The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX

Ramon Soto, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Northwell Health, built the "Raise Health" movement by galvanizing 100,000 employees before going after the external audience — an inversion of how most enterprise brands sequence a launch. He and Scott Goodson, Founder and Chairman of StrawberryFrog, join Greg Kihlström to break down what that actually required.

A movement starts inside, not in market. Soto discusses why aligning a 100,000-person workforce around a shared purpose changed the strategic approach to everything that ran externally.

Purpose has to become operating behavior. Policies, decisions, and frontline authority are what make a brand promise credible — or expose it. Goodson and Soto weigh in on closing the gap between what a brand says and how it behaves.

Streaming series as brand infrastructure. We discuss why Northwell put content on Netflix and HBO instead of buying more healthcare advertising, and how they kept it from reading as branded content.

The revenue case for movement-based marketing. We discuss drawing a credible line from purpose-driven activity to $3 billion in net new annual revenue and market leadership in one of the most competitive sectors in the country.

Scott Goodson on LinkedIn

Ramon Soto on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Strawberry Frog: https://www.strawberryfrog.com

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jody Kaminsky, Chief Marketing Officer at iCIMS, led a full brand transformation to reposition an established talent acquisition company around AI — in a category where being wrong about AI costs someone a job. She and Greg Kihlström get into what that took.

A brand refresh is a business decision before it's a design decision. Kaminsky weighs in on the business drivers that signaled it was time to change, what iCIMS deliberately gave up in familiar brand equity, and how the new narrative got tied to where the company is actually going.

"AI" is not specific enough to be a promise. A tool that speeds up work a person is still authoring and a system that decides and acts on its own are very different products with very different stakes in hiring. Kaminsky discusses how precise you have to get with buyers about which one you're selling.

The brand is tested in the product's behavior, not the campaign. What the platform decides, how it explains itself, and what happens when it gets something wrong all shape the brand more than the messaging does — and Kaminsky weighs in on keeping marketing's story and the system's behavior aligned as output scales.

About Jody Kaminsky

Jody Kaminsky is the Chief Marketing Officer at ICIMS, an enterprise AI talent acquisition platform, and former CMO of UKG who led the company through the Ultimate Software/Kronos merger. With 30+ years of experience as a CMO and marketing board advisor guiding enterprise technology companies through large-scale transformations, Jody's experience lies in leading brand evolution, shaping compelling brand narratives, aligning marketing with business strategy, and building credibility in a crowded AI market. Today, she applies that experience at ICIMS, which powers responsible AI hiring for more than 4,000 organizations worldwide, including The Container Store, Urban Outfitters, PetSmart, Canon, Heineken, and The Cheesecake Factory, giving her perspective shaped by some of the world’s most recognized brands.

Jody Kaminsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodykaminsky/

---------- Resources ----------

ICIMS:

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jay Lee, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Five9, argues the contact center is not a cost line marketing inherits. It's where brand promises get tested, and where the richest first-party data a company owns already sits. He and Greg Kihlström get into what changes when marketing takes it seriously.

Brand is what the system decides, not what the campaign says. When a bot, an agent, and the app give three different answers to the same exception request, customers don't read it as a service defect. They read it as the company.

Service data is the first-party source marketing says it wants and rarely uses. Transcripts, chat logs, and sentiment are already there. Lee talks about where the handoff from service data to marketing action actually breaks down.

"AI in the contact center" hides four very different decisions. Routing rules, churn scoring, drafted agent replies, and an agent that resolves and acts on its own carry different accuracy bars and different accountability. Lee talks about getting buying committees to name which one they're actually buying.

About Jay Lee

Jay H. Lee is the Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Five9. A growth-focused leader in enterprise software and fintech, Jay brings more than 20 years of experience driving go-to-market transformation, scaling global marketing organizations, and delivering measurable business outcomes.

