Newsletters

Hello go-to-market leaders, strategists, and innovators! 👋 Thank you for dropping by to learn practical AI applications and gain strategic insights to help you grow your business, elevate your and your team’s strategic value as marketers, use business as a force for good, and help advance your career.

Prefer to Listen? Try the AI-Generated Podcast

For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts.

The podcast captures the insights in an engaging and relatable way, making the content more inclusive for different learning styles. You can listen to it here.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

AI is changing the way we work faster than ever before. But with rapid changes come new challenges, especially when it comes to hiring the right people.

How do you know if your team is ready for AI? Are you focusing too much on skills and not enough on adaptability? These are the questions many leaders face today.

To help you make the best decisions for your team, I will share three tools that will help you find and hire AI-ready talent:

1. AI Readiness Assessment Quiz – This quiz helps you decide if your organization should focus more on AI skills or adaptability.

2. AI Readiness Assessment Matrix – This matrix helps you see how different types of candidates fit your needs.

3. AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide – This guide helps turn insights into interview questions and candidate evaluations.

Let’s discuss how these tools can help you make smart hiring decisions.

Hiring for AI Skills: More Than Expertise

Hiring the right AI talent is tough. Many leaders do not know exactly what skills they need, what questions to ask, or how to tell if a candidate is the right fit.

This challenge is backed by recent data: 65% of companies are regularly using generative AI, nearly double from just ten months ago. This fast adoption shows how important it is to find AI-ready talent.¹

That is why I built the AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), a custom AI tool specifically designed to make hiring for AI talent easier. The guide is free (if you have a paid version of ChatGPT) and helps you figure out if candidates are ready for AI work.

The goal is not just to hire people who know AI, but to find those who can make AI work for your business. People who can adapt, learn, and create value with AI.

According to Carol-Lyn Jardine, VP of Growth Marketing at DHI Group, Inc., companies need to prioritize more than just technical knowledge when hiring for AI roles.

“The value in AI talent comes from technical capabilities and the skills to leverage AI in driving innovation and business results. Look for candidates who are adaptable. They can translate their technical expertise into meaningful, actionable solutions for your organization.”

AI Readiness Assessment Quiz: Where to Start

The first step in building an AI-ready team is to understand what your organization needs—deep AI skills or adaptability. The AI Readiness Assessment Quiz can help you figure this out.

The quiz will ask you to rate statements about your organization’s needs. Questions might be about how important AI is to your projects or how advanced your industry is with AI.

Based on your answers, the quiz will guide you on whether to focus more on hiring for AI skills or adaptability. Here is how to use it:

• Step 1: Rate Statements: Rate statements like “We have urgent projects that need AI expertise” on a scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).

• Step 2: Assess Needs: Use your results to decide if you need immediate AI skills or if adaptability is more important.

• Step 3: Match Outcomes with Roles: Match the result with the roles you are hiring for. If adaptability is more important, look for candidates who are fast learners, even if they do not have a lot of AI experience.

I used the AI assistant Claude to build this quiz using natural language, no code. You do not need a subscription to Claude to use it. Here’s a video that shows the quiz in action and below are screenshots.

AI Readiness Assessment Matrix: Visualizing Candidate Fit

After understanding your organization’s needs, you can see how different candidates fit using the AI Readiness Assessment Matrix. This is a 2×2 chart that compares Current AI Skills and Adaptability.

Each part of the matrix shows a different type of candidate:

This matrix helps you figure out which type of candidate best fits specific roles in your team.

AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide: Crafting Your Questions

Now that you have used the quiz and the matrix, the AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) will help you turn this knowledge into action.

This GPT helps hiring manager develop interview questions and offers tips to evaluate how well candidates can adapt to AI in their jobs.

Scott Morris, CMO of Sprout Social put the guide to the test.

“Custom GPTs help maintain consistency and improve efficiency across teams, including in hiring processes. For example, the AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide GPT ensures that hiring managers can consistently prepare relevant interview questions and evaluate candidates’ AI skills in line with role requirements.”

Here is how to use the guide:

• Step 1: Define the Role – Start by defining what the role requires. Are you hiring a content marketer who needs AI skills, or a data scientist who will work with machine learning?

• Step 2: Use Matrix Insights – Use the 2×2 matrix to decide the kind of candidate you need—high skills, high adaptability, or something in between.

• Step 3: Create Questions – The guide will create questions that assess things like adaptability, ethical thinking, and AI experience. For example: “Describe a time when you had to learn a new technology quickly. How did you handle it?”

• Step 4: Assess Responses – Use the guide to know what good answers look like and what red flags to watch for. Adaptability-focused roles should show excitement for learning and strategic thinking.

• Step 5: Evaluate and Decide – Evaluate candidates based on their adaptability and AI knowledge to see if they meet your needs.

The AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide gives you a simple way to turn broad skills into real interview questions.

If you don’t have a paid ChatGPT subscription, this video and the screenshots below show you how the guide works with an example:

Upskilling Your Current Team: An Untapped Resource

The right AI talent might already be part of your team. Upskilling and reskilling your current employees can be an effective way to build AI skills without hiring new people. Training existing staff has several benefits:

• Familiarity with Company Goals – Current team members already understand your business goals, culture, and workflow. Upskilling them means you save time and resources on onboarding.

• Improves Morale and Retention – Offering growth opportunities shows your commitment to employees’ careers. This boosts morale and can lead to higher retention rates.

• Cost-Effective – Hiring new talent can be expensive, especially for specialized AI roles. Investing in training your existing team is often more affordable.

• Greater Trust – You already know the strengths and weaknesses of your team members, which makes it easier to predict how they will apply new skills in practice.

