really exciting thing because I actually got to bring in my mentor, Colleen Fahey, as well as my co-founder and taking the experience that Colleen and Lawrence Minsky had from audio branding about how do we present a brand vocally and audibly and combining that with kind of our understanding of how that impacts customer experience was incredibly exciting. was when we had the opportunity to approach Phil and say, hey, would you like to write the foreword on this? He’s, well, I’ve got to read what it is first. He looked and said, I wish I’d had this information when I was writing my last book. And that was one of those moments where you pinch yourself and say, all right, I’m gonna dine out on this for a bit and that’s gonna keep me going as an entrepreneur on the darker nights. So that was one of those things of merit and also just Chicago being a small community, even though we are a big city, it’s really connected and so we have the opportunity to then share ideas with people like Phil Kotler.

Bennie

It’s so, you I can, I feel that experience as well. We had that early on in the podcast. We got an outreach from him that said, I want to be on the podcast. And you have to pinch yourself in that moment. Like, did you just reach out? You know, so of course the answer is yes, now. But I love in our conversations that he’s always looking towards the future.

Susan 

Yeah, no, absolutely. Yes, yeah, he’s not a, he doesn’t always look backwards and it’s nice, but he builds upon what he knows, which is one of the things that can get thrown out when we start talking about innovation. Now, everything’s new. Well, actually it’s not. And so it’s awesome when someone like him brings his experience and knowledge forward to make it relevant.

Bennie

So let’s talk about everything being new. We’re gonna talk about one word that we don’t mention often and another that we mention all the time in the conversation. So AI is the one that’s mentioned often, but the one that’s not mentioned all the time but describes our moment is frenzy. So we’re kind of in this moment with all of this excess energy and dynamism, excitement, concern, fear, everything you can add all bundled up together. People are either all in, are all out when it comes to AI. What’s the happy medium for us?

Susan 

I think the happy medium is prioritization and being intentional. One of the things, especially when we start looking at AI’s applications from a business and an organizational level, because so much of what happened in November of 2022 when ChatGPT made it possible for anyone to tap into some fairly heavy lifting AI experiences, is that all of that became individual and very personalized. And that’s where I think we see that frenzy. You see folks coming through almost the way, we laughingly call it the tool shopping cart where you’re walking down that aisle and you’re like, I wanna do this, I wanna do that, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. And suddenly you have a full shopping cart. I think the happy medium will come from the prioritization of what are the actual outcomes I need? How do I tie this back to what my actual objective is, which again, from a marketing perspective, we know how to measure a campaign. We know how to plan out a thought out brand interaction. Those are the things I think that are going to help us get to that happy medium. But right now we’re also at a point where there’s a constant sense of, am stuck, I’m too late, or I have to catch up, I have to catch up. And the reality of it is, that, I mean,

we laugh because back in 2017, we thought it was early days. Now we know that was prehistoric when we look at how things have evolved if you’re where you’re supposed to be, but you do need to take that step forward and to kind of take a deep breath, look and then be intentional as opposed to that kind of that panic. And then that puts you in a proactive situation of, I know where I want to go. Now let’s see how AI can help me get there as opposed to my gosh, I feel like I should know how to use cloud. I need to use cloud code. Have you by coded all of those buzzwords? How do I actually make them apply to giving me the insights, the efficiency, the information access, all of those things that AI can afford.

Bennie

Right. Let’s talk a bit about that. The strategic impact and the strategic kind of breakthroughs that come through. I was reading a great article yesterday and it talked about AI in schools for the K through 12 space. And it made the point that we’re spending a lot of time teaching tools, but not teaching the strategy, the application, and the impact. So you’re creating a bunch of people who know how to use a tool of the moment, but have no conceptual framework of how to make the tool work for us. When you think about marketing and brands, what advice do you have for people to get out of that trap of just learning the latest and greatest tool without this deeper understanding of the strategy and the impact and what can be available?

