How to Adapt Your Brand for AI-Driven Commerce

Two CEOs asked me the same question this week. My CMO is not embracing AI. Is that an issue? The answer is yes. Forget everything you know about the CMO role. AI just rewrote the job description. What once relied on quarterly reports and linear campaigns now demands real-time insights, adaptive content, and dynamic decision-making. These 13 critical shifts outline exactly how top marketing leaders are recalibrating for the AI era: 1/ Data Velocity ↳ Traditional: Quarterly reports ↳ AI-Era: Real-time insights 💡Pro tip: Set up AI-powered dashboards that flag anomalies instantly. 2/ Campaign Planning ↳ Traditional: Linear campaigns ↳ AI-Era: Dynamic optimization 💡Pro tip: Build flexibility into every campaign for AI-driven pivots. 3/ Customer Segmentation ↳ Traditional: Static personas ↳ AI-Era: Dynamic micro-segments 💡Pro tip: Update segment definitions monthly based on AI behavioral analysis. 4/ Content Creation ↳ Traditional: Planned calendars ↳ AI-Era: Adaptive content streams 💡Pro tip: Use AI to test multiple variations simultaneously. 5/ Budget Allocation ↳ Traditional: Annual budgets ↳ AI-Era: Dynamic resource shifting 💡Pro tip: Set aside 20% for AI-identified opportunities. 6/ Team Structure ↳ Traditional: Siloed specialists ↳ AI-Era: Cross-functional AI teams 💡Pro tip: Rotate team members through AI projects monthly. 7/ Risk Management ↳ Traditional: Avoiding failure ↳ AI-Era: Rapid testing & learning 💡Pro tip: Create an AI experiment budget separate from core marketing. 8/ Customer Journey ↳ Traditional: Linear mapping ↳ AI-Era: Real-time path optimization 💡Pro tip: Review AI journey insights weekly with your team. 9/ Competitive Analysis ↳ Traditional: Quarterly reviews ↳ AI-Era: Continuous monitoring 💡Pro tip: Set up AI alerts for competitor digital footprints. 10/ Skills Development ↳ Traditional: Annual training ↳ AI-Era: Continuous AI upskilling 💡Pro tip: Make AI learning a daily 15-minute team ritual. 11/ Performance Metrics ↳ Traditional: ROI focused ↳ AI-Era: Predictive indicators 💡Pro tip: Build AI models that forecast next quarter's performance. 12/ Brand Management ↳ Traditional: Control & consistency ↳ AI-Era: Adaptive & authentic 💡Pro tip: Use AI to monitor brand sentiment across all channels. 13/ Innovation Approach ↳ Traditional: Project-based ↳ AI-Era: Continuous evolution 💡Pro tip: Create an AI innovation council that meets monthly. Mastering these shifts is the new baseline for leading in the AI-driven marketplace. The CMOs who adapt fastest will define what modern marketing leadership looks like. Which shift are you focusing on first? Share below 👇 — Follow Carolyn Healey for more AI marketing insights. ♻️ Repost if you know a CMO who needs to see this.

Some brands are slapping AI on their marketing like a shiny sticker — it looks modern, but it doesn’t mean anything. Seeing so many brands use AI in their taglines at a conference I attended recently and then seeing Dove publish AI role with real beauty got me thinking about how as brand leaders, we need to frame the role of AI into our brand strategy. If you’re a CMO or brand leader, here’s the question to ask: Can AI help us deliver our brand promise better than anyone else — and make that difference obvious to customers? If the answer’s yes, you’ve got something worth building. If the answer’s no, you’re just playing with toys and you have more work to do with your team. Here’s a framework I’ve been playing with to make AI work harder — not just for productivity, but for true brand differentiation, ie. adding value. As a placeholder, I am calling it the A.I.D.E.A. Framework: A — Anchor in Your Brand Promise Start with what you stand for — your why. AI should enhance your ability to deliver that promise, not distract from it. Ex: Dove used AI to uphold its Real Beauty values, creating standards to fight unrealistic beauty filters. I posted about this yesterday. I — Identify Distinctive Touchpoints Pinpoint the moments where your brand naturally stands apart in the customer journey. Then ask: where could AI enhance that difference? Ex: Pedigree used AI to turn everyday ads into hyper-local dog adoption campaigns. D — Design On-Brand Experiences Your AI outputs (interfaces, language, tone, visuals) should feel unmistakably like you. AI can scale your brand voice — if you train it right. Ex: L’Oréal’s beauty assistant reflects their expertise and inclusivity, not just product recs. E — Execute Transparently and Ethically Build trust into your AI strategy. Be clear with consumers when and how AI is used — and why it benefits them. Ex: Salesforce emphasized data security and transparency as core features of Einstein GPT. A — Amplify with Storytelling Showcase how AI deepens your promise. Don’t just say “we use AI” — say what it lets you do for people that no one else can. Ex: Coca-Cola’s “Real Magic” AI campaign let fans co-create with Coke — making creativity part of the brand. TL;DR for Brand Leaders: AI won’t make you different, at least not yet. But if you’re already different — it can make you unmistakable. Would you use this with your team? #AIinMarketing #BrandStrategy #CMO #GenerativeAI #BrandDifferentiation #MarketingLeadership Elizabeth Oates Priti Mehra Raul Ruiz David Bernardino Lauren Morgenstein Schiavone Kristi Zuhlke