Prior to joining Five9, Jay served as Chief Marketing Officer at Icertis, where he led the company’s global marketing organization and helped position the business for its next phase of growth. Previously, Jay was the Chief Marketing Officer at Avalara. There, he was instrumental in more than doubling the company’s revenue from approximately $380 million to over $800 million by building and scaling a high-performing global marketing team. This achievement was a key contribution to Avalara's $8.4 billion acquisition by Vista Equity Partners.

Earlier in his career, Jay held senior leadership roles at PayPal, American Express, and GE Capital, where he led initiatives across marketing, product, and business strategy. At PayPal, he led marketing for the Business Financing Solutions division, helping expand global lending and drive significant growth in originations.

Jay Lee on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Five9

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the biggest source of new marketing budget this year isn't a new line item from your CFO — but millions of dollars already sitting trapped inside the Google Ads campaigns you're running right now?

Agility here isn't just reacting faster to the market. It's having the intelligence to anticipate and act on opportunities inside a live auction, thousands of times a second — without losing the thread of your larger strategy.

Today, we're going to talk about:

- The difference between AI that writes your ad copy and AI that autonomously makes financial decisions on your behalf.

- How to fund new initiatives by reclaiming the 12–18% of "trapped capital" sitting in your current paid search spend — without asking for a bigger budget.

- Why "set it and forget it" automation leaves an edge on the table in live auctions, and what it actually takes to capture it.

To help me dig into this, I'd like to welcome Matt LeBaron, CEO at Revvim.

About Matt LeBaron

Matt LeBaron is Founder and CEO of Revvim. He began his career in 1997 at CatalogCity.com (later SHOP.COM), starting in the mailroom and rising to Director of Database Operations. He was part of the team that built what may have been the first multi-vendor shopping cart, which Amazon studied as inspiration for zShops. In 2004 he moved to marketing as SHOP.COM's first Head of Customer Acquisition, where he uploaded six million keywords from search logs to Google Ads and, within three days, wrote his first automated bidding algorithm, which SHOP.COM pursued a patent on. He founded digital marketing consultancy New Day Consulting in 2007 and Revvim in 2011, bootstrapping it with consulting revenue. In 2020 his team built and patented AdAi, which onboarded over $5B in annual Google Ads spend in its first two years. He lives in San Juan Bautista, California, with his wife and kids.

Matt LeBaron on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Revvim

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaseris the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show?Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.

Don't miss a thing:get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creative has never been cheaper or faster to produce than it is right now — so why is it still so hard to say, with any confidence, which of it is actually worth the money?

Agility isn't just moving faster. It's knowing which creative decisions compound, which ones evaporate, and having the evidence to defend the difference when the budget conversation starts.

Today, we're going to talk about creative effectiveness and how to prove its value. Specifically, we'll explore:

- What the evidence actually shows about emotional response and long-term brand growth — and what the industry still gets wrong about it.

- How large-scale creative data changes the way work gets developed, not just the way it gets judged after the fact.

- How to make the financial case for creative quality in an organization that's measuring everything else in-quarter.

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer, Advertising at System1.

About Andrew Tindall

Andrew Tindall is a leading voice in modern marketing effectiveness, championing a practical, creativity‑driven approach that reconnects media and creative. As Chief Growth Officer, Advertising at System1, he oversees thought leadership and major agency relationships, producing influential research on how emotion and creativity fuel advertising effectiveness across TV, audio, digital, and OOH. Drawing on a decade in FMCG at Diageo and Bacardi, he brings real‑world pragmatism to his analysis and frequently shares insights from System1’s extensive UK and US TV ad database to comment on current advertising. Andrew regularly speaks at industry events such as MadFest and the Festival of Marketing, and he advocates for “effectiveness for all” through his weekly column in The Drum and his fast‑growing presence on LinkedIn.

Andrew Tindall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-tindall/

---------- Resources ----------

System1

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rahul Shah, CEO of CommerceIQ, argues that discoverability has replaced shelf position as the battleground in retail, and that keeping retail media and product content in separate teams is now a competitive liability. He and Greg Kihlström get into what replaces the old model.

