Who "Owns" AI In a Company? #LeadAi

By Dan Sanchez · Episode published March 29, 2024

I recently sat down with Courtney Baker for a fascinating discussion about one of the most pressing questions facing businesses today: who should own AI within an organization?

As companies scramble to implement artificial intelligence, there’s widespread confusion about where this responsibility should land. Should it be IT? The CIO? Should every department manage their own AI initiatives? Or do we need an entirely new position like Chief AI Officer?

The answer, it turns out, is more nuanced than you might think.

Why AI Isn’t Just Another Technology Project

One of the first misconceptions Courtney highlighted is the tendency to view AI as primarily a technology problem. As she pointed out:

“A lot of perceptions are that AI is a technology project, problem, whatever your standpoint on AI is. But I started thinking about analogies for that. Is it like when the Internet was created, being like, ‘Okay, technology, that’s your thing’? But that doesn’t work for this case.”

Courtney compared it instead to remote work. While remote work definitely requires technology, no one would suggest making the IT department solely responsible for managing it. Remote work fundamentally changes how teams collaborate, communicate, and operate – impacting every aspect of company culture.

AI is similar but even more pervasive. It’s not just a new tool; it’s a transformative force that will touch every department, function, and process in your organization.

The Current State: Everyone Owns Their Own AI

Right now, most organizations are in what I’d call the “decentralized phase” of AI adoption. Department leaders are figuring out how to implement AI within their own teams:

Sales leaders are looking at AI for prospecting and conversation intelligence
Marketing teams are experimenting with content generation and analytics
Finance departments are exploring forecasting and fraud detection
HR is testing recruitment and employee experience applications

This makes sense in the early stages. As Courtney put it: “I think we should all have the mentality that ‘I need to be learning this technology as if I am going to be the one in charge of it.'”

But as AI becomes more deeply integrated into company operations, this decentralized approach will create challenges – from duplicated efforts to inconsistent implementations and security concerns.

The Case for Centralized Leadership

As our conversation progressed, it became increasingly clear that while everyone needs to be involved in AI adoption, there’s also a need for centralized coordination.

I initially leaned toward the CIO (Chief Information Officer) as the natural owner, and here’s why: the secret sauce of effective AI isn’t just the algorithms – it’s the data.

Organizations that will gain competitive advantage through AI are those that can effectively:

Centralize and clean their data
Create systems for departments to access this data through AI
Establish governance for how AI is implemented across the organization

These responsibilities align naturally with the information management role of a CIO. The more I work with custom GPTs and other AI tools, the more I realize that the differentiator isn’t the model itself – it’s the proprietary knowledge and data you feed into it.

The Leadership Gap Courtney Identified

Courtney raised an important caveat to the CIO-ownership model: the change management component.

“My one caveat with that is the change management, the actual rallying of people to leverage the technology in the organization. Certainly, I’m sure there are CIOs out there that have that skill set. I don’t know how many there are.”

This highlights what might be the biggest challenge with AI implementation – it’s not just a technical challenge but a human one. AI requires organizations to rethink processes, roles, and even business models.

The ideal AI leader needs a rare combination of:

Technical understanding of AI capabilities and limitations
Strategic vision to see how AI could transform the business
Change management expertise to guide the organization through transformation
Ethics and governance understanding to implement AI responsibly

As Courtney noted, “The skill set that we’re looking for feels a little bit like a unicorn.”

Why Marketers Should Lead the AI Charge

Here’s where things get interesting for marketers. Both Courtney and I believe that marketing departments are uniquely positioned to lead organizational AI adoption, even if they don’t “own” it entirely.

Why? Several reasons:

1. Marketers are natural early adopters

As Courtney put it: “Marketers, I have almost always found, are forward thinking. That is the unique seat that we hold in the organization.”

When ChatGPT launched, who were the first to experiment with it? Marketers looking for content creation efficiencies. This willingness to embrace new technologies makes marketers natural pioneers.

2. Marketing can demonstrate clear ROI

Courtney made an excellent point near the end of our conversation: “Anytime you can put revenue dollars behind a project, you’re more likely to get it going faster.”

Marketing can easily demonstrate the business impact of AI implementations through improved conversion rates, increased content production, better targeting, and ultimately, revenue growth. This makes it easier to build organizational support.

