Agenda at a Glance

AI transformation in marketing isn't failing because of a lack of tools. It's stalling because of a lack of clarity. In this keynote panel, senior marketing leaders from Google, ASAPP, and Zapier unpack why so many teams are stuck in "pilot purgatory": rushing to adopt AI without first defining what success actually looks like, or redesigning the workflows that AI needs to run on. From Sarah Hanley's framing of AI adoption as a visibility problem, to Richard D'Amato's emphasis on rigorous workflow mapping before any agent gets deployed, to Dan Slagen's three-phase evolution of AI capability and the widening adoption gap it's created, this conversation gets specific about what it actually takes to move from experimentation to transformation.

The panel goes beyond strategy to tackle the harder organizational questions: which work should AI own entirely vs. what must stay human, how to build production-grade AI marketing systems that hold up in the real world, and how to sustain change management momentum when early enthusiasm fades. Moderated by Adam Constantine, these leaders also share candid predictions about which of today's most confident AI marketing assumptions will look obviously wrong just 18 months from now.

Key Takeaways

• Understand why the gap between AI adoption and real business impact keeps widening, and what's actually driving it
• Identify the foundational work most teams skip before deploying AI, and why it causes transformation efforts to break down
• Discover how leading marketing organizations are deciding what to hand off to AI and what to deliberately keep human
• Learn what production-grade AI marketing systems actually look like in practice, and the common mistakes teams make building toward them
• Explore how to sustain organizational momentum for AI transformation once the early excitement wears off
• Hear which widely-held AI marketing assumptions these leaders expect to be proven wrong in the next 18 months

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AI isn’t just the future of creativity; it is shaping it right now and not always for the better. As "AI slop" saturates feeds and fuels an authenticity crisis, the secret to a brand’s creative advantage isn’t the technology itself, it’s the people. 

In this talk, we’ll reveal how marketing teams can leverage a "people-first superpower" to unlock the full value of AI tools. Illustrated through real industry examples, attendees will leave with a roadmap for AI-creative development, including:

• Navigating the 2026 Landscape: Staying grounded in consumer sentiment and understanding why authenticity is now a prerequisite for engagement in an age of digital burnout
• Compressing the Creative Process: How AI tools can shrink the distance from insight to execution—from reducing data analysis time by 75% to reimagining entire campaigns in just 16 days
• The Creative Growth Engine: A renewed understanding that creative remains the primary driver of ROI. As media becomes fully AI-powered, human-led creative becomes the ultimate lever for differentiation

As technology reaches new heights, innovative brands will embrace new capabilities and efficiencies, while simultaneously doubling-down on creating cultures and processes that foster human creativity. 

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In 2026, the gap between "good" and "great" marketing isn't just about who uses AI; it's about who orchestrates it. While most teams are stuck in a loop of manual prompting and disjointed tasks, elite marketers are building automated content engines that move at the speed of culture.

In this session, we’ll go beyond simple prompting to build a comprehensive, full-stack content workflow. You’ll see real-world examples of how to integrate AI and automation into every stage of the content product cycle: from keyword research and conducting competitor gap analyses to producing high-converting landing pages and finding data for authoritative articles. We will also tackle the "new SEO," auditing pages for both traditional search algorithms and the emerging requirements of AI-agent discovery (AEO). Finally, we'll close the loop by automating the data-gathering process and generating executive-ready presentations to prove your impact.

Actionable Takeaways:

• Which AI tools to use for content creation, research, reporting, and more.
• How to use AI to create content that maintains the “human touch”.
• Detailed instructions and workflows for building apps, setting up automations, and connecting your existing tech stack.

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For Every Marketer Who's Ever Said 'I Wish I Knew This Sooner'

Tired of making marketing decisions based on gut feelings, outdated reports, and whatever your CEO read on LinkedIn last week? You're not alone. Most lean marketing teams are drowning in data but starving for actual insights, and the "just hire a data scientist" advice isn't exactly helpful when you're already wearing seventeen different hats.

This session cuts through the AI hype to show you how to build practical, automated insight systems that actually work for small teams. You'll learn how to transform your scattered customer data, feedback, and market signals into actionable intelligence using accessible AI tools.  We'll cover real implementation strategies, common pitfalls to avoid, and the specific prompts and workflows that turn AI from buzzword to business advantage. Leave with a blueprint you can start using Monday morning.

You'll walk away with:

• A step-by-step framework for building automated insight systems using tools you can afford (or already have)
• Specific AI workflows and prompts that extract patterns from customer conversations, reviews, surveys, and support tickets
• Strategies for synthesizing insights across channels without hiring a data team or learning Python
• Real examples of how lean teams are using AI to spot opportunities their competitors miss
• A practical 30-day implementation plan you can actually execute with limited resources

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As AI moves from experimentation to everyday execution, marketing teams are grappling with what genuine maturity actually looks like and the answer is more nuanced than tool adoption. Moderated by Katelyn Brower (First Advantage), this panel brings together Patricia Clark (Nexxen), Luke Walton (Amazon), and Dr. Sharmin Attaran (Bryant University) to unpack what it truly means to level up as an AI-enabled marketing organization in 2026. From moving beyond basic LLM use to connecting systems and automating end-to-end workflows, panelists share where teams are today, where the real gaps are, and what it takes to build lasting competitive advantage when everyone has access to the same tools.