Consider creating an AI learning program for your team, using resources like applied AI workshops with real-life use cases for specific functions and roles, online courses, or AI tools that they can experiment with in a safe learning environment. The AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide can also be adapted to assess existing team members’ readiness for AI roles and identify key areas for growth.

AI as a Teammate: Shifting Perspectives

In my previous newsletter titled “Humans + AI: The New Marketing Dream Team, Built with Heart”, I talked about using AI as a teammate. This idea is supported by many AI users. Workers who see AI as a teammate are 33% more likely to be more productive compared to those who see it just as a tool.³ The same is true when hiring AI talent—we need people who can work with AI to do better work.

Recent studies show that people who use generative AI save more than 30 minutes every day, and over 90% of them say AI makes their work easier to handle.²

Only 39% of people globally who use AI at work have received AI training from their company. And only 25% of companies are planning to offer training on generative AI this year. Giving your team proper learning opportunities is key to their success.²

This is especially important because 75% of workers around the world are now using AI, and 46% of them started in the last six months.²

Here’s a playbook for how a real 25-human and 20 AI-team was built in 6 months and results.

Building Your AI-Ready Team

AI is changing fast, and hiring needs to keep up. It is about building a team ready to learn, adapt, and grow, not just hiring someone with the right skills today. This is even more important because AI use has grown to 72% in organizations worldwide.¹

Use the AI Readiness Quiz, the 2×2 Matrix, and the AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide to structure your hiring process and get your team ready for a future with AI. Remember, 85% of people who are strong AI users start their workday with AI and use it to prepare for the next day. This shows how important AI is becoming in daily work.²

Erica Seidel, Founder and Executive Recruiter at The Connective Good, reinforces the need to think about hiring strategically.

“As AI changes the workplace, leaders need to carefully decide when to upskill their current team and when to hire from outside. Upskilling internal talent can be cost-effective and builds loyalty, while hiring externally brings in new skills that the team may not have yet. Using both approaches together is often the best way to meet both immediate and long-term goals.”

Share Your Thoughts

If you are hiring for AI talent, try the AI-Ready Employee Hiring Guide. Explore the AI Readiness Assessment Quiz to better understand your organization’s needs. I would love to hear how these tools work for your team and any feedback you have.

The future belongs to those who can mix AI with human creativity. Is your team ready? 67% of respondents expect their organizations to invest more in AI over the next three years, so now is the time to get your team ready for an AI-driven future.¹

Feel free to share your thoughts or any challenges you face in building an AI-ready team.

Sources:

1. “The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value.” McKinsey & Company, May 30, 2024.

2. “AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part.” Microsoft Work Trend Index, May 8, 2024.

3. “The State of AI at Work.” Asana Work Innovation Lab and Anthropic, 2024.

The Practical AI in Go-to-Market newsletter is designed to share practical learnings and insights in using AI responsibly for go-to-market strategy, product, brand, demand, content, and digital, and growth marketing. Subscribe today and let’s learn together on this AI journey!

For those who prefer more interactive learning, explore our applied AI workshops, designed to inspire teams with real-life use cases tailored to specific marketing functions.

Also check out this team transformation case study and step-by playbook of how we helped transform a lean GTM team into a human-AI powerhouse with human and AI teammates.

Or, if audio-visual content is your style, here are virtual and in-person speaking events where I’ve covered a variety of AI topics. I’ve also keynoted at many organization and corporate-wide events. Whether through the newsletter, multimedia content, or in-person events, I hope to connect with you soon.

Hello go-to-market leaders, strategists, and innovators! 👋 Thank you for dropping by to learn practical AI applications and gain strategic insights to help you grow your business, elevate your and your team’s strategic value as marketers, use business as a force for good, and help advance your career.

Prefer to Listen? Try the AI-Generated Podcast

For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts. Although the hosts refer to me LIE-za instead of LEE-zuh :-), the podcast captures the insights in an engaging and relatable way, making the content more inclusive for different learning styles. You can listen to it here.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

AI has the power to change the game, but to use it fully, we need to shift our mindset, learn together, and build new habits. It’s about creating an environment that encourages creativity, trying new things, and being open to what AI can do. Let’s look at practical examples, expert tips, and steps to help you start using AI in your team.

Here are three big ideas to guide your AI journey.

1. Changing How We Think About AI

Many teams use AI for basic tasks like summarizing reports and writing blogs, but we can’t reach the $1.4 to $2.6 trillion in added business value predicted by McKinsey with simple tasks alone.

To unlock AI’s potential, we need to go beyond those basic applications. AI should be leveraged for content creation, collaboration and ideation, automation, research and analytics for decision-making, and personalization.

The real challenge isn’t the tech—it’s changing how we work with AI every day. This is a mindset and behavior shift that leaders need to encourage and support actively.

A number of AI-forward CMOs and marketing leaders are advocates of this thinking, including Tamir Hardof, CMO of Nucleus Security.

“Push AI beyond just productivity tasks into real innovation. Challenge your team to use AI not just for making things faster, but as a partner to generate new ideas and solve big problems. This way, we turn AI from a tool into a co-creator for our strategies.”

We want our teams to see AI as an important part of our creative and strategic work. This means including AI in brainstorming, campaign planning, and personalizing customer experiences. It’s a mindset change, and we need to lead our teams through it.

Leaders should create a space where experimenting with AI is encouraged. It’s not about being perfect, but about exploring how AI can help us. This shift starts with leaders using AI themselves, inspiring others, and guiding their teams.

Sometimes, this also means recognizing when external expertise, like advisors, applied AI workshops, or courses, can provide the structure and insights needed to support the team effectively.

