The AI Readiness Gap: What CMOs Need to Know Now
My head is still spinning from two profoundly informative AI conferences in Paris: the Safe & Ethical AI Conference and the AI Action Summit. While the comments of Nobel laureates, policymakers, and researchers were fascinating, the question for brands is: Why should CMOs care?
Because what was clear in Paris is that marketing is about to fundamentally change, and most organizations aren't ready. While many companies experiment with AI for content and automation, the next wave brings autonomous AI agents that will directly impact customer relationships and brand perception.
The Challenge: These AI systems will make independent decisions affecting revenue and customer trust. While competitive pressure to deploy them will be intense, the risks are significant. As Amy Jean Doherty, CIO of the World Bank, states: "We're not ready. You're not ready. No one's ready because we're all trying to look around the corner to see what's next."
The Reality Gap: Autonomous customer-facing AI will require marketers to have new capabilities in human oversight, accountability standards, and customer-experience management. Are your current AI governance frameworks designed for systems that interact dynamically with customers? Other critical questions the CMO might ask:
How will we monitor, measure and improve AI-driven customer interactions?
How do we embed our brand values into the AI systems we are deploying?
What talent, processes and transparency do we need to have trust in our AI?
The Path Forward: Success requires more than guidelines and guardrails. Companies need Executive sponsorship, incentives, inclusive frameworks, consistent communications, and metrics tied to customer trust. As Wharton's Ethan Mollick notes, "Companies aren't thinking enough about how to market to the preferences of AI agents. Security is going to get very weird, fast."
The Stakes: CMOs face dual risks - move too slowly and risk losing market position, or move too quickly and risk losing customer trust. The winners will be those who balance AI adoption with accountability. The time to build this capability is now.