AI Readiness: A Checklist for Marketing Leaders
From the panoramic view of the C-Suite, the marketing function may appear robust and cohesive, but a closer inspection reveals a reality marred by potential fragmentation and disruption. The surge of Generative Artificial Intelligence is not merely an evolution; it is a catalyst that is beginning to reshape the very fabric of the marketing function. As a marketing leader, the choice is yours: to either steer this change proactively or be overwhelmed by it. What will you choose?

McKinsey estimates that generative AI through the deployment of efficient and effective content creation, enhanced use of data, SEO optimization, and personalization will increase productivity of marketing spends by 5%-15%. However, having seen what the social media revolution did to marketing (I covered the subject in my first book) I contend that this projection considerably underestimates the potential impact both in positive and in potentially negative ways. Here’s why.
The Marketing Dichotomy
A dichotomy pervades the marketing departments of most large corporations with two types of marketers, the intrapreneurs and the traditionalists. Marketing intrapreneurs, visionary and nimble, are already integrating AI into their daily operations, seeking to amplify their productivity, improve the quality of their contributions and climb the corporate ladder quicker. They are studying the science, leveraging every available AI tool, and are experimenting fervently.
In contrast, traditionalists, entrenched in skepticism, view AI as nothing more than a technological tool and stay passive, entrapped in the misconception that AI lacks the capacity to revolutionize their roles and the businesses that they’re a part of. They are adopting a wait-and-see approach.
Caught in the middle are the Chief Marketing Officers, some of whom even await education from external agencies and technology companies, expecting invitations to elaborate dinners and client councils to understand how to best incorporate AI into their departments. The issue? Those marketers are not immersing themselves in the technology; they are not pioneering the initiatives, and harbor traditionalist views, perceiving AI merely as a tactical instrument, devoid of the potential to influence their roles or their businesses strategically. Do you find yourself among them?
Refer to the checklist below to determine the immediate actions you need to undertake to aid your teams, your discipline, your company, and yourself in the AI era. After all, you bear a responsibility to both the marketing intrapreneurs and the laggards to facilitate their adaptation to the new world of marketing.
The AI Checklist
This checklist is designed to help you assess your progress in driving AI-centric transformations within your marketing team. Evaluate your strategies on the following to ensure you are on the path to success:
Exploring all AI technologies: Embrace a variety of AI technologies and personally study and test a range of AI tools. If you’re only using ChatGPT, that’s a bad sign. In fact, maybe, the next time you’re creating a slide deck for your CEO, ask three different Generative AI tools for feedback on the deck. See which one does best and talk to your entire team about the exercise and the results. That’s one way to set a positive example for your function.
Expanding the AI Use Cases: Don’t limit Generative AI to tactical text creation or augmentation; explore its potential to drive business strategy, customer segmentation, campaign development, performance marketing, and predictive analytics in new ways. Start with creating a task force in your function to develop business use cases to unlock AI’s full potential in marketing and drive economic value for the business.
Aligning with the CIO’s Vision: Understanding and influencing your CIO's AI roadmap is crucial. Create or engage in cross-functional AI task forces and critical dialogues around data governance and generative AI. Make sure that the marketing priorities are factored into the organization’s overall AI roadmap. It's time you not only cozied up to the CFO but to the CIO as well if you haven’t already. In fact, it matters now more than ever to do so.
Balancing External Education: While external education from agencies and technology partners is valuable, maintain a balance and stay objective, especially as your company’s economic interests may diverge. Get all the help you can especially from the platforms who are innovating at breakneck speed but also, do your own homework. They may be downplaying how transformative AI can be to their own statements of work!

Staying Ahead of Competitors: Keep a close watch on competitor behavior and stay abreast of the latest AI advancements to ensure you are not missing out on opportunities in AI-driven ad targeting, buying, optimization, and mass personalization. For example, if you’re noticing competitors inexplicably taking share in the Google auctions, it may be because they’re using AI technologies in more innovative than you are. Google impression share can be telling.
Activating a Data Strategy: Recognize the importance of data in machine learning and generative AI in particular. Get involved in developing a robust data strategy that leverages both public and internal data sources as a competitive differentiator. Don’t leave it to the CIO’s team only. If your organization doesn’t have enough valuable, proprietary data, develop a strategy so that you can bring more in house over time to feed your own large language models. Evaluate with your CIO whether to use open or proprietary large language models.
Prioritizing AI Ethics: Lessons from the social media marketing era underscore the vital importance of embedding AI ethics at the heart of every AI deployment. The data utilized to train AI models inform their biases, necessitating heightened sensitivity to those inputs. Upholding the intellectual property rights of businesses, creators, and artists is also paramount. Furthermore, ensuring transparency is crucial in every implementation to guarantee the equitable and responsible use of AI.
Organizing AI Inspiration Days: There are hundreds if not thousands of AI companies helping marketing teams like yours (I saw many of them at TechCrunch Disrupt last week). Invite them to introduce your teams to their latest innovations, and subsequently, make informed and objective decisions regarding partnerships for specific use cases. If your only experimentation is with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, you’ve got a problem.
Optimizing your Org Structure: Adapt the organizational structure of your marketing function to the AI era by retraining and up-skilling teams, and addressing talent gaps proactively. AI is revolutionizing marketing; adapt your teams, skills, capabilities, and workflows to stay relevant. This may mean creating new cross-functional pods, rewriting annual objectives, putting more data analysis tools into the hands of marketers (instead of a separate data analytics team) and bringing more content creation in house.
Adopting a proactive and informed approach to AI will not only ensure your survival but also place you at the forefront of the marketing revolution, enabling you to leverage AI's transformative potential to its fullest and stay competitive in the evolving technological landscape.
Stay tuned as I explore the implications of the AI Marketing revolution, share excerpts from my upcoming book on AI Marketing, and spotlight technologies, insights and war stories from fellow Chief Marketing Officers. If you find this helpful, please subscribe and spread the word.