3. Marketing sits at the intersection of technology and people

Successful AI implementation requires both technical understanding and human empathy. Marketers typically have both – they’re comfortable with technology while also understanding human behavior and organizational change.

A Dual Approach: Bottom-Up and Top-Down

Throughout our conversation, it became clear that successful AI adoption requires both bottom-up experimentation and top-down coordination.

“This is a really unique moment where the bottom up can be speaking into it and really leveraging how important this is for there to be a top down response and a real strategic emphasis on how it’s deployed in the organization,” Courtney noted.

Here’s what this dual approach looks like in practice:

Bottom-Up: Individual Experimentation

Smart marketing leaders are already:

Creating KPIs around AI tool experimentation for team members
Discussing AI applications in one-on-ones
Upgrading to team versions of tools like ChatGPT to share custom GPTs
Building use cases that can inspire other departments

Courtney shared a great example: “I recently talked to an executive who literally has their team using their KPIs on how are they leveraging AI, which new tool have they experimented with.”

Top-Down: CEO-Led Vision

While department leaders can drive AI in their areas, truly transformative implementation requires CEO support:

Setting the strategic vision for how AI will transform the business
Allocating resources for company-wide AI initiatives
Establishing ethical guidelines and governance
Creating cross-functional collaboration structures

As I mentioned in our conversation: “If it’s going to impact the whole company that you’re a part of, there’s only one champion – it’s the CEO.”

Courtney and I both expressed concern about one particular scenario: executives making decisions about AI without actually using the tools themselves.

“I have a slight concern that executives aren’t actually using these tools enough,” Courtney shared. “One of my concerns is an over-index on what AI can actually do and replace.”

She gave the example of an executive who might think, “We don’t need marketing copywriters anymore. ChatGPT can be our copywriter,” without having enough hands-on experience to understand the limitations.

I agree completely. In fact, one of my 2024 predictions is that several major companies will take big swings with AI implementation, lay off workers prematurely, and fail miserably as a result.

Pete Buer, Chief Strategy Officer at Knownwell, goes even further – predicting that 90% of enterprise AI projects will fail due to inadequate change management.

Your AI Leadership Action Plan

If you’re a marketing leader, here’s how to position yourself and your team at the forefront of AI transformation:

Start with your team: Establish clear expectations that everyone should be experimenting with AI tools relevant to their role
Document success stories: Create case studies of how AI has improved marketing outcomes – with specific metrics and ROI calculations
Build cross-departmental bridges: Initiate conversations with sales, IT, and other departments about shared AI opportunities
Advocate for centralized leadership: Use your success stories to make the case for organized, company-wide AI strategy
Be the change management expert: Position yourself as someone who understands not just the technology, but how to help people adapt to it

As Courtney summarized perfectly: “This is our moment. It’s your moment. So let’s go do it.”

The companies that thrive in the AI era won’t necessarily be those with the most advanced technology – they’ll be the ones that implement it most effectively throughout their organization. And marketers have a unique opportunity to lead that charge.

If you’re interested in learning more about implementing AI marketing strategies in your business, I’d love to hear about your experiences and challenges.

[Music]