Susan

Yeah, and I think that again, when we were talking about that, absolutely resistant and not going to adopt to I’m all in or I’m all out. There’s also I think this notion that I need to learn, I need to go get my Python degree. I need to go learn how to build all of this machine language. And there’s nothing wrong with learning how to do all of those things if you want to. A lot of marketers I know though are really, really busy and adding another degree or even a study or a certificate is probably going to push them over the edge. I think it is thinking about and taking a moment to not be leading with a tool in search of a problem.

It’s more of thinking about what is it I want to solve and then using some of these models to help you understand, like especially with the LLMs of let it lead you a little bit of ask it the question, I want to do this, this and this. How do I get there? And starting to work from that refinement. Experimentation is an important part of that individualism of getting the comfort and the familiarity. We know that our mindsets shift from, I’m never going to use that to, okay, I’ll give it a shot to exploring and then finally truly adopting and embracing. That’s the same type of thing that we have to think about. So it is kind of absorbing those things and looking at them, but it’s finding those particular areas that are relevant. There’s so many flavors of AI these days, not just conversational as opposed to generative as opposed to programmatic and all of those, but even the idea of, I’m going to build something? Do I want to use this?

Or is it I simply, I just need to know it’s going to work. Kind of understanding those particular sides of it, of like, why do I want to use AI to begin with? What is it I think it’s going to give me? If we start there about how we think about AI, that helps us to understand it a little bit better. And there are some really good books out there like by

Paul Raitzer and Mike Kaput have written one, Ethan Mullick has written a couple others. Those I would say, and they all are available as audio books. Those are helpful places to look and to start to learn. And then there’s also a lot content like this that are here on podcasts. Those are places to get that cursory idea of understanding, but then start to launch. Like log into ChatTPT, try it out. Don’t put any personal information in it, but try it out. Yeah.

Bennie

Right. Don’t do that ever, right? So since I have you here, I’m going to ask, let’s do a brief history of this proto journey of where we are at AI. Because you’re absolutely right. We talk about AI as this moment that happened when the universe cracked open after ChatGPT. But machine learning, algorithmic learning, the premise of AI has been a part of our work and been a part of marketing for several years. Talk about the ways in which marketers have been assisted with AI for the last decade or so without really even recognizing that this is what was happening.

Susan 

Yeah, absolutely. And even before then, as I said, prior to founding Pragmatic, some of the things that I was working on were things like IBM Watson and being able to translate simple things like that, but huge, right? When I was talking with colleagues in Japan, for them to be able to get written word that was in their language and when they responded, I got that back.

That was a huge time saver and also a collaboration, you know, it made collaboration so much more powerful and effective. Now, I think other things too is, meaning, anyone who’s been in data and analytics, the attribution challenge that we have always had. And I have folks ask me every day with the advent of AI, does that mean I’m going to be able to actually truly understand attribution? I would love to say that, but that’s a big hairy problem. We can get a little bit closer. And actually there was a discussion I was just having on some software that, open source software that’s going to be launching next week. That’s the exciting thing of seeing how those dots get connected. But we’ve always had predictive modeling, lookalike models, all of those things. It’s just now we have an opportunity with AI to do that much more quickly and it’s more democratized.

And I think that’s the part of it of the access, which is there is no shortage of what you can do with AI. But when we were talking about that medium, what’s the happy medium? Well, it’s going from can to should. Here’s what I actually should be doing with it from a business perspective as opposed to then taking the reality of prioritization and then saying, actually, this is what I will do because I’ve looked at the restraints of resources and time and my basically, you know, that roadmap. That’s where I think then we get into that intentional, intentional disciplined approach that then is going to help us put our arms around it a bit more and then also recognize it. I mean, we talk about things we haven’t been using, Grammarly and predictive text. That’s been something that we just kind of take for granted. Those are the beginnings of some of that pattern recognition. That is some of those things that are within there. So there have been many tools in the arsenal that have been forms of AI and machine learning. We just now have it in a much more ubiquitous way that doesn’t quite frankly make it so that only enterprises can play in that part of the pool.

We now have that opportunity and access to many different types and scales of organizations, which is a super exciting time if you’re a number two or number three player in a particular market. And it also puts the number ones on a notice.