Sharing real examples of AI success makes AI feel less like an abstract tech tool and more like a core part of our marketing work. Show not just the wins but also the challenges and how they were overcome. I shared some early AI successes and quantified impact here.

2. Practical AI Applications for Specific Marketing Roles

Adopting AI goes beyond learning how to prompt and use different AI features and capabilities effectively like:

• Creating and editing images

• Analyzing screenshots

• Interacting with AI in voice mode

• Writing and editing

• Visually representing data, and

• Automating tasks

It’s about seeing what AI can do in our own jobs.

Think of AI capabilities like a bunch of powerful Lego pieces. Each piece is amazing on its own, but without a clear picture or instructions, it’s hard to know what to build.

It’s difficult to shift from seeing AI as just a fancy search engine or question-answer tool to using it as a real business and thought partner. I get it. We are given a simple conversation box and prompts like “Ask me anything”, “Message ChatGPT”, and “How can I help you?”. Then we’re supposed to just start typing something!

We need to show AI use cases for each role. What works for a Creative Director might not fit a Product Marketing Manager.

It’s like using a smartphone: a small business owner might use it to manage inventory, process transactions, and connect with customers, while a fitness enthusiast might leverage it for creating personalized workout plans, tracking nutrition, and even connecting with virtual coaching for motivation. 

The table below shows just a small sample of AI use cases by marketing function. When people see how AI can help their work, it inspires them to try it. Here’s some information about applied AI workshops designed to do just that.

Here are some examples of inspiring what’s possible with applied AI use cases, showing the actual process and conversations with AI to solve real-world problems:

• CMO/Head of Marketing and Product Marketing – Here’s a use case for selecting top market segments and aligning exec teams. I explain it in the video below, from 30:47-43:55 in Drew Neisser‘s CMO Huddles podcast and in this edition of my newsletter.

• Digital, Content, Brand, Demand Gen, Customer Marketing – Here’s how we can make our brands, products, and content relevant in Zero-Click/AI search. Click here to see the full process.

• Product Marketing – Analyzing customer perceptions and competitive position can be done faster and more effectively with AI. I walked through the process from 6:28-24:22 in Isar Meitis‘s Leveraging AI podcast below.

Alice Hansen, CMO of Absolute Security, and her team are using this approach in their AI adoption journey.

“Effective AI in marketing goes beyond understanding its capabilities. The key is showing teams how to apply AI responsibly in their specific roles. When we combine AI’s power with our industry expertise and unique data, while prioritizing ethical use, we unlock real value in our daily work. We amplify and expand value created by marketers to grow revenue, brand value, and customer success.”

By linking AI to daily tasks, we inspire team members to see it as a powerful partner.

Beyond inspiring individuals, think about the bigger picture: how AI can be used across roles to solve team problems. The more specific examples we give, the more people will understand how AI can work for them.

3. Think Big, Start Small, Grow Strategically

You don’t have to become an AI expert or scale adoption overnight. Start by focusing on a few high-impact AI use cases and align them with strategic initiatives. Connecting AI to high-priority business goals increases its support and likelihood of success.

These initiatives already have resources, budget, timelines, and visibility—this makes AI projects tied to them more impactful. Here’s a template that you can use to map use cases or combination of use cases to top priorities.

Encourage experimentation, celebrate early wins, and build from there. Small wins lead to larger changes as others see the results and want to join in.

Judy Ash, VP of Digital CX Marketing at SiTime, is strategically leading her team, starting with having a handful of meaningful AI wins under their belt.

“To thrive with AI in marketing, foster curiosity and encourage experimentation. Start small, have fun, and think big. Pilot with radical ideas for AI leverage and allow your teams access to learn new technologies. Take a practical approach managing risks with data & security issues. Create spaces for joint learning and sharing of AI experiences across teams. As you see early wins, success breeds success. Build from there to expand AI’s impact.”

The big AI companies are racing to advance AI technology, but it’s on us to learn, share, and use AI responsibly. Hold team meetings, conduct workshops, and engage in Slack to discuss what’s working and what’s not. There are no best practices yet in AI. We’re all figuring things out and if we go together, we’ll go far.

Start Your AI Journey Now

AI is more than a tool, it’s a partner. To make AI work for us, we need to shift our mindset and behavior, integrate it into daily tasks, and leverage our unique strengths. Start small, connect AI initiatives to high-priority goals, and build momentum with early wins.

Make AI relevant to each role. Like tools that meet different needs for different people, AI’s true power lies in serving specific marketing functions. Our domain expertise, unique knowledge, and data are critical in guiding AI responsibly and ensuring it creates real value.

Here’s a playbook for how a real 25-human and 20 AI-team was built in 6 months and results.

Share your journey, recognize those who lead the way, and encourage shared learning. Together, we can make AI a core part of how we plan, create, and succeed.

Where are you on your AI journey? Which AI use cases have been most impactful in your role? How do you see your domain expertise driving AI’s success? 

The Practical AI in Go-to-Market newsletter is designed to share practical learnings and insights in using AI responsibly for go-to-market strategy, product, brand, demand, content, and digital, and growth marketing. Subscribe today and let’s learn together on this AI journey!

For those who prefer more interactive learning, explore our applied AI workshops, designed to inspire teams with real-life use cases tailored to specific marketing functions.

Also check out this team transformation case study and step-by playbook of how we helped transform a lean GTM team into a human-AI powerhouse with human and AI teammates.

Or, if audio-visual content is your style, here are virtual and in-person speaking events where I’ve covered a variety of AI topics. I’ve also keynoted at many organization and corporate-wide events. Whether through the newsletter, multimedia content, or in-person events, I hope to connect with you soon.

