AI Everywhere, Wisdom Nowhere
Navigating AI’s rapid rise, rising risks, and responsible adoption
Before diving into the main story, here are a few headlines worth noting.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT ad beta is important, but expensive right now.
The buzz around ChatGPT’s ad beta feels like the early days of social advertising (I was a Twitter beta advertiser back in 2010), when “getting in” was the prize. But if the reported $60 CPM comes with limited targeting and measurement, the economics are probably ahead of the fundamentals. Bragging rights are not a strategy. Marketers, I’d suggest a wait-and-see approach, and I’d hold the ecosystem to a higher standard. Ads in ChatGPT will matter immensely, just maybe not at this price.Wall Street banks deploy AI at scale to reshape productivity
A growing body of research shows how banks like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citi are scaling AI to automate compliance, customer service, coding, and increasingly research and analytics activities as well. These initiatives aim to cut costs, boost productivity, and free employees for other types of work, marking a strategic shift in how financial firms compete through technology. The move reflects growing pressure to modernize legacy systems and stay ahead of fintech rivals. It’s only a matter of time before the same pressure hits their marketing departments too.Meta reports record sales and a massive spending hike on AI buildout
Meta posted nearly $60 billion in quarterly revenue, driven by strong ad sales and AI-powered engagement. It plans to significantly increase AI infrastructure spending in 2026, signaling a long-term bet on AI to power future growth. Much of this investment targets new data centers and foundational model development to support ads, Reels, and future monetization. It is also part of Zuckerberg’s stated ambition around personal intelligence which will have huge ramifications for marketers down the road.AI Marketing Virtual Summit yesterday. Sharing 2026 trends.
A part of what Savvy Matters does is teach, usually inside corporations through personalized education programs and sometimes in public. Yesterday, I spoke at the AI Marketing Strategy Summit alongside Scott Galloway, Kieran Flanagan, Tahnee Perry, and leaders from The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., HubSpot, and Zapier to unpack what’s changing right now. Speaking to several thousand marketers about the 2026 trends and what marketers need to consider was invigorating, especially with the positive feedback afterward. Thank you to everyone who tuned in and reached out.
We’re in AI’s most dangerous phase
All of these headlines point to the same underlying truth which is that we are deploying powerful systems faster than we are learning to manage them. With that in mind, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently offered one of the clearest frames yet for understanding this moment in artificial intelligence. In his essay The Adolescence of Technology, he describes the current phase as one in which capability is outpacing maturity and one where AI systems are advancing rapidly, but society’s ability to manage them remains underdeveloped. He uses adolescence as a metaphor to capture this tension: powerful enough to cause real harm, not yet wise enough to self-govern. For leaders across sectors, this is not just a metaphor. It is a signal about pacing as capability is moving faster than our ability to control, audit, and govern it inside real organizations.
AI is no longer a speculative topic. Across marketing, product, technology, operations, and customer service, AI tools are already embedded in day-to-day work, even if many teams, marketing included, are still in an experimentation phase. Amodei’s argument pushes leaders to widen the aperture: this is not only about efficiency or creative lift, it is about the systemic consequences of deploying increasingly autonomous, highly capable systems at scale. The competitive upside is obvious, but the downside risks (from reputational blowback to broader market destabilization) are compounding fast, and in many cases they may be accelerating faster than our governance, controls, and institutional reflexes.
His “country” framing is the forcing function. Imagine AI as a new country full of geniuses, then ask the kinds of questions you would ask about any powerful nation entering the world stage: what are its intentions, how do we verify alignment, and what happens if it is hostile or simply unpredictable? What if it can be malleable and “hired” by bad actors as a country of mercenaries, or is controlled by a dictator-like actor who uses it to seize power? Even if it is peaceful, how does a vastly more productive “country” reshape jobs, wealth concentration, and economic stability, and what second-order effects become destabilizing as the world adapts to its presence? That lens makes partnership, safeguards, and resilience planning feel less like optional risk management and more like core strategy.