welcome back to the AI driven marketer

I'm Dan Sanchez and I'm I'm on a mission

to to try to master AI in 2024 and I'm

so excited because I have the privilege

of welcoming back a guest for the second

time yes I have Courtney Baker here with

me today um and we're going to be

talking about who owns Marketing in a

company because that's not quite clear

it seems like it's all over the place

and it's going to have to become clear

if AI is going to become as big as

Courtney and I think it's going to be so

Courtney welcome back to a second

round now Dan you just said who is GNA

own Marketing in a company and I hope I

pray that it's still the marketers that

own marketing and the

company so I thought man I thought I had

that intro so smooth I screwed up in a

critical place I was like man that was

the smoothest intro I gave

yes that was killer you know what's

going to be bad is if if the AI owns

marketing you know that's that's

hopefully not going to happen that's the

truth who owns marketing the robots the

robots the Final Destination so to kind

of open it up where you think it should

go and then we can kind of under pack

unpack like the different options we can

see unfolding yeah this is a really

interesting question and I have heard

some thoughts around this that are a

little bit

concerning because I think a lot of

perceptions are that AI is a

technology project Problem whatever your

STP put you know your viewpoint on AI is

that this is a

technology thing and I as we started

talking about this episode I started

thinking about you know analogies for

that you know is it you know is it you

know when the internet was created being

like okay technology that's you know

you're on that but I was like that's not

that's not that doesn't work I don't

think for this case I then started to

think about okay maybe it's more like

remote work you know obviously remote

work you need a technology to make

remote work possible so would it be more

like hey when we started all working

remote turning to you know the best

technologist on our teams and being like

okay remote work is your problem you

like no that doesn't make sense because

there's going to be all these changes

within the organization all these

cultural changes how do you interact

with each other how does the actual

organization of your business change

when the whole company is remote you

know it's just vast shifts and the

change management of that is vast I

don't think I mean Dan what is your take

on on that analogy of you know kind of

comparing this to something else do you

have a better one no I I'm kind of with

you like I think it's more pervasive

than technology like technology usually

fits into a specific section I mean

that's what technology companies do they

they find a place in the budget

somewhere which falls under a department

and has a decision maker because if they

don't then who do they go to the problem

is AI is going into every technology now

and it's going to be at a high level at

a low level like it's going to be

Frontline it's going to be strategic

it's going to be and everywhere in

between the whole org so you're just

kind of

like yes I totally agree yes and I I

think that's what some of my concern has

been around is so many even at an

executive level telling me like yeah we

were just going to like hire somebody in

to you know take over that piece of the

you know to lead AI um really from a

technology standpoint and I'm like oh

man it's so much bigger so much more

invasive literally going to change the

very Foundation of your business model

even if you're not aware of it or not

and of course there's probably a small

percentage of businesses that that's not

going to be true for so you know my

thoughts on where it sits is Nuance

because I think especially early on

there's going to be a massive change

management piece to this y y and I think

that is challenging because we may not

have leaders in that spot that are ready

to lead a disruptive technology change

management plan and so I do find that

it's it's a really interesting moment in

organizations and figuring out okay who

can do that well I don't think it's a

technology piece you know is it a you

know should it sit in operations should

it sit in HR you know we've talked about

that over on AI know how like is there

an HR component of where this sits yeah

at the end of the day I think we all

have to be thinking currently right now

as if it is going to land with us at

least at the executive level I think we

should all have the mentality that I

need to be learning this technology as

if I am going to be the one in charge of

it yep right now that I think that's how

most leaders are dealing with it they're

thinking about how to own it for their

own department and since it's touching

just about every Department I think

everyone's kind of thinking about it

that way like what do I need to do like

sales directors are thinking about their

sales ORS and how it's going to impact

that CMOS are thinking about how it's

going to impact it Finance leaders are

talking about how it's going to impact

them right um and then some companies

are hiring Chief AI officers so you you

go down the list and it's when you ask

the question like who owns marketing you

think well like the first thing that

comes to your mind you're like it

because it's technology

but then you're like

well but like we can think of stories of

how the website played out like who used

to own the website it because it was

technology who owns the website now

marketing

everywhere when's the last time you've

seen I like like the website being owned

by it maybe in a massive massive

organization like I think um I remember

working with a$ 30 billion company and I

think they had a separate department