Discoverability is where the sale is decided. Product quality still matters, but an item that an AI-mediated retail environment can't read, verify, and surface never reaches the consideration set at all.

Retail media and product content are one system, not two budgets. Paid performance should be changing organic content, and organic performance should be changing paid — the separation between them is an org chart artifact that now costs money.

Automation runs at retail speed; humans keep it coherent. Shah on where AI-driven execution takes over from dashboard analysis, what humans have to keep owning as output scales, and how to attribute the resulting lift.

About Rahul Shah

Rahul Shah is CEO of CommerceIQ, the AI-native retail growth partner for brands. Rahul has spent more than two decades building and scaling technology businesses across product, engineering, and go-to-market. He was most recently Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ) and held senior leadership positions at PayPal and GE. He also scaled venture-backed companies including Branch Metrics and Applause past $100 million in revenue. He holds an MBA from Berkeley Haas and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Rahul Shah on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

CommerceIQ

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replitand get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us moreand give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kyla Malone, Director of Marketing at IDT, talks with Greg Kihlström at Braze Forge 2026 about earning trust from customers who rely on one company to stay connected to family abroad and send money home.

Moving into money movement raises the bar for the brand. When the customer who buys calling credit also trusts IDT to move their money, the brand has more to prove. Malone explains how that shift changed the way her marketing team works, and how IDT balances name recognition across brands like BOSS Revolution and net2phone with giving customers what they actually need.

Personalizing for customers across languages and home countries. How IDT puts Braze to work, and where AI helps the team do what it already did faster versus where it makes something new possible.

Measuring personalization and setting the pace of change. How Malone judges whether personalized experiences and content are working, and how she keeps her team moving together while keeping up with customers.

Kyla Malone on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

IDT

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robin Ross, Digital, Analytics and Loyalty Executive at Activate Insight, on how brands compete when a consumer's AI agent controls the consideration set. Recorded live at MAICON 2026 with Greg Kihlström.

- Brand preference is now decided before the customer sees the options.

- When an agent builds the shortlist, the direct-to-customer relationship enterprises have invested in for decades runs through an intermediary the brand doesn't control.

- Loyalty and first-party data have a second audience.

Ross and Kihlström look at what a loyalty program is worth when an agent weighs price and features on every purchase, and how a data strategy has to change to inform agent-based decisions. Attribution breaks when the agent is the filter.

If a brand is considered and rejected without an impression or a click, the traditional funnel has nothing to measure. The conversation covers what marketing leaders should track instead.

About Robin Ross

I’m a marketing and strategy executive with 20+ years of experience driving growth through data, loyalty, and digital transformation. I’ve led initiatives that expand membership, strengthen customer engagement, and scale innovation across functions. My expertise includes marketing analytics, loyalty programs, digital transformation, and applying AI and data to accelerate decision-making. I focus on simplifying complexity, aligning teams, and building systems that deliver measurable results. I thrive at the intersection of strategy and execution—partnering with leaders to clarify goals, design customer-centric programs, and turn them into business impact.

Robin Ross on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-ross-activateinsight/

---------- Resources ----------

Activate Insight

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Meinshausen, CEO at Aampe by MoEngage, argues marketers never had individual-level control over customer experience — only rules applied at scale. He and Greg Kihlström get into what replaces it.

Personalization was always rules in disguise. What marketers experienced as control was segment logic applied broadly. Meinshausen on what individual-level decisioning does that no rules engine reaches, however many people you put behind it.

Guardrails are where the real design work happens. When an agent's read on a single user collides with a margin floor or a global frequency cap, something has to resolve it — explicitly, and with data behind the trade-off.

A headline lift number is not proof. Meinshausen on how performance metrics mislead when leaders evaluate AI, what makes a holdout experiment credible, and how to measure value that doesn't show up as a conversion.