There’s also a values dimension that runs through Amodei’s piece. He points to the broader economic and social implications of advanced AI, including the risk of wealth concentration, misinformation, and misuse. For companies that rely on trust, transparency, or differentiated customer relationships, these aren’t fringe concerns, they go to the heart of brand credibility. In a market where consumers are increasingly attentive to how technology is used, the question is not just whether your AI works, but whether it aligns with what your organization stands for and the expectations of the customers, employees, and regulators in the markets you operate in.
So what should business leaders actually do? This moment doesn’t call for panic but instead it does demand intent focus and discipline. Leaders need to move beyond reactive adoption and take a more deliberate approach (that doesn’t mean slow) to how AI is integrated, governed, and communicated across the organization. Amodei’s framing offers a prompt to shift from incrementalism to intentionality.
What business leaders should do next
Build AI governance into core strategy
Treat AI as a structural issue, not a technical add-on. Establish cross-functional governance frameworks that integrate AI oversight into product development, marketing, compliance, and risk. Assign clear executive accountability for AI-related decisions and outcomes.Invest in even more AI literacy across the C-suite
Ensure that senior leaders understand not just what AI can do, but how it works and where it can fail. This fluency is essential for evaluating vendor claims, making strategic tradeoffs, and communicating credibly with stakeholders about AI use and risk. C-suite leaders often see the promise but miss the pitfalls. And AI training can’t be a one-and-done effort. It has to be continuous.Audit exposure across brand, customer, and operations
Conduct a forward-looking audit of how AI systems are influencing your customer experience, marketing decisions, data flows, and supply chains. Use this to identify areas where over-reliance, bias, or opaque automation could create brand or operational risk. It is a CMO responsibility and one not necessarily by choice.Engage proactively on regulation and standards
Participate in shaping emerging norms around AI safety, transparency, and equity through your industry bodies and with local and federal government. This is not just corporate citizenship. It is strategic alignment. Companies that help set the rules are more likely to thrive under them. That is also why some business leaders attended the screening of a certain documentary at the White House last week. Many would say they went a bit too far doing that.
Where I’ve been
Over the last ten days, I’ve been on the road with the leadership and teams of three major consumer brands - one with over $25B in annual revenue and two in the $1B to $5B range. One is headquartered in Oklahoma City, which I visited for the first time last week. It’s a beautiful, up-and-coming city with an inspiring mayor in David Holt, whom I recently heard on the Masters of Scale podcast. He emphasizes that America is a purple country and offers an important, pragmatic perspective amid many of today’s heated societal debates.
On the AI front, the pattern across all three consumer brands was consistent: strong early momentum, pockets of real capability, a clear opportunity to connect efforts more tightly so progress accelerates, and a genuine desire to partner with outside experts to up-level internal education, capabilities, and strategy. It’s a privilege to speak with and advise organizations like these as they embark on ambitious journeys into the AI era.
What I’m reading
Experimenting with infinite, interactive worlds (Google DeepMind)
Management as AI superpower (One Useful Thing)
2025’s top Firefly prompt trends (Adobe)
Moltbook is the most interesting place (Simon Willison’s Weblog)
What I’ve written lately
Authenticity is Dead (January 2025)
The Wrong Code Red (December 2025)
AI’s Next Frontier: Making Us More Human (October 2025)
Why Leadership with Heart Still Matters (October 2025)
AI’s Fork in the Road for Marketers (September 2025)
Shiv Singh is a C-suite advisor and CEO of Savvy Matters, helping business teams translate AI disruption into practical business and marketing strategies, organizational design, executive-ready roadmaps, and bespoke education programs.
A former two-time Chief Marketing Officer and author of Marketing with AI for Dummies (4th print run, translated into five languages), he built his career at LendingTree, Visa, PepsiCo, and Expedia Group, and serves as a public-company board member of a Fortune 300 company and private investor.