just for the website and I I think it

did fall under it and it was hard and it

was a problem that much I

remember but for the most part the

website as a technology piece has moved

under marketing under like marketing Ops

and maybe there's a Dev Ops that they

work with sometimes to develop new parts

of the

website yeah so where does AI go when it

touches

everything that's why it's an

interesting

question by the way you you said

marketing again where does marketing

land in the organization oh my

gosh

maybe I'll come back in at that maybe I

won't yeah yeah where does AI land when

you're talking I mean because it's AI

for marketing show and I know I to work

on that in my head where what's going on

um where does AI sit

in the

organization I mean it's going to affect

marketing but it's going to affect

everything and even though this is a

podcast for marketers it's going to

impact marketing heavily who gets to

dictate your AI or maybe you get to

choose it for yourself and that's why

we're asking the question

the one thing I do think about is if I

look down the list of departments and I

have a list here it's like does does AI

get owned by it is it the CIO that would

make a lot of sense you know the Chief

Information officer uh should it be

should it be its own Department you know

maybe maybe couched under one of these

bigger it or information

departments should everyone own it for

themselves and I'm kind of leaning

towards yes all of the

above I'm like maybe maybe it becomes

its own thing kind of like we have at

least big companies have like an

information Silo and data Silo in

addition to an IT Silo yeah because if

something's that big you might need a

silo that kind of becomes the asset to

lead all the Departments who have to

make all their own decisions but then it

needs to be involved because there's

going to be integration issues or yesh

uniformity right because it's not like

you can use G Suite co-pilot and

Microsoft's co-pilot you're going to

have to pick one or the other and

there's probably going to be decisions

like that with AI so procurement will

have to be involved in making sure it

kind of like fits across but then

everyone can customize it and have it

integrated into their own

stuff one of the most interesting things

our team has been discussing is how we

as organizations start to change how we

manage

knowledge if you think about it right

now we don't really have great ways to

store companies knowledge you know we

use Google doc you might have wikis or

internal

Pages all different variations of how we

store knowledge and I think this is an

area that I completely agree is going to

fundamentally change that we will start

to use AI to develop our own knowledge

centers of our organizations and that is

an area where it makes total sense that

the CIO you know that this is a

technology piece that is you know

helping run the organization would lead

that piece on the flip side I think one

thing that marketing marketers I have

almost always found are forward thinking

you know that is kind of the

unique SE that we hold in the

organization and I think because of that

it gives a really interesting lens into

Ai and I would just encourage marketing

if that is you know maybe even that's

your your marketing leadership or you've

got marketers on your team that are more

interested in leveraging AI in your

department to really encourage other

people I think this is again where the

media Cycles have you know injected a

good dose of

fear into what's happening with AI and

some of that is warranted we've got to

do this well we have got to do it well

and so there's certainly room for that

but also just the ongoing emphasis of we

all have got to level up together and

really making this about something we

do together versus individuals and I

hope that as doing it together also

helps us make wise decisions and how we

leverage

it I know if I were leading a marketing

department again I think I would be I

mean I'm one of those marketing leaders

that likes to figure things out and then

I delegate it um there are certainly

levels where I and I guess there's been

times where I didn't know and I had to

hire someone who knew the thing I didn't

know like Salesforce and have them

figure it out right yeah but I think if

I were doing if I were leading a

department

again I would probably be all my one-on

ones I'd probably be having the

conversation of where work in AI working

for your position start leveraging AI I

need you to investigate it and come back

to me with where where this could help

because this is the future let's start

taking steps there so we're not

caught behind six months from now yeah

even two weeks from now things are

popping up all over the place I recently

just talked to an executive who

literally has their team using their

kpis on on how are they leveraging AI

which new tool have they experimented

with they've created a kpi around it

because they realize this is really

important and it's without the Reps of

experimentation because we again you and

I talked about this a little bit last

time the winners haven't Arisen yet you

know we just have lots of different

options right now and no clear winner so

what it what it means for us is we've

just got to go try a lot of tools

unfortunately uh I don't know if AI is

going to be this super productive tool

for us in 2024 because of that but I

think we've got to continue to

experiment and figure out what works

best in our individual

workflows but I think the idea of

leveraging kpis uh and what you're

talking about how do you on an ongoing

weekly basis make sure the people in

your marketing team are testing and

trying new ways of producing you know

what they the end result is whatever

that is I think for me the no-brainer