Hello marketing leaders, strategists, and innovators! 👋 Thank you for dropping by to learn practical AI applications and gain strategic insights to help you grow your business, elevate your and your team’s strategic value as marketers, use business as a force for good, and help advance your career.

Prefer to Listen? Try the AI-Generated Podcast

For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts. Although the hosts refer to me LIE-za instead of LEE-zuh :-), the podcast captures the insights in an engaging and relatable way, making the content more inclusive for different learning styles. You can listen to it here.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

As we head into strategy and planning season, there’s one critical question we need to ask: how solid is your product-market fit (PMF) in today’s AI-driven world? Findings from CMO Huddles‘ “Underground Recession: The Hidden Strain on B2B CMOs,” uncover hard truths like budget cuts and longer deal cycles.

Product-Market Fit and Defensibility Matter Now

Most B2B companies face two core challenges: ensuring PMF and building customer trust. Here’s why it’s urgent now:

• Profitability Shift – The transition from “growth at all costs” to sustainable profitability requires a fresh look at PMF and choosing a select few top market segments (https://lnkd.in/gm_iJsbd). Many are still struggling with this shift after two years.

• AI’s Role – AI brings both opportunities and challenges, particularly around data privacy, which requires buy-in from across the company.

• Evolving Buyer Behaviors – Customer needs and behaviors are shifting from how they search online (https://lnkd.in/gY-EUmpD) to preference towards known entities and peer recommendations.

• Upmarket Expansion – Companies looking to move into enterprise markets face significant risks if their PMF isn’t rock solid.

• Product-Led Growth (PLG) – PLG changes how products are built and marketed, and without a strong PMF, companies will have difficulty adapting to this model.

Remember, as marketers: just as we can’t out-exercise a bad diet, we can’t out-campaign a bad product-market fit. No company is immune to these challenges – even tech giants are reassessing their PMF.

Take Google, for example. It’s tackling the innovator’s dilemma head-on by fully integrating AI into search. It’s not about to let OpenAI, Microsoft, Perplexity, or others redefine the space. This shows why C-suite leaders must rally behind marketing to address PMF and trust-building directly.

To help navigate this process, I’m sharing with you the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer, an AI-powered tool that helps assess and strengthen your product’s market position.

The AI-Powered PMF Approach

AI is a powerful amplifier of everything, the good and the bad. It can optimize and scale your strategies, but if your product misses the mark, you’re essentially optimizing the path to failure.

• Bad product fit + smart AI = a faster path to failure.

• Good product fit + smart AI = rocket fuel for growth.

That said, especially in the era of AI, it’s not enough to have AI as your only differentiator—particularly if you’re building on top of foundational models like OpenAI’s, Google’s, Meta’s, or Anthropic’s. As AI continues to advance, how quickly could those advances outpace your differentiation?

People refer to these as “AI wrappers” that may not be sustainable long term. Instead, things like deep knowledge of a segment to deliver personalized experiences, unique industry data and insights, a robust partner ecosystem, and a strong brand are generally more defensible.

Nailing down your Product-Market Fit (PMF) is absolutely critical, regardless of your company’s stage, whether you’re a startup, scaling up, or a well-established business. It requires full alignment with your executive team and a keen awareness of how AI, evolving buyer expectations, and shifting economic factors are changing your market.

The Competitive Defensibility Analyzer GPT: Your Powerful AI Assistant

For years, I’ve relied on a powerful framework developed by strategic thinkers, Russ McGuire and Christine / Chris Heckart, to assess product-market fit and competitive defensibility.

“Building defensibility isn’t just a strategic option; it’s a necessity. Focus on creating value that can’t be easily replicated by competitors. Use this framework to identify where your product excels and where you need to reinforce your position before gaps turn into vulnerabilities. And always remember to be different, not just better.”

This framework has helped me identify whether a company has the potential to lead its category or if it’s simply building a better version of an existing product. It’s stood the test of time, from the rise of the internet to AI.

To make this accessible to more teams, I built the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer GPT. This AI tool, based on that same framework, helps you assess your product’s market position in a clear and structured way.

What’s exciting about this GPT is that it democratizes strategic thinking. You and your team can now use the same approach I’ve relied on to evaluate your market position and pinpoint where you need to improve.

The custom GPT is available on the GPT Store for free and you can find it when you type Competitive Defensibility Analyzer in the search field. Here’s the direct link to the GPT. Reminder that you’ll need a paid version of ChatGPT, Plus, Team, or Enterprise, to build, access, and use GPTs.

How to Use the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown (as illustrated in the screenshots) of how the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer works, allowing you to assess where your product stands in the market:

Step 1 – Define Your Market Category

Start by selecting your product’s market category. This will shape the entire analysis, whether it’s a broad sector like “Employee Experience Solutions” or a more niche category. (Image 1)

Step 2: Assess Your Value Proposition

Next, evaluate how much value your product provides compared to competitors. Choose from:

• Same as others

• Incremental improvement (used in our example)

• Order of magnitude or more

This will help you understand where you stand in the competitive landscape. (Image 1)

Step 3: Identify Your Core Differentiators

Then, pick up to three top differentiators that set your product apart. In our example, we selected: (Image 1)

• Innovative technology

• Partner ecosystem

• End-to-end workflows

These differentiators are essential for assessing how defensible your market position is. As Bill Hobbib notes:

“This tool forces you to take a hard look at your product’s strengths and weaknesses. Use the insights to make immediate adjustments, close strategic gaps, and refine your market approach so your product can lead, not follow.”

Bill shared his thoughts about this tool on LinkedIn when I previewed it to a group of CMOs a few months ago.