Bennie

Right. So when you think about play, you’ve talked about play, which is all about experimentation, but in the same breath, we’re talking about structure and discipline. How do you reconcile those tensions in your relationship?

Susan

So that is, I think part of it is understanding where your organization and you personally are at in your maturity. And it’s an important part and maturity is a big part of that. And not just the notion of the maturity of my knowledge and whether or not I’ve got a Python degree, but it’s also the maturity of sort of understanding where it is my brand’s at as well. Because if my brand is not fully developed, or if there are things I haven’t thought about with my brand, that will make it harder for me to then bring it into AI. For example, if I don’t have a solid persona and I’m trying to then move into, and I haven’t thought about what happens when my brand begins to speak or how it sounds, that will then be something work I have to do before I start to put that out into a conversational experience. And that can apply to a chat bot or that can even apply to a voice bot or any of those things. But it even also applies into what is the content then that I’m generating when I’m allowing generative AI to perhaps do some of the lighter lifting and directional copy or in any of those particular things, making sure that everything sounds consistent. Because I think that’s one of the big impacts where, you know, I’m sure AI search has become a major thing and answer engine optimization and G, know, GEO, AEO, all of those things. What it comes down to is just putting the onus of how consistent have we been presenting our information? How consistent have we been putting things out there? How intentionally have we had it? So that’s where that piece comes. It’s just sort of like how when you first learn how to roller skate, you’re kind of like messing around and then you get serious. That’s kind of where we’re walking. We’re playing with that. But it all has to start out with, have you logged into these things? Have you started to play with them yourself? So that there is that little bit of familiarity.

Bennie

So one of the things that I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about was your work with voice strategy in moving the space. And you made a point just now when you used the reference of how your brand sounds. And it made me think of the early days of another technology when you think of the motion picture industry, when sound was first introduced. And there was this big moment of dissonance when you had actors and stars who were basically brands who you fell in love with in a silent era. But some of them didn’t make the transition because they didn’t sound like you imagined them. So what happens when you have your story brand and you try to give it voice and the voice doesn’t match with the brand?

Susan

Yeah, so that’s what I call wrong sounding muppets. I laughingly, I affectionately call them that. What happens is at worst, it doesn’t get in the way of the experience, but it’s just a, okay. Let me reconfirm that I’m in the right place. Let me reconfirm or wow, that’s a robot when and so they start, you know, it’s sort of that idea of don’t make me think, they start thinking about the wrong things, as opposed to listening to what it is that’s being delivered. When it’s done right, there’s the assurances, you get the halo of trust. You also get a moment to reinforce that, like if my brand is about being a colleague in that well known mom expert that I’ve always known that makes me then you get me, you understand me. And then the comfort of also engaging with the experience that way becomes that much more natural. And then also they start sharing, especially when you’re speaking with a brand, but you lose that connective tissue too when that brand doesn’t sound the same across all the channels. And that could be everything from, does that brand sound with the voiceovers that are used in radio? What is being used as the mobile assistant that takes me along? And then what does customer service sound like? And that doesn’t have to be the same voice, but is that same persona that warms everything? Are those tenets still there? And then that does get to that holistic world because in an omni-channel world, there isn’t just one channel where someone says, hey, that’s the phone experience.

Bennie

So when you think about the brand voice, both in theory and then the brand voice in practice, is there value in being able to discern what is machine learned and what is human?

Susan

So that is a tricky one and it depends on the use case and the actual context of the experience. First of all, if you’re using a bot, your bot should, like, there’s a couple things that come into play. Number one, depending on what that bot’s job is, is it the ambassador, is it an assistant to help with customer service? Absolutely. We don’t, the goal is not to replace humans, it’s to augment them. It’s also to facilitate an experience of, hey, these are things that I’m talking with it that I don’t necessarily need to speak with a human about. So customer service is that natural path.

When it comes to those other types of experiences, I’m talking to someone, we do still have to caveat that no matter how well it sounds. Because these days when we get to a world of where someone says, all synthetic voices sound like bots, I’m like, well, no, the bad ones do. And those are the ones you’ve recognized. There’s other ones that are flying. It’s important to have some transparency and to have some disclosure just because that also manages expectations.

