The Modern CMO Playbook: How AI is merging the art and science of creativity

Artificial intelligence has rapidly moved from an emerging technology to a business necessity. Those who haven’t yet mobilized their teams to leverage AI for efficiency, automation, and creativity risk falling behind in a fast-moving, competitive landscape.

AI adoption unfolds in two horizons. The first focuses on operationalizing AI to enhance productivity and speed. By incorporating generative AI to accelerate creative workflows and predictive AI to fast-track decision-making, teams can achieve more with the same resources while delivering exceptional results. This stage builds the foundation for transformative change.

The second horizon represents a groundbreaking leap forward. Here, agentic AI is systematically embedded into marketing operations, completely reimagining processes and driving exponential value creation. It’s not just about doing things faster—it’s about reshaping the way work is done, scaling impact without being constrained by time or manpower. This shift positions marketing as the incubator and catalyst for AI-driven innovation, enabling businesses to accelerate growth and demonstrate value across the organization.

To succeed, marketers must bring along their counterparts in technology and security—chief technology officers, chief information security officers and others—ensuring AI adoption is impactful, ethical and sustainable.

AI has the power to streamline operations, spark creativity and deepen customer connections. By acting boldly and collaboratively, marketers can unlock immediate benefits while shaping a future where marketing leads the charge in driving organizational transformation.

“AI isn’t the future—it’s the train that’s already left the station,” said List member Jared Vestal, chief customer and marketing officer at Independence Pet Holdings (IPH). "Marketers who aren’t onboard need to stop watching the vacant tracks and start building a plan to catch up."

In this final installment of the 2024 edition of “The Modern CMO Playbook” from The List, members discuss how AI can enhance creative processes, streamline operations, transform careers and organizations and address ethical and international challenges.

The dual impact of AI on data and creativity

List member Travis Scoles, executive VP of advanced advertising at Paramount, said AI’s historical role in data-driven marketing is well-established.  “In the creative space, AI feels very novel, but in the data space, it landed a decade ago with machine learning and entirely changed how market research and projections happen,” he said. While third-party cookies will seemingly stick around, brands still need accurate, legally available, premium data for AI models to avoid the “garbage in, garbage out” dilemma. 

The next frontier for AI is creative, where it can enable faster ideation and execution. Marketers can now leverage generative and predictive AI to create campaigns in days instead of months. This helps level the playing field, providing small teams access to high-quality tools that enable faster and more efficient campaign development, said List member Whitney Headen, CEO of 19th & Park.

“AI is like having a friend that knows a lot of things,” Headen said. “It helps you put things together and make them specific to you without replacing your voice or intellect.”

Ethical and practical concerns

Of course, AI’s applicability to data and creativity doesn’t come without some trepidation—ethical concerns exist around using any type of AI for any use case. However, AI can be the solution to its problem. On the data side, for instance, marketers must incorporate diverse data sets to mitigate biases and foster equitable outcomes.

AI development must be guided by a wide range of voices and perspectives,” said List member Helga Sásdi, chairperson of the board of directors at WeAreOpen. “As we shape this transformative technology, we should approach it with the same care and responsibility we would for introducing a powerful new force into our world—mindful of how it is nurtured and directed.”

On the creative side, many people have an unwarranted fear of AI, mainly due to a misunderstanding of what it is and how it works. That’s why List member Lachi, founder of RAMPD, said educating the public on AI’s role in both creativity and accessibility is imperative. 

“Today we are seeing AI being leveraged to make things more accessible—automated image descriptions, on-demand captioning, removing barriers to learning, and buying back time spent doing minimal tasks,” she said. “I want firms, consumers and creators alike to know and lean in on how they can put out their content as accessibly as possible to as many people as possible through the power of AI.”

List member Mrinalini Nair, head of global partner strategy at Uber Advertising, underscored the need to address AI’s global impact and who has access to it.

“We need flexibility and local expertise​ when implementing AI across different countries,” she said.

List member Abeer Alessa, co-founder and CEO of Saudi Arabia’s The Bold Group, wants to see cross-border collaboration to create unified ethical frameworks for AI.

“Consistent global standards are critical for mitigating biases and fostering trust in AI systems across regions,” she said.

AI as a career catalyst

Reframing AI as an enhancer of marketing functions like creative also applies to career growth. AI could handle about 75% of the workload, allowing creatives to focus on delivering the finished product and injecting more creative flair—the more enjoyable aspects of their work.

Headen stressed that AI doesn’t remove the need for human input but instead helps creatives focus on their work’s more strategic or imaginative parts. 

“It’s like a mentor in your pocket,” she said.

