Well, thanks for having me here today, Mark.
Yes, it's so great to be here.
So, we're about two years into the AI renaissance of marketing,
and I think we'd all agree that things are happening at warp speed.
We at Google are trying to balance an approach of being
both bold and responsible. And you're spending a lot of time
with marketers trying to navigate this shift.
So can you tell us a little bit about what's in the most recent
study findings that might be helpful for marketers to know?
So I love that our teams got to partner on this blueprint for
AI-driven marketing together this year.
It's the largest study of its kind.
We've surveyed 2,000 marketers around the world, and the
findings are pretty shocking actually.
Only 20% of companies, even after all this discussion about
AI and all the work we've done, only 20% of companies have
really embedded AI into marketing workflows.
But the good news is, those that have are growing 60% faster than
their peers.
So there's a lot of upside if we can just figure this out.
Yeah, you know, we often talk—and it's interesting to
hear—and
the 20% number is, is somewhat staggering just because it's the
topic du jour, right?
We talk about strategic distance in the future—right?—is going to
come to those who can collapse the timeline between information
and action for their business.
So in the study you released that something to the tune of,
you know, those who lean in heavily to AI-powered marketing
are seeing 60% increases in effectiveness and efficiency for
their business.
Can you tell us what's driving those shifts?
What are the actions that those marketers are taking?
You hit the nail on the head.
It is—comes down to speed.
But we uncovered six actual actions that these leaders are taking.
So it's a lot of complicatedness underneath—complexity—that these
leaders are figuring out.
It comes down to an integrated view of the customer.
You've got to rapidly test and learn.
You've got to dynamically optimize your media budgets.
You're having to apply GenAI
to content creation.
They're creating audiences on the fly for personalization.
And lastly, and most importantly, they're actually
infusing an AI culture into all functions, not just marketing.
So all these things boil down to speed because when you bring
together automation and some of the processes I described, plus
this AI culture of how people work together to get stuff done
faster, that's what these AI leaders are really getting right.
Interesting.
I love that.
And I think it is about like how we can show up differently
within our organizations.
And one of the things we've been talking a lot with our own
customers about is how Google AI can help our customers stay in
front of their consumer who's moving really quickly, as well
as ahead of their competition, right?
And so as you think about that, you have worked on an AI
flywheel to help marketers and companies really build
transformational results on their AI journey.
Can you tell us what's in the flywheel and how folks could
think about applying that to their own business?
So the AI flywheel essentially takes all these six actions and
embeds AI into each of them.
But it's not just about the AI and the machines.
You have to inject the human creativity as well.
So these AI leaders are coming up with insights initially
through AI. AI is generating insights from their customer data.
And those are—that's saving time for their teams to come up with
the ideas for the campaigns.
They're even auto populating briefs and campaign plans.
But then humans are still injecting creativity into that
step of the process.
They're doing things like using predictive AI and machine
learning to optimize the media allocation.
But again, still, humans are coming up with the bold ideas of
how to run the marketing campaign, how to be innovative
in how the brand comes across, what's that brand voice going to be.
And then they're also using GenAI in content creation,
creating an order of magnitude more content, but then still
using the human curation of what's really relevant for each
customer and what are the rules to use to, to enable that.
I love that. As someone, you know, who started their career
on the creative side of this industry, I actually think this
is a moment where we're going to infuse more humanity into
marketing because of AI.
And it is kind of a strange moment where like the Venn
diagram of creativity, media, and technology come together to
truly benefit the consumer in new ways.
So in the work that you've done, what are you seeing as working
on the creative life cycle as folks who are adding AI into
their workflows?
So I like to talk about it as taking the toil out of the work
and putting the joy back in.
And I think our recent work with a fashion client brings this to
life really well because they're actually getting to
spend more time on the creative side of the process, but saving
a bunch of time on their own tasks.
Initially it was things like translation and copywriting and
creative brief writing that were automated and made easier with GenAI.
Now I'm really excited about what I'm seeing in video, for example.
Over the holidays, we created a campaign on the fly without
shooting—you know,
what would have taken months and months with photo shoots—we
created fully with GenAI, but leveraging a lot of the imagery,
the brand voice, and created a full campaign that ran for a
major brand in social media with GenAI tools.
And it was the marketers getting to create that content on the
fly in response to some trends we were seeing in the
marketplace, very quickly coming out with these ideas, tapping
into things that influencers were talking about and
amplifying that in a brand-appropriate way.
So I think the possibilities are just endless for marketers with
these tools.
Yeah, it's interesting.
One of the things that I was chatting with someone about
earlier today is imagining the future where we all get to stay
in our genius zone when we're at work, right?
And a lot of the things that are more mundane that we don't
always love doing, that AI can do more easily, allows us to
stay in the sweet spot of really where we can deliver the most
impact with our own—our own human genius.
Fully, fully agree.
And I mean, it's not easy though.
Let's not kid ourselves.
I think that's why so few companies get this right is
there's a lot to get right underneath to enable this new
way of working.
I know you've been a CMO yourself.
What have you seen and what would you advise marketers as,
as they go on this journey with their teams?
Yeah. First of all, as a marketer, I think there's never
been a more exciting time to be a marketer.
I think the piece of advice I would give to marketers today as
they think about how to navigate in this moment is that marketers
really need to think more expansively beyond the
traditional linear funnel—right?—in order for them
to capture the total business opportunity for their enterprise.
And I think what we're seeing is that, you know, consumers have
an infinite curiosity today, and that media behavior has
fundamentally changed forever because of what we at Google are
calling the four Ss: searching, streaming, scrolling, and shopping.
And what's interesting is they're doing this
simultaneously and seamlessly.
And every consumer journey is almost a unique signature.
So as a marketer, what becomes difficult is how do you navigate
that and identify, you know, current new customers.
And one of the things that Google is really committed to is
the full stack in AI.
And because we serve customers across all four of those
Ss—searching, streaming, scrolling, and shopping—we're
uniquely positioned to use AI to help find the patterns, the new
consumer behaviors, identify opportunities so that they can
unlock, you know, incremental value for their business.
Yeah, the journey's gotten way more complicated, and marketers
need to adapt.
You're absolutely right.
So I think the other piece we haven't touched on is just the
human side of really injecting this AI culture across
functions, even beyond marketing.
And I think the piece that we're trying to help clients with a
lot is how do you advocate that at the C-suite level: start at
the top, get folks aligned across functions, whether it's
technology, analytics, operations coming along the
journey with marketing's vision and a vision for growth for the
business, ultimately, and the customer.
But then, also, how do you get the cross-functional squads
working together.
I think that's a hot topic and think so often a squad means
getting 40, 50 people in room and hoping something gets done.
And a lot of it to me is about simplifying it down to a
two-pizza team, getting things done in an effective way with a
clear goal and making progress and getting the organization
galvanized around it.
Absolutely.
I mean, we talk a lot about change is hard and that's why we
don't opt into it all the time.
And change is particularly hard in AI
if you can't bring the cross-functional organization along.
And we talk to clients a lot about the people are everything.
And for you as a leader and someone who's pioneering AI in
your organization, you not only have to be the chief marketing
officer, you're actually the change management officer now.
And you're the, you know, chief momentum officer in your
organization on the AI journey.
Yes, it's how humans and AI come together.
That's the future, including in 2025.
So excited for our partnership.
Thank you so much. It was great to chat today.
Likewise.
Bye.