And so that’s an important part of that, like as you’re saying of when, how much do we have that? But there’s a study that I’ve been a part of now for the past five years and it’s run through Elvis in London. And it’s their AI impact report and consumer attitudes. What we found out was shockingly only 28 % of people immediately dismissed AI generated content or bought experiences of saying these are poor. If you’re helpful, if you’re useful and you have that transparency and you’re effective, there isn’t nearly a mental barrier to engaging with these as much. It’s the, you’re not gonna be able to help me so I just wanna talk to a human. That’s where then we start to see that.

So it’s kind of that, again, it’s appropriate contextually for those experiences, but I think the best balance I can tell you is that if you think of it as a dial, and on one side is utility and instruction, and on the other side is brand building and brand value, it’s thinking within experiences of, do I turn it more towards brand? Or is this because this is a facilitating part of a conversation or an engagement or experience, then you know what? I need to make sure that I’m more about being clear about next steps than I am about necessarily sharing a core value. And that’s not to say when we do think of a voice and we put it together thoughtfully, those things will be then reinforced in the word choices, in the tonality, and all of those things. And then we can subtly reinforce it. Just like how we think of when we start talking to another human, you start to form opinions. You start to, just based off of those inflections, we can tap into some of that, but not from a manipulative standpoint just from a fax is. And that’s where the ethical standards or boundaries start to come into play as well of, let me be intentional so I don’t have unintended consequences such as everyone thinks that this is, you know, this is my most precious spokesperson now suddenly is going out and saying things, wait. So.

Bennie

Right. Well, let’s talk about change in two dimensions. One dimension is change as a reflection of market evolution. So I think about voice. There was a point in time not too long ago where the idea of us just yelling out what we need, what we want, what was on our mind and respecting a valid response was kind of insane. Right. And now think about how quickly you’re not only asking a conversation simply about the weather, it turns into recommendations, what you should wear, where you should eat, and we don’t have a problem with it. But that’s an evolutionary space, right? That wasn’t the space where we were as customers. I think about online banking. 20 years ago, the sentiment was, I will never give my personal information to the bank. Now we want to know how come it isn’t faster. So when you think about it, what trajectory do you see our consumer audiences on? Do you think they’ll ever catch up with where the technology is going? We’re really completely comfortable with this, you know, machine learning experience?

Susan

Yeah, so there’s two pieces that come into play. And I think the one thing too is first, when we think about adoption and acceptance, we can’t think of it as this monolith of yes, no. Because there are two pieces at work. There’s the, of course, like I said, the mindset shifts that happen, and a great example is smart home, right? Why would I ever, I can go turn that light bulb off myself. I can just get up and hit a light switch. Why would I ever use my voice to do that? And then you try it a couple of times and it’s like, well, that was easier. Or that one time you forget to turn the Christmas lights off living here in cold Chicago and going, I don’t want to go downstairs. Wait, I can just say, Alexa, turn off the outdoor lights. Those are the moments that suddenly then spark into a, well, that was really successful. What else can I do with this?

That mindset shift has to happen for someone to embrace. You can’t force someone. It’s sort of the regardless and regardless if you’re a laggard early adopter, mainstream, these mindsets have to happen. So we have to think about that. The other part of that is also understanding how we’re going to use this technology. And so there will be for some, the technology isn’t fast enough, the technology isn’t big enough, the technology isn’t doing enough.

But there are others who are just saying, and this is where that research has been really helpful. If we look at top tasks, we actually asked folks, and we’ve been doing this for five years of what are really important things you need to do in the context of, and we looked at food service delivery, healthcare, financial services, what are those things? And one of them is like, I just wanna know where my delivery is. Well, that’s not launching a rocket ship.

So that’s okay if the technology has been able to do that for quite some time. So that’s kind of where we have to kind of right size that. And that’s where we’re saying, now there are other folks who are saying, I would like for my experience to follow me from my home to my car, to my office on all of my different multi devices. I wanted to proactively schedule that doctor’s appointment when I’m available, because I know I need to do it. And I just want it to be my true assistant.