About Paul Meinshausen

Paul Meinshausen is Co-founder and CEO of Aampe, an agentic AI decisioning company acquired by MoEngage in 2026, where he now leads Agentic Decisioning. Aampe's approach deploys a dedicated agent for each individual user, built on reinforcement learning infrastructure with causal inference at the user level, and runs in production across consumer brands including Grab, Swiggy, ZenBusiness, and Taxfix. Previously he co-founded PaySense, a consumer fintech acquired by PayU in 2019, and served as its Chief Data Officer. His background spans data science, computational behavioral science, and building engineering and data teams. He has been an active angel investor since 2018.

Paul Meinshausen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmeinshausen/

---------- Resources ----------

Aampe by MoEngage: https://www.moengage.com

MoEngage is an Agentic Customer Engagement Platform trusted by over 1,350 global consumer brands and combines deep customer analytics, agentic marketing workflows through its Merlin AI Agents, and omnichannel orchestration across messaging and surfaces, helping marketing and product teams deliver experiences that feel personal at any scale. Learn more at moengage.com

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jean-Christophe Pitié, Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer at Contentsquare, says the rules of customer experience are being rewritten as LLMs and AI agents join the customer journey. He and Greg Kihlström get into what that means for how enterprise teams measure, test, and fund digital experience. The conversation is timed with CX Circle NYC, Contentsquare's digital experience event on October 13, 2026, and Pitié shares what he is most looking forward to there.

**The customer journey now includes LLMs and AI agents.** Pitié on why signals from human and agent interactions need to be read together, and what analytics has to capture beyond clicks and pageviews.

**Analytics moves from reporting what happened to deciding what matters.** How Contentsquare's AI, Sense, prioritizes issues for marketing and product teams, and what agentic experimentation (AI that forms a hypothesis, designs a test, and validates the impact) leaves for human optimization teams to own.

**Attribution and benchmarks are being rebuilt for AI-referred traffic.** Multi-touch attribution that includes LLM and AI-referred traffic, and Benchmarks that compare specific features and user flows against industry peers, as inputs to channel and experience investment decisions.

About Jean-Christope Pitié

With 20+ years of experience in international marketing and partner engagement, Jean-Christophe Pitié is committed to supporting companies of all sizes in their digital transformation. Passionate about technology and retail, he spent two decades at Microsoft, where he had the opportunity to contribute to the cloud transformation and launched Microsoft 365 as well as leading Microsoft Stores. Today, as Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer at Contentsquare, his main mission is to drive customer demand in markets around the world, continue to grow the company's rich partner ecosystem, and bring holistic customer experience insights to more teams worldwide.

---------- Resources ----------

Contentsquare

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replitand get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us moreand give us a rating so others can find the show:.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brenno Valerio, Head of Sales, Americas at Treasure AI, joins Greg Kihlström at Agentic World in Miami on consolidating the martech stack and proving AI's value before renewal.

Consolidation is a political decision before it's a technical one. Who on the buying committee resists replacing best-of-breed point solutions, and what kind of proof moves them.

"Agentic" claims need a live pressure test. How skeptical enterprise buyers separate real capability from relabeled automation, and how marketers can plan for an attribution gap where downstream tools like an ESP often get the revenue credit, so the proof of concept produces evidence a CFO will accept.

Engagement-based pricing changes more than the invoice. What it means for procurement teams used to predictable costs, for brands locked into fixed, multi-year contracts, and for how marketing teams decide when to reach out to a customer at all.

About Brenno Valerio

Brenno Drummond Valerio is Head of Sales at Treasure AI, where he helps enterprise brands use customer data and AI to drive measurable business results. He brings more than a decade of experience in enterprise software sales and business development across the Americas. Before Treasure AI, Brenno spent nearly ten years at Acquia, the digital experience platform, leading sales and business development and working with Acquia's key partners across the region.