This is true for both creative veterans and those newer to the industry. List member Jess Shuraleff, director and head of U.S. and Canada restaurants at Uber Advertising, emphasized the need to close the skill gap in the workforce. Current employees, especially at senior levels, need help adapting to AI, and she also noted the “need to prepare younger generations for this future.… Curiosity and critical thinking are going to be even more important in a world dominated by AI.” 

Lauren Wetzel, CEO and board director at Infosum, further underscored this point: “If we don’t make it easy for people to learn AI, we’re going to create even greater disparities—AI will help some people get ahead while leaving others behind.”

Long-term integration of AI in organizational culture

As with any technological adoption, businesses can’t succeed without broad organizational buy-in. This often starts with having a champion or core group tasked with getting the rest of the company excited about the opportunity, apprised of the risks and educated about how to get started. Often, the latter involves tackling the low-hanging fruit, i.e. the tasks AI can quickly move the needle on.

That’s precisely the mindset shift List member Suzanne Powers, founder and CEO of Powers Creativity, advocates for. AI can enhance human potential, enabling teams to focus on their work’s strategic and imaginative aspects. 

“It’s not about ‘versus,’” she said. “AI can be a force multiplier for our business, allowing humans to spend more time doing what they love.”

List member Karan Dang, CEO and co-founder of Dang, echoed that sentiment, adding that the industry needs grassroots innovation, particularly in emerging markets where AI tools enable new forms of creativity and entrepreneurship. 

“I think our job is to showcase an optimistic path to the future,” he said. “As an industry, we need to take the ‘versus’ away. AI is here to stay, and instead of seeing it as a competitor, we should embrace the possibilities it unlocks. Imagine all the new avenues for storytelling, problem-solving, and cultural connection it shows us as creatives. With AI, we’re not losing our craft; we’re gaining tools to elevate it, making creativity more accessible, impactful and limitless than ever before.”

Beyond the organizational lens, brands and agencies must consider how they can use AI to enrich their relationships with their customers. List member Kwame Taylor-Hayford, co-founder of Kin, relayed the importance of fostering two-way interactions between brands and their communities, leveraging AI to deepen these connections authentically.

“We’ve been exploring how to use AI, and all the tools that are available, to allow for us to be much more intelligent and elevating when we engage with different communities,” he said. “We want to show that we know and understand them and can support and enable their needs.”

Harnessing AI for innovation

There’s another helpful way to reframe how marketers think about AI: less as a tool and more as a platform for innovation.

“The more democratized AI becomes, the better off we’ll be,” said List member Will Esparza, founder and CEO of Hyphenated. “It’s not about making the system work but about people using AI to create amazing things.”

In time, Esparza added, AI will evolve from automating traditional creative processes to driving the creation of intellectual property and new products. 

“Creativity through automation instead of creativity versus automation—it’s not about us being replaced, it’s about making us faster and more efficient,” added List member Mo Said, founder and CEO of Mojo Supermarket.

List member Tawana Murphy Burnett, head of top accounts and agencies, APAC, at Meta, noted that different regions adopt AI at varying speeds, and innovation often leads to transformative shifts in creative industries.

“There’s so much that has to happen, but we need to be responsible about ensuring that there is access and that the guardrails aren’t so high that people can’t find opportunities to participate in this new economy that we’re building,” she said.

AI represents a transformative force in marketing—one that can optimize processes, democratize creativity and foster inclusivity. By embracing AI strategically and addressing its global and ethical implications, organizations can unlock new levels of innovation, efficiency and engagement. But, as always, the key to success lies in the how as much if not more than the what. 

“Marketers need to stop tossing AI on their creative like it’s hot sauce, hoping it’ll spice things up,” warned List member Ricky Ray Butler, CEO and co-founder of Revmatics.ai. “It won’t. What you actually need is agentic architecture—adaptable, automated models and AI agents that predict outcomes and deliver real results. This is the secret sauce for turning good creative into great creative, cranking out world-class, personalized content in a thousand unique ways for a thousand different audiences. Because here’s the truth: AI can’t save bad ideas. It just makes them fail harder.”

For the past six years, Ad Age and Meta have assembled a collective of advertising, marketing and media thought leaders to confront and address industry-wide issues, leveraging the power of connection to leave a lasting legacy. Since its launch in 2019, The List has tackled parental leave; diversity, equity and inclusion; and mentorship, resulting in the creation of programs that drive true change within the industry. 

In 2023, The List published "The Modern CMO Playbook," a thought leadership series that would identify the most pressing issues confronting the industry. This is the second of two articles The List 2024 is adding to “The Modern CMO Playbook” this year. To learn more, follow The List on LinkedIn, Instagram (and Threads) and Facebook.