would be upgrading all your licenses for

the chat GPT teams or Plus or whatever

it is they have a team feature out now

where you can share custom gpts yes and

share some of the knowledge and then it

makes it more secure too as you're not

feeding company data into the the AI

right so I feel like that's probably the

no-brainer tool that everybody's pretty

familiar with and it's it's broad enough

that it can solve lots of different use

cases especially for marketing right the

co-pilots that Microsoft and Google are

now putting out are with the next set

that I'm like I I haven't like paid for

one of those yet and I'm everything I'm

seeing about them is kind they're kind

of like MVPs right now you hope that

Microsoft's Excel AI wizard can do stuff

for you but it's it's almost there but

not quite but it will be soon obviously

they're investing a ton of effort into

it this is the focus now it was Cloud

now you could tell Microsoft

100% focused on AI as a whole company

which is crazy to think that one massive

company as big as Microsoft is has a has

a really clear focus on this it should

tell us something yeah absolutely I mean

I think another indicator that you can

take uh just recently Apple announced

they're no longer in the they've totally

killed their Apple car I I don't know

what their name was for it or if you

recall it's gone I haven't seen this

announcement yeah I'm just so kep

hearing rumors that they were announcing

a car they just announced that like okay

we were but now it's dead it's dead

they're like no no no a this is not this

is not the future H and they're

reinvesting all of that into AI I mean

it's just phenomenal to see how much

emphasis these technology companies how

they are changing their business models

to really go after the technology all

the smartest PE like all the smartest

people in the world feel like they get

employed by the biggest companies of the

world which are generally tech companies

right so that that should that's to me

like that's one of the clear indicators

of the writings on the

wall and it's it's spelled with two

letters you know AI yeah the that

companies are all all know it and are

going after it yeah and all of them I do

think we will eventually get to the

point that you know AI will be like the

internet you know it's just commoditized

we're not spending any time there but if

you look back how long did it take us to

there you know it was certainly a long

Evolution I do think that this will be

faster than

that yes was uh I think the speed

of the technology how it's evolving it's

just it's at lightning speed so I think

our business it'll be really interesting

to look back and see what the timeline

was but in five years I think everything

could look dramatically

different so if you're sitting as a

marketing leader in an organization do

you think it'd be wise not only to lead

the charge for your department and I

mean imagine if I were if I were again a

marketing leader I'd be trying to get it

to come from the ground up I need

suggestions coming up of course I'm

researching and collaborating to see

what can come top down because some

decisions have to be made to as far as a

unified platform goes but of course

individuals will have their own

individual tools they'll need that are

Aid

driven but then I'd almost wonder I'm

like should I you're have to be

collaborating cross Department too like

conversations have to be had with

marketing of course sales because sales

is going to have their own AI tools and

maybe they need to integrate with

marketing not sure

yet but then it and information and data

right because some of that marketing

data is going to be useful at the

customer service and sales some of the

customer service data is going to be

really helpful the marketing right so

but and we're going to want to be able

to access their survey data through an

AI of some kind

so there's going to have to be cross-

departmental collaboration at some kind

I almost wonder if like companies need

to start now thinking about should we

hire a person that's just in charge of

AI for the whole company whether they're

Chief level or

not yeah I think it's a really

interesting question of do we is this an

actual seat I would lean toward

yes I think the makeup of that person is

an interesting conversation that we've

kind of already started to hit on like

what skill sets does that person have um

I think if you do have those skill sets

right now your value in an organization

just went up

tremendously but I think the default of

this is we're hiring a

technologist you know maybe that's true

if it's you know you're building a piece

of technology or you know you have a

certain deployment of Technology you're

building an internal knowledge based and

how you store all of that makes sense if

it is really how the entire organization

is going

to deploy AI you know how it's going to

be used cross functionally again you and

I mentioned this on the last episode of

how right now we're just at this Horizon

of you know execution level it's a bunch

of individuals using AI to do their work

faster you know better

productivity that is we're going to

continue to go up levels from that on

again operations the cross functional

work How We Do meetings you know every

it's going to shift everything um and

but then you get up from the level from

that even strategy you know and I think

we're some ways off from having that but

again this is going to shift the

organization and then when you start to

talk about hey there will be roles that

change roles that you will no longer

need because of AI and how do you walk

an organization through making those

types

of business structure moves you know

when you have people departing because

of a technology that can now replace a

role that's a hard that's a hard thing