Brenno Valerio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennovalerio/

---------- Resources ----------

Treasure AI: https://www.treasure.ai

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Weirich, COO & CFO of Treasure AI, explains why the company moved to engagement-based pricing that ties its revenue to customer clicks, and what CMOs should expect as CFOs take a harder look at AI spend. Recorded live at Agentic World 2026 in Miami. **Finance is pumping the brakes on AI spend.** Weirich on how the push to maximize token usage gave way to cost scrutiny, why some high-profile companies didn't see it coming, and what capital discipline looks like for a well-funded vendor in the middle of a hype cycle. **Outcome-based pricing puts the vendor's money where its mouth is.** Why Treasure AI shifted from its 'No Compute' model to engagement-based pricing, what it means for new and existing customers, and whether the rest of the market is headed the same way. **CMOs and CFOs need a closer working relationship.** A CFO's view of how finance and marketing have worked together over the last five years, where the two can partner as marketing's staffing and work change, and how to structure vendor contracts to stay adaptable as the CDP category consolidates.

About Dan Weirich

Dan Weirich is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Treasure AI (formerly Treasure Data), where he leads the company's business and financial operations and sits on its board. He brings more than 25 years of finance and operations leadership at technology companies.

Dan first joined Treasure Data as CFO in 2014. After Arm acquired the company in 2018, he became Vice President of Operations for Arm's data business. He returned as COO and CFO in 2021, when Treasure Data separated from Arm and joined SoftBank Vision Fund 2's portfolio.

Before Treasure Data, Dan spent more than a decade at 8x8, Inc., as CFO and later President, and helped build its software-as-a-service business. Earlier, as Vice President of Business Development at iAsiaWorks, he expanded the company into 13 Asian countries and helped take it public on NASDAQ in 2000. He has also held roles at Qwest and Phoenix Network.

Dan is a General Partner at Carbide Ventures and holds a BS in International Business from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dan Weirich on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Treasure AI

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content:

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Rockhold, VP Market Engagement at Spotlight, says AI answer engines treat a company's own content as a ceiling — the citations that move buyers come from sources it doesn't control. He and Greg Kihlström get into what replaces the old B2B influence playbook.

Self-citation is a ceiling, not a strategy. Publishing more owned content doesn't raise AI visibility past a point; third-party validation does the lifting.

Analysts shape the vocabulary, peer platforms get the citation. The two do different jobs, and budget allocated as if they were the same tends to underperform.

Influence is owned by everybody and therefore nobody. Rockhold on what has to change week to week across analyst relations, comms, and customer marketing — not just who it reports to.

By the time a buyer contacts you, the influencing already happened. What that does to a marketing organization still structured around lead generation and MQLs.

About John Rockhold

B2B buying has become AI-mediated and trust-driven, long before buyers engage a vendor. I spend my time observing how influence is formed, synthesizing signals from analysts, buyer research, and market behavior, and helping organizations make sense of what actually shapes modern buying decisions.

As VP of Market Engagement at Spotlight, I draw on a background that includes journalism, analyst relations, and years of close collaboration with industry analysts. I’m trusted by analysts because I respect their role, understand how their work evolves, and prioritize accuracy, context, and long-term relationships over short-term outcomes.

Much of my work focuses on how influence, visibility, and trust are earned in the modern B2B buyer journey. I help B2B brands understand how experts, customers, vendors, partners, and employees all shape visibility and credibility. At Spotlight, we refer to this coordinated approach to earning and sustaining trust across analysts, customers, and AI systems as Influence Orchestration.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrockhold/

---------- Resources ----------

This episode is brought to you by Spotlight. Spotlight is pioneering the future of influence orchestration in the B2B buyer journey. Trusted by over 165 teams globally, Spotlight is the world’s leading analyst relations consultancy and industry platform.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replitand get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kaz Ohta, CEO and CMO of Treasure AI, helped pioneer the customer data platform category. Now he's betting that customer data matters less for what it stores than for what autonomous agents do with it. Recorded at Agentic World, he and Greg Kihlström get into what that shift asks of enterprise marketing leaders.