Yeah, the technology, that’s massive. And that’s someone who’s gonna push those borders. But reality is that from a mainstream perspective, they’re probably, while folks will say they wanna do that, their comfort level is probably a little bit more dialed back to more of be the assistant that is checking in with me, not proactively, agentically, and autonomously starting to manage my life for me. And it’s just sort of like how if someone has a personal assistant, how they get used differently, depending on the personality and the level of control.

Bennie

It’s a case of, want you to give me recommendations for dinner versus I want you to tell me what my diet is.

Susan

Exactly. And the exciting thing is, is that we have an entire universe of people who fit in all of those. So I think that’s also where knowing your customer profile, wait, that’s traditional marketing knowledge. Like that’s what good marketers do is understanding that appetite and then meeting them where they are.

And I will say that don’t think that if you have a 55 plus cohort or an audience or target audience at that age, that that immediately is like, they don’t want innovation. They don’t want voice. They don’t want AI. It’s not true. We’ve seen it. We’ve got the numbers that show. Nope, they’re just as they’re using it just as much, which is, an exciting time of where there’s opportunity for all age, know, age breaks and segments, not just the young whippersnapper, so to speak.

Bennie

So the question is, how do you lead as a marketing executive in this moment? With all this complexity, all this dynamism and disruption, we ask ourselves again the question, how do we lead?

Susan

Yes. So there’s a couple different ways. So back when like web was becoming a thing and social, I mean, what happened? Account directors, SVPs, CMOs would pull someone in and say, I need you to figure this out and then come back to me with an answer. We can’t do that because of all the things that come into play with AI that requires quite honestly, you can’t go think about it and then come back in 18 months. You have to have a plan and you have to be. So as a leader, you have to get an understanding. And by an understanding, you don’t have to be able to develop it, but you have to understand the systems and the implications of what those things work into.

The other side of that is you have to recognize that your organization, there’s two points to this. There is the AI that I’m going to use to run smarter, to be able to work through there, to be able to enable my team, to be able to be responsive. And then there are the things that support the customer journey, like getting business, delivering excellence, and retaining business. Those are other sides that are external. Those are two sides of a coin. So then you need to meaningfully give the right rules.

It’s just like when we tell toddlers you can watch TV, but only for two hours, or you can only watch these programs. Those are the things that are important to give to your internal teams so that they have understanding guardrails of where they’re supposed to be at and understand what your vision is. You need to have a vision of like, but why AI? And because it’s cool is not going to be a satisfactory answer to your shareholders, nor is it going to be to your team. So it’s thinking about that, but also understanding that you’re going to have your builders who are going to go, and build things. They’re gonna want to, they’re gonna have that, hey, I’m gonna go vibe code stuff. And then you’re gonna have your customizers who are gonna say, I’m gonna take what the vibe coders have done and I can tweak it to my purposes or what have you. But then you’re also gonna have what I call like the consumer or just straight up user, which is the, don’t have enough time. And I think a lot of marketing, especially client side, especially a manufacturer side. I don’t have enough time to be a builder but I need to know that what you’re building I can use, I can trust, it’s going to be compliant. Those are the things to understand as a leader so that it isn’t just we’re all going all in. Like the other thing to lead is a decree of we’re going all in on AI is a great launch.

But you need to have a plan for that about how you’re going to bring AI. Because you got to take policy and make it practice, not just say these are the rules. You have to then continue to enable that.

Bennie

And I think it creates a distinction that we’ve seen in technology for a long period of time. There’s a difference between being a technology company and a company that does its business with technology. Sometimes organizations can get really kind of out of sync with that. And especially in this moment of I’m all in on AI and you run past your core business chasing AI.

Susan

Yes Yeah, no, absolutely. That’s where AI first, I think, is a dangerous term because that’s leading with the technology. When in reality, most service and product led organizations or those things are like, no, our customer is still at the center of our universe. It’s just, we’re an AI forward company where we will use AI so that we can serve our final audience to the best of our ability. That’s where I’m thinking of it. So it gets dangerous to make it a silo quite honestly, as well. It’s not putting AI in a box on a side. It’s how do I integrate? How do I change my workflow? So that AI is a part of it, not a layer on top.