to do hard that's hard so you have to I

think that's

the that's the responsibility of the

leader and why leaders need to be paying

really close attention to AI why they

need to be having conversations with

their people to start preparing for that

so they can do the do the hard thing and

start working collaborating with all the

contributors and managers who could be

replaced by Ai and start shifting them

to something else or leveling up to be

the AI manager or whatever it needs to

be now because if you don't do it now

then by the time it gets hard on the

company you have to lay people off and

then you're like you have to make those

financial choices and the best interest

of the company and now you're forced to

make the cut because it's been mandated

and you can't you know you can't justify

to your boss why you have to keep this

person and now you have to do the hard

thing and you're kicking yourself for

not seeing it earlier yeah exactly so I

have this like

ongoing thing that's kind of been

bothering me and I'm curious to throw it

out to you and see if you have felt

something similar or have the same

concern or can make me not have the

concern that would be even better um I

have a slight

inclin I have a slight concern that

Executives aren't actually using these

tools enough because they are on the

execution level and most of their roles

are

not you know executing anymore they're

spending most of their time doing more

of that cross functional operational or

above roles but because of that one of

my concerns is an over index on what the

what AI can actually do and replace for

example if you're thinking you know what

we don't actually need cop marketing

copywriters anymore yeah you know this

is probably an extreme example but

you're like as an executive we don't

need that anymore chat gbt can be our

copywriter and you start to make

decisions

on taking away roles because you're not

using chat GPT enough as you know

through a lens of marketing copywriter

to know it can help it can prompt some

things to date I still have not put a

piece of you know a prompt in and gotten

out something that I was ready to ship

you know I still had to be an a

marketing expert to figure out is there

anything in here good you know um so

that's probably an extreme case but I do

find some concern of thinking AI can

repl Place roles like that just oh yeah

that one can be gone because there's not

as much hands-on experience with the

tools at an executive

level it's one of my 2024 predictions

that I made in December was that a

couple if not a lot of big companies

that do top down approach installments

of tech like this are going to get in

big trouble because they're going to lay

off people install Ai and they're going

to fail Mis miserably yeah okay so

it's going be a midle to big problem the

small companies won't because they're

small and Nimble but a a couple of big

companies are gonna take massive swings

and have massive misses and say AI

stupid yeah yeah it didn't work I mean

yes I I predict it it's a pretty safe

prediction because how many times the

big company's done this plenty it's just

gonna happen again so yeah I think it's

gonna happen even if you look at the

success or failure rate of new

technology deployments in an

organization it's actually pretty

staggering that they don't work as many

times as you would think um actually

Pete buer our chief strategy officer at

knowwell has made the prediction that he

thinks 90% of AI projects will fail now

he's not talking about you know these

individual execution he's talking about

these much larger

Enterprise

deployments but and he's actually saying

that because of the lack of change

management and the other

pieces at the table when it comes to an

AI transformation that most people are

not paying attention to right now I'd

say in the Enterprise P I'd say in the

Enterprise space that's

true I'd say in the mid level the small

small business space that's it it won't

be 90% I also think it's it's hard to

measure that because what about about

all the current SAS products and tech

companies they're currently using that

are going to get an AI layer like do you

count those right when it's like just

literally on autopilot and literally

there's just new AI features baked in

that they're already paying for so they

begin using them well those are those

are going to be successful because it's

literally just an extension of what

they're currently doing everything will

get an AI layer this year yeah or at

least every major tech company will have

this AI thing if not this year the next

year all most companies are doing it I'm

gonna get that I think it was partner

that kind of put AI into two camps you

know your everyday AI which I would say

what you're talking about right now this

AI layer on all the tools that we're

already using would be considered AI

everyday AI we're just gonna yeah really

intuitively start using these we were

already using AI you know we've been

using it for longer than we really think

about or realize but then you kind of

cross the line into these like game

changing AI applications of you know

fundamentally changing our offerings

what we create the value we bring to our

our

customers uh when you switch over to

gamechanging AI I think that is where

your failure

rate you know he made the prediction of

90% obviously only time will tell um

especially at this early stage now if

you're in the camp that is successful

with it I can assure you the risk is

going to pay a strong reward yeah have

you heard of uh the IIA acronym no okay

this is a new thing that I found from

another podcast that I get to host and

produce that's talking a lot about AI on

the sales front called close mode but

one of the things that's come up over