The CDP label stopped describing the work. Why Treasure Data became Treasure AI, where the company's engineering investment moved, and how Ohta views warehouse-native players like Databricks moving into the category he helped create.

Building the agentic layer creates ecosystem friction. The reasoning behind building Personalization Studio in-house rather than deepening partnerships with testing and personalization vendors, and how to handle the channel conflict that follows.

Autonomy gets set decision by decision. Which decisions enterprise customers hand to agents outright, which still require human sign-off, and how measurement has to change once agents are doing the optimizing.

About Kaz Ohta

Kazuki Ohta is the co-founder and CEO of Treasure AI, an AI-native platform built to enable customer data and agentic experiences. He co-founded Treasure Data, now Treasure AI, in 2011 and served as its CTO during the company’s early development, helping scale the business to more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Kaz Ohta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kazukiohta/

---------- Resources ----------

Treasure AI: https://www.treasure.ai

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f1782ab12211f765

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ankur Goyal, CEO and Co-Founder at Fibr AI, says your website now has a second audience that never looks at it: the AI agents reading and summarizing your brand before a buyer ever arrives.

He and Greg Kihlström get into what that does to pages enterprises have spent a decade optimizing for humans.

Owned properties become the control point. Models keep changing what they cite and how, so the durable investment is in the properties a brand actually controls — not in chasing each platform's ranking behavior.

One page, two requirements. A person needs to be persuaded; an agent needs a fact it can act on. Goyal on where those demands conflict, and how to resolve it without building two websites.

Personalization stops being a segment and becomes a decision. The move from assigning visitors to predefined buckets to running a real-time decision system — and what a CMS, CDP, and testing stack can't be configured to do.

About AJ Goyal

Ankur "AJ" Goyal is Founder & CEO of Fibr AI. He has spent over a decade leading ventures across AI, digital marketing automation, and consumer product innovation. He specializes in personalization and marketing infrastructure, shifting web platforms toward agentic and automated consumer engagement.

AJ Goyal on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Fibr AI

Companies put enormous effort into bringing people to their websites, but once someone arrives, most sites still show everyone the same generic experience. Fibr adds an intelligent layer to your existing website, without requiring a rebuild, a CMS migration, or engineering support for every update, so one URL can deliver a unique, relevant experience based on what each visitor is trying to accomplish.

And today, your visitors aren’t always people. AI search tools and agents are also reading the web to decide what information to surface. When a brand’s own content isn’t clear or useful, they may rely on sources like Reddit comments and third-party reviews instead. Fibr helps make your website a clearer, more useful source for both people and AI systems, while keeping your brand in control.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ken Stillwell, CFO and COO at Pega, says most enterprise AI business cases fund a label rather than a specific capability — and that the gap shows up later, on the P&L. He and Greg Kihlström get into what financial discipline around AI actually looks like.

"AI" is not a budget category. A rules engine, a predictive model, and a system that acts on its own carry different costs, risks, and payback periods. Stillwell on making teams say which one they're asking for.

The benefit gets modeled; the operational change doesn't. Where AI business cases reliably break down, and what tells you a case is going to miss before you fund it.

Scaling a pilot is a coherence problem, not a technology problem. What it takes to let many teams decide faster without the enterprise ceasing to behave like one company — and who owns that.

About Ken Stillwell

As Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Ken Stillwell is responsible for finance, investor relations, legal, facilities, information technology, Pega Cloud, global client support, and business operations, overseeing more than one thousand employees globally. His leadership has been central to Pega’s transformation to an as-a-Service business through Pega’s Cloud transition. Recognized as incisive, transparent, clear, and empathetic, his opinions and counsel are sought after by peers, clients, and media. Ken is a regular contributor to numerous industry publications regarding financial and operational leadership.

Ken has nearly 30 years of financial leadership experience in high-growth organizations in the technology sector. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his undergraduate degree in business and economics, and the University of South Carolina, where he earned a Master's in accounting and finance. Ken is also a certified public accountant.