Step 4: Assign Weights to Your Differentiators

Now, assign a weight to each differentiator based on its impact on your strategy. In the example, we used:

• 30% for end-to-end workflows

• 40% for the partner ecosystem

• 30% for technology

These weights will be key in calculating your overall defensibility score. (Image 2)

Step 5: Evaluate Defensibility

Next, rate how difficult it would be for competitors to replicate each differentiator. Options include:

• Easy

• Moderate

• Hard

In our example, workflows and technology were rated as “Easy” to replicate, while the partner ecosystem was “Moderate.” (Image 2)

Step 6: Calculate Your Defensibility Score

The GPT will then calculate your defensibility score based on your inputs. This score provides a clear view of how defensible your product is in the market.

In our example, we scored 1.4, placing the product in the Next Release category, indicating incremental improvements with moderate defensibility. (Image 2)

Step 7: Map Your Market Position

Finally, the Analyzer maps your defensibility score against your value score to show where your product stands today. This visual snapshot highlights where you’re positioned and what strategic moves you need to make to improve. (Image 3)

In our example, landing in the Next Release category means our product has incremental improvements in value with moderate defensibility. While it indicates potential for market impact, it also highlights the areas where further differentiation could increase our market standing.

This process gives you more than just a snapshot, it helps you pinpoint the strategic moves necessary to ensure your product not only competes but leads. Carilu Dietrich highlights the power of AI in navigating today’s fast-moving markets:

“AI can fundamentally change the way marketers work – far beyond content and image creation. This approach for analyzing and improving product and company strategy can give you a huge advantage in making faster, more informed decisions. Liza’s actionable frameworks help marketers analyze complex markets, prioritize strategy efforts, and take action. I’m so impressed by what she’s building.”

A Note on GPT Drift:

Like all AI models, GPTs can experience “GPT Drift”—where responses deviate over time due to learned patterns. This can affect multi-step processes like the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer.

However, the new ChatGPT-o1 Mini and o1 Preview models offer improved reasoning and calculation capabilities, which should reduce drift and increase accuracy. Until these models are available for custom GPTs, consider the Analyzer’s output as a starting point and manually verify key steps for precision.

PMF Checklist for Your Next Strategy Session

Ask these key questions to assess your product-market fit before your next strategy meeting:

• Are we losing customers despite high conversion rates?

• Is it hard to grow beyond early adopters?

• Does our product fail to meet market needs or preferences?

• Are we seeing high churn or low customer lifetime value?

• Are competitors gaining ground with similar messaging?

If you answered “yes” to any of these, it’s time to revisit your PMF. AI tools like the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer can simplify this process and provide clear insights into where your product stands and what needs to change.

Product-market fit isn’t a one-time goal, it’s an ongoing process. As markets shift, so should your understanding of how well your product fits. AI tools like the Competitive Defensibility Analyzer make continuous PMF assessment easier and more impactful.

I’d love to hear how you’re using AI in your strategy and what challenges you’re facing. Let’s connect to explore how we can leverage AI to drive your initiatives and ensure your product leads the market, not just competes.

The Practical AI in Marketing newsletter is designed to share practical learnings and insights in using AI responsibly for strategic, product, digital, brand, demand, and growth marketing. Subscribe today and lets learn together on this AI journey!

Also check out this team transformation case study and step-by playbook of how we helped transform a lean GTM team into a human-AI powerhouse with human and AI teammates.

Or, if audio-visual content is your style, here are virtual and in-person speaking events where I’ve covered a variety of AI topics. I’ve also keynoted at many organization and corporate-wide events. Whether through the newsletter, multimedia content, or in-person events, I hope to connect with you soon.

Hello marketing leaders, strategists, and innovators! 👋 Thank you for dropping by to learn practical AI applications and gain strategic insights to help you grow your business, elevate your and your team’s strategic value as marketers, use business as a force for good, and help advance your career.

Prefer to Listen? Try the AI-Generated Podcast

For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts. Although the hosts refer to me LIE-za instead of LEE-zuh :-), the podcast captures the insights in an engaging and relatable way, making the content more inclusive for different learning styles. You can listen to it here.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

Let’s reimagine your marketing team for the AI era and explore the evolution of Marketing Teams 2.0!

The Vision: AI as Your New Team Member

Picture an org chart where AI tools sit alongside your human talent, not as replacements, but as powerful allies. See sample in Figure 1 below. It’s happening now, and the results are inspiring.

These AI assistants are enhancing our capabilities, handling repetitive tasks, uncovering insights, assisting with decision making, and freeing us to focus on strategy, creativity, and relationships. They’re a combination of AI-enhanced martech platforms, AI agents, and custom GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers). Let’s briefly define these:

1. AI-enhanced martech platforms – Existing marketing technology tools that have integrated AI capabilities.

2. AI agents: Autonomous AI systems that can perform tasks or make decisions on behalf of marketers.

3. Custom GPTs – AI tools that we can build, train, and manage with our expertise, knowledge, and data to do specific tasks.

All of these AI assistants are trained and guided by humans to align with our marketing goals and ethical standards.

In the example above, let’s break down how these AI teammates can support different marketing functions:

1. Product Marketing – Imagine an “Ewok GPT” or AI-driven market analysis platform that analyzes market trends and competitor moves, providing real-time insights for your positioning strategy.

2. Brand & Content – Picture “R2-D2 GPT” or an AI-powered content management system generating on-brand content ideas and ensuring consistency across all your communications.

3. Demand Generation – Envision “Chewie GPT” or an AI agent autonomously optimizing your campaign performance by analyzing data and making real-time adjustments.

4. Digital Marketing – Think of “Darth GPT” or an AI-driven conversion rate optimization platform fine-tuning your landing pages for better conversion rates.

The possibilities are endless, and they’re changing how we approach marketing challenges.