there um is this difference between

artificial intelligence and intelligent

automation IA okay um an INT automation

is using AI but using it in a way that

just extends natural automation like

it's just automating manual tasks AI is

really good at that and it and because

AI is so good it's it's filling in a lot

of gaps that we had in just your normal

algorithmic Le Automation and your

database and Fields and being able to

inject things like Mad Libs like and

that's how that's how automation worked

you know you were able to do at first

name right and you know and insert their

job title into an email but now you can

do a step further by running it sending

some data points to open AI send it back

to your database the capture response

and now you can open up with kind of a

custom intro that's customized for them

because of those few unique data points

is that AI or is that just intelligent

automation right and that's why they're

differentiating intelligent automation

from AI because like what you guys are

working at at known well now that's

that's AI because where they're defining

AI different is where you're imbuing

machines with humanlike thinking it's

like a Next Level it's not AGI where

they're thinking for themselves but it's

starting to replicate much more Creative

Expressions much more strategic and

analytical expressions like known well

is doing

for customer service and giving back

insights now that's what they're calling

AI so those are two different things and

it's kind of helpful to have some

categories and ways of thinking it and

approaching it when it comes to these

tools and how they're playing out

they'll they'll they'll hit marketing

too yeah that's really interesting I

think that in general I feel like right

now we are all reaching for okay how do

we frame up this technology so that we

understand it more clearly and so we can

disseminate that information throughout

our organization and our teams you know

it's just it's so new and it's you know

every time we kind of feel like okay we

have a model to kind of think about

AI understand you know generative AI

against oh my gosh yeah why can't I

think of the three typ the different

types of AI in this moment okay oh okay

I got it I got it you know generative AI

versus machine learning and just all the

different nuances to AI but then all the

different levels and how it applies to

our organization I just find at this

moment we're you know we're all

grappling with how do we frame this up

so we can think about it smart and train

other people on it I love it though this

is this is the most exciting part to me

is because we're liter it's like we've

just discovered the Americas and we

don't know what's in land we we're we're

going down the coast right now we're

just starting to go in it's it's a map

no one's made the map yet so the people

who get to make the map are the people

who Forge in and then other people are

going to follow behind them some

people's maps will be better than others

the people who experiment and test the

most will get to make the

map that is so good and I will add to

your analogy that there's probably some

things at that moment when we discovered

the Americas that we wish we could have

done differently and so it's as we're at

this moment we know we're just at the

cusp of it how do we make sure that we

do it well that we don't look back and

think wow we really messed that up I

mean I think we would even

you know more recent technology with

social media I think hey there's some

things we would have done

differently could have done differently

if we would have you know some things we

didn't know but I do think we feel the

weight of this moment and the potential

and I think for leaders especially being

able to sit in the middle of that the

balance of that great opportunity and

great

responsibility and go forth It's just it

is I know you and I we're both so

excited about this moment uh in time yep

it's going to be exciting it's going to

be scary but it's it's going to be so

you might as well be prepared for it is

what I keep telling myself so true so

true in having this conversation I've

I've kind

of I I think it will be pervasive and

everyone's going to have to lead the AI

initiative like marketing is got to have

to own it sales GNA have to own it HR is

gonna have to own it I think there I

think there probably does need to be a

centralized piece the more we've talked

about it the more the more I'm starting

to realize it's

like if anybody if there if there's not

a chief AI officer I'm starting to

realize that it's probably the

CIO in talking about it I'm like you

know what the more the way AI becomes if

increasingly competitive for the

organization is not based on how it's

it's it's based on how well AI is

implemented but the the secret sauce to

AI is in the data right the more you can

integrate data into it which is an

information piece even at know well like

know well can only make strategic

choices based on how well the data is

input organized and then made accessible

for AI the more I work even with just

custom gpts the secret SAU is and the

knowledge you load into it right even if

you're writing a blog post the secret

sauce is the transcript you give it or

the information you're giving it to

repurpose versus just having it create

stuff because anybody can do that but

where it becomes really compe

competitive for organizations is based

on how well you're leveraging the data

that you have I mean imagine like

Walmart starts to leverage their massive

data centers and has AI to use it like

that starts to become a really cool

interesting tool and then especially if

you allow inputs for all the different

departments to access that data through

AI in different ways I'm like I'm