Ken Stillwell on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Pega delivers the platform to reimagine, run, and evolve the processes and decisions an enterprise can't afford to get wrong. We combine AI with proven architecture to keep mission-critical operations governed, scalable, and continuously adaptable. Since 1983, the world's largest organizations have trusted Pegato turn transformation ambition into durable results.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26- Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Kaneshige, Chief Content Officer at the CMO Council, says there is no best martech stack — only a best-aligned one. New research on 988 enterprise stacks shows why more functionality rarely means more value.

Alignment beats functionality, and the data says so. The Apex Martech Matrix compares real deployments against companies in the top 30% for revenue per employee in their industry. The same investment that correlates with outperformance in one industry shows nothing in another.

"Overbuilt" is the most common failure, not underinvestment. Kaneshige and Greg Kihlström get into what separates a stack whose capabilities exceed the organization's ability to use them from one that's genuinely aligned — and why maturity investment doesn't always pay off either.

AI amplifies whatever foundation it's given. With 85% of organizations layering AI onto existing stacks and 30% replacing SaaS functionality outright, a misaligned foundation compounds fragmentation and technology debt instead of fixing it.

About Tom Kaneshige

Tom Kaneshige is the Chief Content Officer at CMO Council. He creates all forms of digital thought leadership content that helps chief marketers, line of business leaders, as well as growth and revenue officers succeed in their rapidly evolving roles. As a content marketing strategist, he helps vendors shape and influence demand for their products and services. His pre-sales role is to gain brand influence, prominence and trust, as well as source qualified leads and customer opportunities. A Silicon Valley native, he has covered the intersection of business and technology for 20 years as an award-winning journalist at IDG (CIO Magazine, InfoWorld), Informa/Penton and TechTarget, and as a senior analyst at Forrester Research. He is immersed in the expanding marketing and sales technology landscape, disruptive trends impacting business leaders, and game-changing technology such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. Kaneshige heads a team that produces research reports, articles, white papers, strategic briefs, news releases, social media and web site information. He also edits monthly journals, digital magazines, newsletters, blogs and web content for CMO Council’s executive networks. These include the Business Performance Innovation Network, and the newly formed Growth Officer Council and Growth Guidance Center.

Tom Kaneshige on LinkedIn.

---------- Resources ----------

CMO Council

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

Read the CMO Council Report.

The hardest part of martech is telling which tools are earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. So join and use code AGILE15 to save 15%.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide Listis now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

Tell us more and give us a ratingso others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.

Get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Hyman, Co-Founder & CTO of Braze, joins Greg Kihlström live at Braze Forge 2026 in Las Vegas on what's left for marketers when AI handles experimentation, verification, and execution.

Recorded at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the conversation gets into where the line sits between what AI decides on its own and what still needs a person.

1:1 decisioning needs guardrails, not just more tests. Decisioning Studio Go moves teams beyond A/B testing toward continuous 1:1 optimization. Hyman on how brands keep thousands of automated decisions aligned with one set of priorities.

Quality assurance becomes an automated control. Agentic Standards targets the operational risk that comes with moving faster, which raises the question of who defines the standard the system checks against.

The platform goes headless. Operator Connect brings Braze into ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, and Conversational Agents extend two-way engagement to WhatsApp and SMS. Hyman on where governance lives when the work happens outside the platform.

About Jon Hyman

Jon Hyman is the Chief Technology Officer and Cofounder of Braze, and has been at the direct forefront of the company’s growth in the last 15 years, more recently leading the engineering organization through a rapid transformation in how it builds software with AI. He’s become an influential, practitioner-level voice on what it actually takes to move an established engineering organization, not an early-stage startup, into the agentic era.

Jon Hyman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-hyman/

---------- Resources ----------

Braze: https://www.braze.com

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%. https://aglbrnd.co/r/c70c250b8d52dff3

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms. See more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/f76be3a33cc491bb

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/491818c79fb1873f

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom

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We spend a lot of time asking how brands can be memorable. We spend almost none asking what happens when the memory is the product.