Bennie

So one of the things we mentioned as a leader, understanding the rules of the universe and the play and the road are always important. That’s one space that’s evolving rapidly right now. We talk about guard wells. Where should leaders, marketing leaders look to find safe approaches to the work that we’re doing? So much of it’s being created on the spot. What guidance do you have? Where do you look for a true kind of center as to how to build and how to deliver?

Susan

The first thing is, and it’s funny because marketing does sometimes end up being the catalyst of change. Although in other organizations, there was someone in accounting who’s like, I need to use AI because this is going to make my life so much easier in analytics. Being that driver, first of all, it has to be a cross-functional approach. You got to have your IT team involved. You need to have legal and compliance involved and have them involved from the start. As you think about what’s the shape of the direction we want to go.

As a strategic leader, you need to know where you want to go or why, and then working together to put those things together because there again are these multifacets. I will say this too, regardless of what you do, do not just say, don’t use AI. We know that doesn’t work. It’s never worked with telling kids not to drink or smoke, at least for Gen X. It’s not gonna work in here either. You’re just gonna end up with people burying it down. So it’s bringing it out in the open, supporting it, and then socializing it and making it public.

Those are the important pieces to pulling that out. I look to, I mean, that’s some of the things that we do when we’re helping our clients with their policies or when we’re helping them with understanding their guidelines, it’s we look to the Responsible AI Institute. We look to the Linux Foundation Trustmark Initiative. We look to those folks to help with understanding some of the unintended consequences that they’re seeing ahead so that we can keep ahead of today. I said this, but we need to hold back. Also, I’ll be honest, this is a time where it isn’t just, set my privacy policy, my data is We’ll just go put that on the website or put it on SharePoint and everyone knows it exists, you have to look at quarterly reviews of these particular things because the market, and then if there is a major shift of something or there’s a major regulation that comes down, thinking about that and then how do I explain that to my entire organization in plain language so they know what that means. Because I think that’s the other side of it if we’ve got the leadership support. Now they’re actually telling us you can go this far. Here’s where the road ends today because we’re still building.

Bennie

Which is really an interesting point that’s fueled by core experiences that are reinforced. So what advice do you give to our younger marketers who are interested in entering the field, but may not have that core of experience to pull from? As they push to go AI first, as we mentioned, they’re pushed to go all these spaces and we kind of run past some of the fundamentals. But what advice do you have for new entrants into the profession?

Susan

I would say, first of all, put on a little bit of a UX hat. Looking at those responsible AIs, these organizations too that I mentioned, the Responsible AI Institute, subscribe to their newsletters. Tap into that, find a mentor. Those are always really helpful. Like in the Chicagoland area, there are several organizations that help with that. And my heart actually goes out to those entering the workforce right now because there’s this expectation and I’m still hearing this term AI native. No one’s an AI native yet. No one was born straight into AI who’s using it except perhaps they might be three, four years old maybe if we want to go into the generative AI perspective. Because of that, learning how to navigate this change, they, again, my heart goes out to them in that they’ve not had to navigate the disruption that web brought, the disruption that social brought. This is their first major, major disruption. There’s been many other unprecedented events, but this is one that is a little bit different. Find out, experiment on your own, learn how to dive into those particular aspects of it, and also realize that there’s more than generative AI out there and become familiar. Again, there are organizations with AI literacy that are helpful, but you’re unfortunately gonna have to probably do it on your own because you’re hearing two messages in, now, especially if you’re at the college level these days, and that’s something we talk about a lot is AI is coming, it’s coming for your job. It’s going to be, you have to learn how to use it. By the way, don’t use it for my class to write your paper. Don’t, we have AI everywhere you turn. Don’t ever use it to even write an email. And it’s sort of two sides of the mouth. We also see that happening in organizations to their employees too. Or, you were cheating because you used AI. Well, not if I use it when I’m compliant. I’m using it for structure, not for pure generation.