The conversation goes deep on the organizational realities of AI adoption, how to build both bottom-up curiosity and top-down support, what guardrails are needed as agentic AI inches closer to operational, and how to make a credible business case when measurement is still catching up to execution. Panelists also tackle brand differentiation in the age of AI-generated content, visibility in AI-driven search, and whether teams should hire dedicated AI specialists or double down on upskilling the marketers they already have.

Key Takeaways:

• What AI maturity actually looks like in practice and why most teams are further behind than they think
• The organizational conditions that determine whether AI adoption succeeds or stalls
• How leading teams are thinking about agentic AI and where the real risks lie when things go wrong
• Where competitive advantage actually lives when everyone is using the same tools to produce content at scale
• How to approach brand visibility as AI-driven search continues to reshape how customers discover products
• What separates marketing teams that are pulling ahead from those falling further behind and what you can do about it

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What You'll Learn:

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Encouraging your team to use AI to produce more content sounds like a win (and let’s be honest, a requirement now) until a blog post goes out with the wrong product name, a sales email sounds nothing like your brand, or a chatbot confidently answers a question it has no business answering. Scaling AI-assisted content creation is not just a technology decision; it is a brand trust decision.

In this session, Sarah Beaver, Marketing Director at OperationsHERO, shares the practical systems she has built to let her entire team (including team members who are not marketers) produce written content at scale without losing the voice, accuracy, or credibility that makes it worth sending. Drawing on real implementation experience in a lean, fast-moving marketing environment, she will walk you through the guardrails that actually work: from brand voice documentation and prompt guidance to human review checkpoints and product accuracy protocols.

If your team is already using AI to write, or you are trying to get there without losing control of your brand, this session gives you a framework you can put to work immediately.

Key Takeaways:

• How to build a brand voice guide that AI can actually use, moving beyond vague adjectives to specific, trainable language patterns your whole team can apply.
• Why product accuracy is the highest-stakes guardrail in AI content creation, and how to build review workflows that catch errors before they reach your audience.
• A practical framework for onboarding non-marketing team members to AI content tools without sacrificing brand consistency or credibility.
• How to structure prompts and system instructions so AI outputs sound like your brand, not like every other company using the same tool. (Game changing anyone?)
• The human checkpoints that matter most: where to keep people in the loop, and where it is safe to let AI run.

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As AI adoption accelerates, organizations don’t just need more tools—they need people who can guide AI conversations with clarity, credibility, and purpose. In this session, Joya Scarlata outlines a practical playbook for becoming your organization’s AI person of influence, even if you’re not technical. The focus is on how influence is built: through AI literacy, smart framing, and the ability to connect AI initiatives to real business outcomes.

Participants will walk through concrete steps for shaping AI conversations across marketing and leadership teams, including how to evaluate AI use cases, communicate risks and value, and introduce emerging concepts like agentic AI in a grounded, responsible way. Rather than positioning AI agents as replacements, this session shows how they can be framed as productivity partners—when governed with intent. Attendees will leave with tools to confidently influence AI decisions, earn trust, and help their organizations move from experimentation to strategic adoption.

Key Takeaways

• A practical roadmap for becoming a trusted AI voice inside your organization
• How to evaluate and frame AI and agentic AI use cases without deep technical knowledge
• Simple language and mental models for explaining AI to executives and teams
• Ways to influence AI decisions through governance, ethics, and outcomes—not hype
• How to position yourself as a connector between strategy, people, and AI systems

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AI is rapidly changing how marketing gets done, but many teams are still stuck experimenting instead of executing. In this session, Neil Dickson shares how to design and deploy a custom GPT to improve the speed, consistency, and effectiveness of marketing execution.

Drawing from his background in online marketing and data-driven decision-making, Neil will walk through how a custom GPT can be structured to support everyday marketing workflows, from content creation and campaign messaging to idea generation and refinement. He’ll break down how to move beyond generic AI usage and instead build a tailored solution that aligns with your brand, goals, and team processes.

Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how to design, implement, and apply custom GPTs in a way that accelerates execution without sacrificing quality, turning AI into a practical tool for real marketing impact. 

Key Takeaways

• How to design a custom GPT tailored to your marketing goals and workflows
• Practical ways to accelerate content creation and campaign execution using AI
• How to improve consistency and messaging quality across marketing outputs
• Pitfalls to avoid when building and using custom GPTs

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How AI Is Reshaping Discovery, Trust, and the Influence Journey

AI has become more than a tool, it is now an audience, gatekeeper, and interpreter between brands and customers. Yet most marketing conversations remain focused on how to use AI internally, rather than how AI is already shaping discovery, trust, and decision-making externally.

In this talk, Haifa introduces Marketing to the Machines - a practical framework for navigating visibility, narrative, and influence in AI-driven ecosystems that influence customers. Drawing from real-world AI platform launches, brand and AI transformation strategy work, and applied research, she reframes marketing for a world where generative engines don’t just surface content, they decide what gets said and unpacks the new influence journey.

Attendees will learn:

• How AI systems actually interpret brands, and why visibility alone is no longer enough
• Why the customer journey is now split between human emotion and machine logic
• How to design brand ecosystems AI can understand, trust, and recommend
• What marketers can and cannot control in generative environments (no hype, no false promises)
• The new influence journey 

This session moves beyond experimentation into clarity, helping marketers and leaders rethink strategy, storytelling, and growth for the Generative Internet Era.

Audience takeaway:
A clear mental model, shared language, and strategic foundation for marketing to AI, not just with it, to shape your brand to reach humans and machines.

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