Marketers, compete with AI or create with it. ➟Zuck’s building tech to fully automate ad campaigns. ➟Sam Altman says 95% of our work is replaceable. What you do next decides if you stay relevant. If 95% will become replaced then you need to be the damn best at the 5% that matters the most. My recommendations: ✅ Define Your Brand Voice ↳If ChatGPT can mimic you perfectly, time for a brand refresh. ↳Solution: Preload tone, style and voice into Chat GPT to refine AI-generated content. ✅ Let performance data inform, not dictate. ↳ AI will flood dashboards with attribution models and micro-metrics but knowing which signals to act on still takes human judgment. ↳ Solution: Use Triple Whale to cut through the noise with real-time, cross-channel attribution and actionable insights. ✅ Master AI as a teammate ↳ The best marketers will direct AI and not see it as a replacement. ↳ Solution: Use Claude AI for ideation and first drafts. ✅ Test smarter, not just faster ↳ AI can spin up variations in seconds but you need structured testing. ↳ Solution: Use Atria AI to run statistically valid experiments and identify creative that actually scales. ✅ Double down on emotional intelligence. ↳ AI can optimize funnels. It can’t build trust, nuance, or community. ↳ Solution: Build brand moments around culture, not just conversions. Use Glimpse to discover trends and track emerging consumer behavior ✅ Curate Wisely ↳ When AI makes it easy to produce everything, the real flex is knowing what’s worth doing. ↳ Solution: Use Motion (Creative Analytics) to identify what ad creatives not to scale by surfacing fatigue, false positives, and low-value trends. AI + good taste and judgement is the formula that will help you be in that irreplaceable 5%.

Visa. Mastercard. PayPal. Amazon. Google. OpenAI. In the last 30 days every heavyweight with a payment rail or search box has rolled out an AI shopping agent ready to “handle the purchase for you.” Great UX for the shoppers, but an existential risk for D2C brands that rely on owning the relationship, not renting it. Why? ⚠️ Disintermediation tax – Traffic is rerouted through third-party agents that take a cut (and the customer data) before a SKU ever reaches your site. ⚠️ Brand voice dilution – Your carefully crafted story gets compressed into the lowest-common-denominator product feed the agent can parse. ⚠️ Race to the bottom – When algorithms optimize for speed, price becomes the only lever left—and margins vanish. ⚠️ Opaque merchandising – You lose visibility into why you were shown (or skipped) in a recommendation carousel you don’t control. Crucially, customers expect agentic shopping experiences. Ignoring this isn't an option. 💡 The path forward? Own your AI. Forward-thinking retailers are already fighting back. Many brands we work with have launched their own on-site AI assistants to boost conversions, AOV, and delight customers across the entire journey. . The tech is ready; the window is narrow. 🛠️ Action-items for D2C brands: 1️⃣ Audit the moments where outside agents could hijack your funnel. 2️⃣ Pilot an on-brand conversational agent that lives on your domain and shares your first-party data stack. 3️⃣ Treat it like any other core channel: measure, iterate, and keep the customer conversation yours. The genie is out of the bottle; letting someone else’s genie greet your shoppers is optional. 👉 Exploring in-house agentic commerce? DM me, happy to share what we’re seeing in market. #eCommerce #d2c #shoppingAI