A number of AI-forward CMOs and marketing leaders are big proponents of this approach, including Amy Heidersbach.

“Viewing custom GPTs, AI-driven martech platforms, and AI agents as specialized AI teammates–ones we train and guide–on an org chart unlocks our understanding of how it can support our work. This perspective allows us to envision even greater benefits as we expand AI’s role from individual tasks to entire workflows, implementing it cross-functionally and company-wide.”

Here’s a playbook for how a real 25-human and 20 AI-team was built in 6 months and results.

Early Results: Faster, Better, Different

Early AI adopters in marketing are seeing impressive, measurable results. Here’s a snapshot of how the journey unfolds in three stages: Faster, Better, and Different.

Faster: Accelerating Processes

• New Product Pitch Deck – AI save a full week in creating a pitch deck for target persona.

• Competitive Analysis – Accelerates narrative production from 1 day to 2 hours.

• Localization & Translation – Reduces adaptation from days to minutes, saving thousands.

Better: Improving Quality and Efficiency

• Content Generation – Improves output by 10%, reduces SEO optimization from hours to 30 minutes.

• Program & Project Management – Teams reclaim 18-20 hours monthly (8% of total time).

• ABM Account Identification – AI pinpoints high-propensity prospects and at-risk clients.

Different: Innovating New Approaches

• Persona Research – AI creates comprehensive personas by integrating diverse data sources.

• Lead Nurturing Automation – Streamlines lead handoff, accelerating the early-stage customer journey.

As an example of doing things differently, in a previous edition of this newsletter, I shared how AI can evaluate market segments and align executive teams. Building on that, I’ve created a Business Prioritization Assistant GPT designed to streamline this process and assist with other prioritization tasks, from strategy to campaigns. Here’s a screenshot of the GPT’s sample output with prioritized market segments based on a set of evaluation criteria.

From Vision to Reality: Starting Small, Thinking Big

Moderna has deployed over 750 GPTs, achieving 80% internal adoption and enhancing efficiency across their organization. While not every company is at this level, it shows what’s possible. We all have to start somewhere.

We’ve led AI workshops for many teams, showcasing real-life use cases (see Figure 3 for a small sample) to inspire what’s possible. This often sparks new ideas, broadens perspectives, and jumpstarts meaningful AI adoption.

To get started, identify high-impact tasks where AI can make a difference. Figure 4 shows a framework to categorize and implement AI tools.

Paul Mosenson, a seasoned marketer who has built hundreds of custom GPTs, advises:

“Start with a clear plan when building custom GPTs. Define the specific outcome—whether it’s ad copy, improving conversions, or crafting targeted messaging. The more specific the goal, the better the GPT can be tailored.

Always think about output first, rather than input. Designing GPTs around the final output ensures the generated content is exactly what’s needed, reducing time spent on revisions.

Lastly, maintain a flexible approach. Custom GPTs require regular optimization based on real-world performance. Track metrics, identify what’s working, and adjust the prompts accordingly.”

The Human Side: Navigating Change with Heart

The technology isn’t the hardest part—change management is. Here are five ways to bring a human touch to the AI transition, backed by data:

1. Show Understanding – Emphasize that AI adoption is about working smarter, not harder. It’s an investment in their careers and your collective AI literacy. While 77% of employees initially report that AI has added to their workload, those who use AI regularly see significant benefits [1].

2. Listen to Your Team – There’s often a gap between leaders and employees on AI readiness. While 68% of executives say their organization has a timeline for implementing AI, only 39% of individual contributors agree [2]. Use 1:1s, team discussions, or surveys to understand where your people are at with AI.

3. Offer the Right Support – Only 26% of organizations offer AI-focused education and training for their marketing teams [3]. We can do better. Create learning programs that show how AI can help in specific roles.

4. Make Time for Learning – Carve out time for AI training. 56% of workers are learning about AI through personal experimentation [2]. Support this initiative by prioritizing AI learning in the workday.

5. Set an Example -Get hands-on with AI yourself. 84% of executives who use AI weekly report productivity gains, compared to 74% of individual contributors [2]. Your engagement can inspire your team.

Remember, being a good human comes before being a good marketer. By focusing on our people, we can use AI responsibly and effectively.

[1] Burnout to Balance: AI-Enhanced Work Models, 2024, Upwork

[2] 2024 State of AI at Work, Asana Work Innovation Lab and Anthropic

[3] 2024 State of Marketing AI Report, Marketing AI Institute

The Evolving Role of Marketers

As AI becomes integrated, our roles are evolving:

1. AI Trainers and Guides – Train AI on brand voice, industry knowledge, and marketing strategies.

2. Strategic Thinkers – Focus more on strategic initiatives and creative problem-solving.

3. Data Interpreters – Make informed decisions based on AI-generated insights.

4. Ethical Guardians – Ensure responsible AI use, considering privacy and transparency.

5. Continuous Learners – Stay updated with AI advancements to leverage new opportunities.

AI will inevitably change how we work, automating some tasks, but it’s more about empowering us to do better, more strategic work. With AI handling routine tasks, we can focus on what truly requires our creativity, insight, and human touch—maximizing impact even with limited resources.

Tahnee Perry, AI Advisor with deep expertise in the martech stack, regularly shares her wisdom and practical advice related to AI tools for marketers in her weekly newsletter Zero to Unicorn. Tahnee reminds us:

“A lot of marketers feel pressure to invest in the latest AI tools just to keep up. But in most cases, they already have solutions in their martech stack with the functionality they need.

For teams using enterprise platforms, take a deeper dive into what’s available. Review the product roadmap and connect with the account team to make sure you’re leveraging all the features. Why chase a new tool if the one you have can do the job?

