How AI-powered workflows are fueling marketing-led transformation

Brace for impact: The artificial intelligence revolution is not looming on the horizon, it's knocking on your door. The early era of digital transformation ushered in a Darwinian landscape, separating the winners from the losers, and now AI stands to do the same. Brands must adapt, or they risk being left behind and shut out from the new economy. Chief marketing officers are leading this transformation because marketing is often the first part of the business where AI disruption happens. Marketing teams now have the capacity to unlock unprecedented growth opportunities for the enterprise, define excellence in the consumer experience and potentially dictate the brand's next steps. These marketers aren’t concerned with campaign-centric AI strategies; rather, they’ve deployed workflows that combine AI and brand-owned data sets and compute power to revolutionize marketing operations and brand-customer relationships. Here are three ways AI-powered workflows are fueling marketing-led transformation. Moving from point solutions to AI-powered workflows When it comes to integrating AI into the business, the initial instinct is often to throw tools at people and train them on their use. This is understandable because employees are eager to adopt AI to make their work lives easier: 71% of workers believe generative AI makes them more productive. But rushing to spin up tools without a solid strategy isn’t the way—that only racks up significant overhead with little payoff. By instead developing dynamic, adaptable workflows powered by AI, brands can iteratively improve their marketing strategies based on real-time data and insights. This not only enhances efficiency and effectiveness in marketing operations but also fundamentally transforms the brand’s relationship with its vendors and agencies. Instead of being mere executors of campaigns, agencies become strategic partners, working in tandem with brands to leverage the power of AI and data for optimal results. This shift from tools to workflows is essential to succeeding in the new version of our industry that we’ve suddenly found ourselves within. Finally delivering on the promise of personalization AI-powered workflows unlock the potential for exponential creativity, enabling brands to test myriad hypotheses, reach diverse audiences and scale effortlessly across all channels. It’s obvious that the power of generative AI does away with bottlenecks in content production, bringing us closer to true, one-to-one personalization at scale. Less obvious is the crucial role that integration across disciplines plays in ensuring the success of a brand’s AI investment. Workflows again offer a solution here, enabling brands to not only stand-up content production pipelines, but also ensure that those pipelines are self-evolving through feedback loops. Delivering the personalized experiences that consumers crave hinges on aligning teams that create data flows and teams that generate content based on the insights available. This lays the groundwork for a flywheel effect for performance and business intelligence, resulting in stronger—not just more—creative and deeper data insights. My colleagues will explore this further at GTC, Nvidia’s annual conference in March, particularly in the context of how consumption habits are rapidly evolving. A move from time-based to output-driven models The workflows outlined above also disrupt the traditional correlation between hours and output—a transformation that signals the demise of the time-based model, a long-standing cornerstone of agreements between brands and agencies. This isn’t something that brands should feel sorry to see go away; that model has always been built on perverse incentives. When an agency is paid for their time, they have little reason to deliver or innovate at speed. Brands are catching on to this; I have personally heard CMOs express interest in agreements that aren’t based on time. AI now makes the introduction of an alternative model not only possible but necessary. At Media.Monks, we’ve worked with clients to implement a service level agreement-based billing model that shifts focus from billable hours to output, aligning our incentives with those of our brands. Brands enjoy cost savings, while our teams work to innovate and unlock efficiency everywhere we find an opportunity. It’s a win-win model that’s better built for modern brands’ needs, but it’s only possible through AI-powered workflows. The future of marketing Is now, and it’s workflow-powered The AI revolution is not just about adopting new technology, it's also about redefining workflows and transforming the business to unlock unprecedented growth opportunities. AI-powered workflows are the catalysts that will usher in a new era of marketing, shifting the focus from campaigns to innovation, from tools to strategy, and from time to output. They offer brands the ability to harness the power of AI in a practical, measurable way, revolutionizing marketing operations and transforming relationships with vendors and agencies. It's a seismic shift that demands immediate attention and action. Brands that embrace this new AI-driven paradigm will not only survive but thrive in the new economy. Those that don't risk being left behind. The choice is clear—adapt, evolve and prosper, or resist and risk irrelevance. The future of marketing is here, and it's powered by AI-driven workflows. About Media.Monks Media.Monks is the global, purely digital operating brand of S4Capital plc. Since 2021, Media.Monks has combined diverse solutions—media, data, social, platforms, studio, experience, brand and technology services—to serve as a consultative partner integrating systems and workflows that deliver unfettered content production, scaled experiences and data science fueled by AI and the industry’s very best talent and teams.

How AI-powered workflows are fueling marketing-led transformation

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