Being the human, I would say learn how to be the human in the loop and the human on the loop. So that way then, and in the loop means you’re the orchestrator and with everything on the loop means it’s coming through for review. That way then you will be able to then set up an agent that can work off the loop of, go do my competitive stuff. Using that in a way that is still ethical and responsible but also teaching you how to use it in a way that you’re feeling familiar because it’s about asking the right questions. It’s not necessarily, as you said, not just about knowing how to use a tool, but it’s knowing how to get the most out of that tool or knowing how to ask the right questions or the right prompt engineering or that systems thinking that’s going to help you structure. So looking at ways that systems have been developed before, looking at examples of that, taking a page from that.

Bennie

So eventually, in the evolutionary arc, we’ll undoubtedly achieve technology AI parity across brands. Eventually, we’ll have parity. We’ll all have access to the same tools. But prior to that, in our proto moment, what advice do you have to brands of all sizes to either accelerate above their station or to catch up or to move forward?

Susan

Eventually. Yeah, I would say first of all, take a hard look at where your data is at. Get ready for AI. If you aren’t using AI, there’s probably pockets using AI. I would say for those brands of coming up with a POV, and I will caution against ignoring it. And that’s everything from AI search to understanding and starting to ask questions. Ask your experts. You have your partner agencies, ask them what their POVs are on AI and then start forming your own because it is absolutely that evolution of everything from what is the latest protocol or what are the standards that are coming out right now with AI search of how to get found. This is a golden opportunity if you are a second or third player to leapfrog for the moment of getting that consideration of getting your house in order. And it’s going to be easier if you’re smaller because you don’t have as much to deal with. So that’s kind of a golden moment for that opportunity.

But my advice also is don’t think that it also will be immediate. Because I think that’s the other thing of, hey, I got this tool, or hey, we got this way of doing things, hey, we’re going to use AI. That means everything is going to be faster. That isn’t always necessarily the outcome because it takes time to set up, takes time to do, which is why I say start thinking about it now. Start thinking about that vision, informing yourself. And if you’re feeling over your head, either pull in an expert or take a breath and then break it down further. cause that’s the other part of it too, of, of, this whole notion of, we have all this tech debt. Like I’ve been in rooms where it was an AI focused forum and folks hadn’t even logged into chat GPT yet. So just start using what you know, at least do a little experimentation, even if you’re a little worried, then do it in a risk free zone because that way then you can start to get comfortable, then you can start to think about, here’s how that would apply to my organization.

Bennie

So for lots of marketing, it’s the brief that drives the creative strategy and innovation. In our AI world, the brief gets taken over by the prompt. What’s the best brief or prompt you could give to a brand today?

Susan

That is a really good one. I would think if you want to know where you’re at right now, the prompt would be, show me how I am showing up across the digital spaces, and show me what I’m standing up for. And I would ask each model that question. And that will tell you how much more work you need to do. Because if it can’t articulate your brand, then chances are you need to start thinking about how you’re going to appear for that and talking about how you’re presenting yourself.

I think that’s the brief. I think it’s also the brief when it comes to how am going to use AI. Think about your workflows and the things you are doing, and then think about the things within there that you would like to solve differently so that you’re not solving the same problem twice.

with so many silos multiple times, and then moving on to the, are those opportunities where I can solve something I haven’t been able to solve before.

Bennie

I can’t think of a better way to conclude our conversation. Asking a way to elevate your voice, clarify your voice, providing the prompt of what we do and what you do next as a leader, as a brand, as consumer. Susan, thank you so much for just this thoughtful exploration of what’s now and what’s next. Thank you for your strategy and thank you for the incredible work on thinking about these technology moments and thank you for being our guest here.

Susan

Thank you for having me on and thank you for the really great questions and thoughtfulness that you’ve brought to this conversation. They can go a hundred ways and this has been a really fun conversation.

Bennie

We’re excited to have you here. And I encourage everyone to check out your latest book. We can all use a primer and voice strategy. Follow the lead of Phil Kotler, who said he wished he had this as he was moving forward. Congratulations again for being one of our finalists and continuing the work that you do on building this new way of marketing for us. And thank you all for joining us for this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And.