Agility gets talked about as moving fast with new tools. It's really the ability to change repeatedly without losing what makes you recognizable — and that gets harder when what you sell is something a customer plans to keep for twenty years.

Today, we're going to talk about:

- Why designing for permanence is a strategic choice, not a nostalgic one

- Getting specific about what AI is actually doing inside a creative product — and where the customer stays the author

- What has to hold steady across a brand as volume, automation, and channels all multiply

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Andrew Laffoon, CEO & Co-Founder at Mixbook.

About Andrew Laffoon

Andrew Laffoon is the CEO and co‑founder of Mixbook, a leading photo storytelling platform that helps people transform meaningful moments into beautifully crafted memories. Since founding the company in 2006, he has led Mixbook’s growth into a creative technology platform that makes it easier for people to tell, preserve, and share their stories.

Andrew brings nearly three decades of experience in software development, product design, and entrepreneurship. His career began in the earliest days of the web, when he founded a web consultancy while still in high school. Prior to Mixbook, he built deep, cross‑functional expertise across engineering, design, operations, and go‑to‑market leadership.

In addition to his entrepreneurial work, Andrew has been deeply engaged in education and community leadership. He has served as a Lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology since 2012 and was a member of the UC Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) Advisory Board from 2015 to 2025. He is also the Founding Board Chair of the Bay Area Center for Faith, Work and Tech, helping explore the intersection of purpose, vocation, and innovation.

Andrew Laffoon on LinkedIn

---------- Resources ----------

Mixbook

The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replitand get $20 off.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Rockhold, VP Market Engagement at Spotlight, says AI answer engines treat a company's own content as a ceiling — the citations that move buyers come from sources it doesn't control. He and Greg Kihlström get into what replaces the old B2B influence playbook.

Self-citation is a ceiling, not a strategy. Publishing more owned content doesn't raise AI visibility past a point; third-party validation does the lifting.

Analysts shape the vocabulary, peer platforms get the citation. The two do different jobs, and budget allocated as if they were the same tends to underperform.

Influence is owned by everybody and therefore nobody. Rockhold on what has to change week to week across analyst relations, comms, and customer marketing — not just who it reports to.

By the time a buyer contacts you, the influencing already happened. What that does to a marketing organization still structured around lead generation and MQLs.

About John Rockhold

John Rockhold is VP of Market Engagement at Spotlight, an influence orchestration agency rooted in analyst relations. His background spans journalism, analyst relations, and years of close collaboration with industry analysts. His work focuses on how influence, visibility, and trust are earned in the modern B2B buyer journey, synthesizing signals from analysts, buyer research, and market behavior, and helping B2B brands understand how experts, customers, vendors, partners, and employees shape visibility and credibility. Spotlight calls this coordinated approach to earning trust across analysts, customers, and AI systems Influence Orchestration.

John Rockhold on LinkedIn

Resources

This episode is brought to you by Spotlight. Spotlight is pioneering the future of influence orchestration in the B2B buyer journey. Trusted by over 165 teams globally, Spotlight is the world’s leading analyst relations consultancy and industry platform.

The hardest part of martech right now is telling which tools are actually earning their keep. That's the question running through the MarTech Summit Boston agenda on October 27. We're attending MarTech Summit Boston on October 27 as a media partner. If you want to join, the code AGILE15 saves you 15%.

We’re proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save!

Need to evaluate martech, AI, or CX platforms and don't know where to start? The Agile Brand Guide List is now in beta. We're building the most useful, free-to-use, and up-to-date way to assess what truly matters when evaluating platforms.

Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit!

Chaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).

Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off.

View the Spotlight Influence Orchestration report.

Learn more about the Spotlight Future of Influence Awards.

Enjoyed the show? Tell us more and give us a rating so others can find the show.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.

Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter, and check out Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology.

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging & informative content.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.