The AI-Driven CMO
Welcome to the craft-driven CMOs who are prompt & story-fluent
The CMO role is going to change a lot in the AI-era. We're going to say RIP to the slide-deck CMO and welcome to the craft-driven CMOs who are prompt & story-fluent.
These are the skills the CMO needs to thrive in the AI era.
AI is going to change all roles. The role of a CMO will change a lot, requiring a new set of skills. Here are some of the most critical changes:
1. Big crew, endless hand-offs: relied on specialists and outsourcing -> Lean maker-led team: the CMO drafts copy, crafts prompts, sketches positioning, then scales with a lean squad.
2. Budget-&-people fluent: great at managing headcount and spend, rarely deep in the craft -> Prompt-&-story fluent: adds AI through every workflow, writes the prompts, and shapes the story end-to-end.
3. Static personas & funnels: segment buckets that rarely change -> Agile micro-journeys: Uses AI to craft real-time paths for micro-audiences based on intent signals.
4. Agency & freelancer wrangler: managed briefs, scopes, and timelines across vendors -> AI-agent coach: trains, tests, and tunes a team of autonomous agents to do the work.
It means the CMO of the future has:
- Built it, shipped it: Has personally launched a gen-AI-powered campaign or tool.
- Creative-plus-data wins: Their marketing portfolio shows equal parts brand storytelling and measurable lift. They can quote the metric and the narrative in one sentence.
- High-tempo test loops: Runs experiments, iterates, finds signal, and repeats.
- Agent savvy: Has stood up Agents, tested across customer buyer journey, can quote the learnings
Really love this take. It’s not just CMOs—this feels like a broader shift we’re seeing across almost every role and industry. We're moving from delegating and managing to actually crafting again—being hands-on, using tools like AI to build, test, and iterate in real-time.
But as powerful as AI is, I still think the real edge comes from human fundamentals—understanding behaviour, building trust, having strong business instincts, and drawing on real-world experience. That stuff doesn’t go out of style. If anything, it becomes more valuable when paired with the speed and scale AI offers.
Personally, I see this era as less about replacement and more about a symbiotic relationship.