For example, Salesforce AI Agents can automate customer service, Sprout Social’s analysis helps create higher-engagement content, and SEMRush assists in creating SEO-optimized content without extensive keyword research.”

Practical Steps to Get Started

1. Assess Your AI Readiness – Evaluate your team’s current capabilities and martech tools.

2. Identify Quick Wins – Choose 3-5 high-impact, low-complexity tasks for AI improvement.

3. Build a Pilot Team – Select enthusiastic team members to lead initial AI projects.

4. Develop an AI Learning Program -Create resources and allocate time for AI learning.

5. Start Small, Measure Results – Implement your first AI projects and track their impact rigorously. Best to align these AI projects with your strategic initiatives as these initiatives are prioritized, have a set of goals and KPIs, resources, budget, timeline, and visibility in the org. We’ll have a better shot of driving success.

Wrapping Up: Your AI Journey Starts Now

Our roles as marketers are arguably more challenging, but richer in the AI era. We’re balancing efficiency with empathy, convenience with privacy, and innovation with ethics. It’s an opportunity to become better leaders and more human marketers.

This journey progresses from faster to better to different. Start small, celebrate wins, and keep your team at the heart of your AI strategy. Together, we can build Marketing Teams 2.0 that are more capable, innovative, and human than ever before.

How are you inspiring teams with what’s possible with AI and ensuring responsible use? How are you getting some early successes under your team’s belt to build momentum? What’s your next step in this AI evolution? Share your thoughts and let’s learn together in this exciting new world of marketing!

The Practical AI in Marketing newsletter is designed to share practical learnings and insights in using AI responsibly for strategic, product, digital, brand, demand, and growth marketing. Subscribe today and lets learn together on this AI journey!

Also check out this team transformation case study and step-by playbook of how we helped transform a lean GTM team into a human-AI powerhouse with human and AI teammates.

Or, if audio-visual content is your style, here are virtual and in-person speaking events where I’ve covered a variety of AI topics. I’ve also keynoted at many organization and corporate-wide events. Whether through the newsletter, multimedia content, or in-person events, I hope to connect with you soon.

Hello marketing leaders, strategists, and innovators! 👋 Thank you for dropping by to learn practical AI applications and gain strategic insights to help you grow your business, elevate your and your team’s strategic value as marketers, use business as a force for good, and help advance your career.

Prefer to Listen? Try the AI-Generated Podcast

For those who prefer to consume information through audio, I’ve used Google’s NotebookLM to transform this newsletter into a short podcast episode, featuring a natural conversation between two AI hosts. Although the hosts refer to me LIE-za instead of LEE-zuh :-), the podcast captures the insights in an engaging and relatable way, making the content more inclusive for different learning styles. You can listen to it here.

Disclaimer: This podcast was generated by AI based on this written newsletter and reviewed by me to ensure ethical and responsible AI use. It’s designed to provide an efficient, more inclusive way to consume information.

The Shift from “Growth at All Costs” to “Sustained Profitability”

In a world that has shifted from “growth at all costs” to “sustained profitability,” are you feeling the pressure to expand into new segments? upmarket into new enterprise verticals? internationally into more countries? Hold that thought.

In fact, narrowing your focus, not broadening it, is a key to success to achieving your goals in the era of AI. It’s now about choosing the select few segments that we can serve best and defend, and do so profitably. It’s about improving retention, increasing lifetime value, and building trust and loyalty.

Today, we’re diving into one of the most strategic and impactful uses of AI in marketing: using AI to evaluate, identify, and align on top target segments. This isn’t just another marketing tactic – it’s a strategy that will elevate your role, align your entire organization, and pave the way for sustained profitability.

The Challenge: Resisting the Expansion Urge

When times are tough or growth goals are high, many companies try to do more by chasing new markets or customers. It seems like a good idea, but it can backfire. Spreading yourself too thin often means you can’t give your best to any one area, and you end up with poor results.

Picture this all-too-common scenario, as an example:

• The CEO is championing Healthcare, enamored by its large market size and big brand potential customers.

• The CFO is pushing for Financial Services, citing impressive market growth rates and weaker competitors.

• The CPO is advocating for Professional Services, noting the best fit with the product roadmap in meeting the needs of top accounts.

Each executive is right—but only from one or two dimensions. This is where you, as a marketing leader, armed with data and AI-driven customer and market insights, can guide the conversation towards a holistic, strategic view.

The AI-Powered Segmentation Process

Here’s how you can use the power of AI to drive strategic segmentation and alignment in your organization.

You can listen to me explain the process in this video (from 30:47-40:05) and/or read through the steps below, including conversations with ChatGPT. You’ll need ChatGPT Plus, Teams, or Enterprise for this use case and not the free version.

Given his work with many CMOs and Heads of Marketing, I asked Drew Neisser his thoughts on how CMOs are getting more value out of AI.

“Believe the hype. AI is rapidly changing every aspect of marketing. Savvy B2B CMOs are using AI as strategic sparring partners–to challenge their thinking, examine segmentation options, and inspire creativity. And yes, they use AI for more than creating pithier, more persuasive content faster.”

1. Marketing’s Important Prep Work

As a marketing leader, your role is to set the stage for strategic decision-making:

a) Set the Stage

• Articulate the need to transition from “growth at all costs” to “sustained profitability”

• Explain why narrowing the focus is critical in the current business climate

b) Use the Framework

• Identify key criteria for segment evaluation (e.g., market size, growth rate, competitive intensity, fit with product)

• Identify the segments you want to assess. The segments could be industry verticals, regions of the world, applications, or use cases. For the purposes of this example, we will use industry verticals.