starting to see the CIO as the kind of

like the

chief yeah the probably the the

department if it sits anywhere it's

probably going to send out to that

department because the data becomes such

a critical

component yeah I think that is I would

love for you to have a conversation with

our chief product officer Mohan raal

because he is especially on the data

piece and even the way that we think of

hey having clean data and our data

governance is going to change with AI

and I actually think this is an area

where especially for smaller businesses

we can have a technology jump um in New

ways it's very interesting and I would

say for small especially marketers on

small teams AI is going to give you the

ability to punch way above your weight

unlike ever before it is it's going to

be incredible I think especially for

small and mediumsized businesses in a

brand new way yeah I and and just

to I I think it's a really interesting

the CIO is a really

interesting you know supposition that

that's where it sits I my one caveat

with that is the change management the

actual rallying of people to leverage

the technology in the

organization and certainly I'm sure

there are cios out there that have that

skill set I don't know how many there

are and so how do you pair them with the

person that can do that really well

or you know is there another combination

again this I feel like this skill set

that we're looking for feels a little

bit like a unicorn yeah or just that

they're not a lot of them so man if

you're listening right now and you have

these type of skill sets come work at

know well no I'm just kidding marketing

will probably be I mean like you said

before marketing will be a front runner

in this thing and I think that's that's

good I think marketers are the ones who

like to test out new things AI is

obviously like it's soon as it came out

people are like oh shoot I can make

content with this like marketers were

the first ones to find applications for

and I think that becomes important as

your organization starts to make the

leap marketers need to be the Champions

pushing it forward but they can't own it

alone and I think that's that's the the

lesson from this episode is marketing

you have to lead the charge because

you're the one use probably one of the

first to really utilize it first but you

have to know that it's going to affect

everything and if it's going to impact

the whole company that you're a part of

you might as well start collaborating

and like sewing the seeds of other

people getting involved and it and the

the CIO and you know the big Champion if

the company's going to implement it well

across the board then there's only one

Champion it's the CEO right if it's

going to be that big then there's only

one person who can really Champion it

across the whole department and it has

to be the CEO has to be the one pushing

it through if the CEO doesn't then it'll

be half implemented and it'll

implementation will be only as good as

the department leaders will will make it

yeah I totally agree I think that

there is certainly a bottomup movement

right now I think because of where this

is originated on a you know individual

execution level I think certainly CEOs

are aware of AI I mean everybody is

aware of AI if if the Super Bowl

commercials are you know dominated by AI

commercial everybody is aware of AI but

I think this is a really unique moment

where the bottom up can be speaking into

it and really leveraging like how

important this is for their to be like a

top- down response and a real strategic

emphasis on how it's deployed in the

organization so and I'm I'm really

excited for marketers to play a big role

in that that's going to be the

leadership challenge manag managing

bottom up and top down yeah because it

has to be both and that's yeah change

management that's gonna be the tricky

part yeah so marketers this is your time

to shine start facilitating because

you're in the middle like from the top

to the bottom start pulling things

together uh be the ca I I mean marketers

could be the case study for how to do it

from the very top to the bottom and

start implementing it there yeah

absolutely not that they get to own it

own it for the whole company but if you

can pull it from the bottom and help

your individual contributors manage it

well and start being trained in it and

leveraging it and then getting the CEO

involved and interested in how

marketing's leading it then I'm like

that really starts to become a catalyst

because other departments can leverage

it the same way yeah I to agree I I

think it's our moment it's your moment

let's go let's go do

it this is our our our marketing pep

talk moment with Courtney and Dan Dan

chz well Courtney thanks so much for

joining me a second round I was so

excited to have this conversation I feel

like I've just unlocked a bunch of new

ideas in my head that I'm like yes this

is how it has to be or could be at least

um there's probably going to be I always

am a fan of like the fact that there's

there's many ways to win there's also

many ways to lose so

uh but I think this marketing leading

the charge top bottom up uh top down and

bottom up kind of approach would is is

helpful yeah and can I add just one more

caveat to why that may be the case I

think anytime you can put Revenue

dollars behind a project you're more

likely to get it going faster and you

know it's it's so easy to sell

especially if your organization is a

little hesitant or hasn't really taken

the charge from from the top down on AI

being able to sell an experiment that

drives Revenue in your organization it's

a really easy place to start and that's

Marketing sales that's you you know

you're the ones that get to really to to

lead that and again it's your

moment and there you have