Figure 1 below shows the screenshot of the output from ChatGPT only as a reference for the framework. The next steps discuss how to prompt ChatGPT to get the output.

c) Prepare and Protect Your Data

• Gather relevant data from various sources (market research, CRM, financial reports, etc.)

• Cleanse, curate, and structure the data for AI analysis. This is one of the hardest steps as data tends to be messy, coming from different sources in different formats and plagued with missing or inaccurate data. You’ll also need to remove, redact, and anonymize sensitive data prior to sharing it with AI.

Here are 10 strategies for protecting sensitive data when using AI.

While this can be challenging, several AI solutions now offer built-in data protection features. These range from private, on-premise systems to enterprise platforms with advanced security measures.

Always scrutinize the privacy safeguards of any AI tool you consider. Protecting your data maintains customer trust and preserves your competitive edge.

See Figure 2 to see an example of the types of inputs and sources for the various evaluation criteria.

d) AI-Assisted Analysis

• Leverage AI to analyze segments across all criteria

• Use AI for force ranking segments based on each criterion

The following screenshots in Figures 3, 4, and 5 depict the AI conversation (prompts and responses) to analyze the data for market size and growth evaluation criteria. Note that you can instruct ChatGPT to do the forced ranking and build the heat map.

You’ll need to repeat this process for each of the other criteria. Note that some criteria may require a qualitative rather than a quantitative assessment like fit with roadmap. In those cases, you’ll need to feed AI with the forced ranking based on your unique insights, experience, expertise, and data.

• Finally, instruct AI to output the full table, adding the forced rankings for each segment to determine the top ones. You can also vary the weights of the criteria to see how weights impact the results.

Reminder to always check AI’s work as we, as human, are ultimately responsible for the final outcomes and impact.

2. The Executive Debate

This is where the magic happens. Your role is to facilitate a productive discussion using AI-generated insights as a starting point:

a) Present AI Findings

• Share the AI-generated segment rankings and analysis

• Explain the methodology and criteria used

b) Facilitate Discussion

• Encourage executives to share their perspectives

• Use AI insights to challenge assumptions and broaden the conversation

c) Refine the Model

• Adjust rankings based on executive input

• Use AI to simulate different scenarios in real-time

For your convenience, you can use this custom GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) called Business Prioritization Assistant. A GPT is an AI built to do a specific task. My team and I develop the custom GPT to help you more easily conduct what-if scenarios by changing forced rankings and weights to determine segment prioritization.

Russ McGuire, one of the best business and market strategists I know has conducted numerous executive strategy workshops using this framework. I couldn’t talk about this approach to segment prioritization without including some insights from him.

“Getting data on the page allows the team to focus on what’s real and not just talk past each other based on their favorites. It also keeps the discussion or debate from being dominated by the loudest or most powerful voice.” 

d) Build Consensus

• Guide the team towards alignment on top segments to validate (not pursue yet). There may not be agreement on every single debate but there needs to be consensus on the reasons why the team chose the specific top segments.

• Ensure all perspectives are heard and considered.

Remember, the goal here isn’t to let AI make the decision, but to use it as a tool to enhance human collaboration and strategic thinking.

3. Validation: The Reality Check

Now that you have alignment on potential top segments, it’s time to validate these choices in the real world:

• Market Pulse – Quick customer, partner, and stakeholder interviews, surveys, and research to validate assumptions for top segments.

• AI Analysis – Process validation data to highlight discrepancies between assumptions and feedback.

• Refinement – Adjust segment profiles based on findings, updating rankings if necessary.

4. The Final Decision

Armed with AI-driven insights and real-world validation, it’s time to make the final call:

• Executive Meeting – Present findings and facilitate discussion on data-driven insights, strategic fit, and capabilities.

• Consensus Building – Guide team to agree on top segments, ensuring understanding and support for the rationale.

• Action Plan – Develop strategy for chosen segments, including objectives, resources, timeline, and communication plan.

The Power of AI in Strategic Focus

Using AI to identify and align on top target segments is a game-changing strategy that benefits the entire organization. This is one of the most important and strategic initiatives that you and your marketing team can drive, leveraging both your market knowledge and AI to propel business success.

In the era of AI, focusing on a select few most valuable segments is crucial. AI allows you to personalize content and experiences at scale, helping you earn trust, better engage customers, and build loyalty within these key segments. This targeted approach, when everyone from the CEO to frontline employees aligns on it, gives the organization clear focus and purpose.

This alignment leads to:

• Precise goal-setting and resource allocation for key segments

• Focused competitive strategy and clearer decision-making

• Enhanced collaboration and execution across departments

The result is a culture of alignment where everyone works towards shared goals, improving both business performance and employee satisfaction. This AI-powered approach to segmentation drives better ROI by focusing efforts on the most promising areas, enabling sustained profitability in a competitive market.

In today’s AI era, success comes from strategic focus, not trying to do everything. When used responsibly, AI is an invaluable tool to guide this process, helping you navigate the path to sustained success.

How are you approaching segment selection? What challenges do you face? Share your insights as we explore this intersection of AI and strategic marketing together.

The Practical AI in Marketing newsletter is designed to share practical learnings and insights in using AI responsibly for go-to-market strategy, product, brand, demand, content, and digital, and growth marketing. Subscribe today and let’s learn together on this AI journey!

For those who prefer more interactive learning, explore our applied AI workshops, designed to inspire teams with real-life use cases tailored to specific marketing functions.

Also check out this team transformation case study and step-by playbook of how we helped transform a lean GTM team into a human-AI powerhouse with human and AI teammates.

Or, if audio-visual content is your style, here are virtual and in-person speaking events where I’ve covered a variety of AI topics. I’ve also keynoted at many organization and corporate-wide events. Whether through the newsletter, multimedia content, or in-person events, I hope to connect with you soon.