The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® is a podcast that explores expert-level marketing technology, AI, and customer experience. Each episode features insights from top brands and Martech platforms, focusing on strategies to build customer lifetime value and long-term business value. Host Greg Kihlström, a martech futurist and AI transformation advisor, discusses trends like AI adoption, first-party data, consumer privacy, and omnichannel CX. The show covers topics including brand strategy, content strategy, marketing operations, and advertising technology.
Episodes
DoorDash's Peter Giordano on retail media as full-funnel media: awareness to doorstep in 30 minutes
Peter Giordano, Head of DoorDash Ads at DoorDash, argues that retail media stopped being an ad channel the moment the gap between an impression and a delivered order collapsed to minutes. He and Greg Kihlström get into what that changes for enterprise brands.Commerce platforms are becoming full-funnel media, not a lower-funnel add-on. DoorDash isn't a traditional retailer, and Espinosa explains wh
TrustRadius' Katie Allison on how B2B buying decisions get made today
What if, by the time a B2B buyer ever talks to your sales team, the decision is already mostly made, and somewhere you can't see and can't measure?For years, agility meant being quick with the latest tools. Now it means something harder: letting go of long-held assumptions about the buyer's journey and accepting that influence has scattered across a decentralized network of peers, creators, and A
Athos Commerce CMO Gary Lombardo on why only 14% of shoppers see one consistent brand
If a growing share of your customers now begin their shopping journey on a platform you don't own — and can't see into — is your website still your most important marketing asset?Agility here isn't just about reacting to new customer behavior. It's about building an infrastructure that can meet customers wherever they show up, and still have the brand behave like one company when it gets there.Tod
Linnworks CMO Hilary Smith on the manual work hiding inside "automated" operations
Hilary Smith, CMO at Linnworks, argues that most ecommerce brands believe their operations are already automated — and that the manual work quietly grows as they scale. She and Greg Kihlström get into where it hides and what it costs.AI's most consequential move in retail is happening in the back office, not the front end. After years of chatbots and personalization, the investment is shifting int
Georgia-Pacific's Melissa Blunte on consumer understanding at scale: why data gives you precision, not understanding
As companies invest billions in AI and automation to scale customer interactions, are they unintentionally building a wall between their brand and the very people they're trying to serve?Agility requires that as technology accelerates, our ability to listen to and understand the customer must accelerate even faster.Today, we're going to talk about how organizations can maintain and deepen their co
Marketing AI Institute's Mike Kaput on AI pilots vs. AI capability: only about 25% of organizations are scaling with a strategy
Mike Kaput, Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute, joins Greg Kihlström to unpack the gap between an AI pilot that demos well and an AI capability the enterprise can actually run on."AI strategy" describes very different things at different companies. Kaput on what he finds underneath the phrase once you start asking what the systems actually do, and who is accountable when they do it wr
From Opticon 2026: Federated Hermes' Melissa Ryan on what a replatform exposes in your content
Melissa Ryan, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Federated Hermes, moved a global investment manager's website onto Optimizely and found the technology was the easy part. She joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon.A migration surfaces the questions nobody had to answer before. Who owns a page, who signs off, and what finally gets retired all become unavoidable once the platform changes — and settling th
From Opticon 2026: IFPA's Jim Rucinski on running a global digital experience with two people
Jim Rucinski, Solution Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association, runs IFPA's entire digital experience with a team of two — personalization, content management, and platform support included.He joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon to walk through what a constraint that tight actually forces you to decide.A two-person team changes the question from what to build to what to refuse. Ruckins
Optimizely's Greg Heinz on rebranding an AI platform: AI scaled the work, but every input stayed human
Greg Heinz, Senior Director of Brand and Digital Strategy at Optimizely, led the company's rebrand — and he argues AI should amplify creative work rather than automate it away. Recorded live at Opticon 2026 in New York City.A rebrand is repositioning, not a new logo. Heinz walks through the research behind Optimizely's brand evolution, the market signals that made the case internally, and what the
Canva CMO of B2B Meghan Gendelman on keeping your brand strong at scale
When every employee can produce polished, on-brand-looking content in seconds, who actually owns the brand anymore?Agility requires guardrails, not just accelerators. Moving fast is only an advantage if the organization is still moving as one recognizable company.Today we're going to talk about the gap that opens up between how fast AI lets an organization produce and how well its brand actually h
Scrunch's Head of Marketing Kevin White on being cited, not just found
Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Scrunch, argues that referral traffic from ChatGPT is the wrong instrument for measuring AI search — and that the real question is whether a model represents your brand accurately when no one clicks at all. He and Greg Kihlström get into what to build and what to measure instead."AI search" is several different problems wearing one label. A crawler pulling your co
Standard AI CEO Angie Westbrock on closing the gap between the ad and the aisle
What if the moment where the buying decision actually gets made is still the part of the journey we understand the least?Agility depends on seeing what customers actually do — not just what they clicked — and being able to act on it while the promotion is still running.Today we're talking about the gap between where brands are putting their media money and where they can actually see it working. R
Freeosk's Matt Eichorn and Dilini Fernando on turning the physical store into measurable media
With trillions spent on digital ads to capture consumer attention, is the most powerful and effective channel for product discovery the one your brand is overlooking?Agility requires brands to move beyond a digital-only mindset and recognize that the modern customer journey fluidly moves between online and offline moments. It means building the capabilities to engage and measure impact in the phys
Qualified Digital Chief Client Officer Kate Dalbey on building an adaptive martech operating model
How much of your marketing technology budget is quietly underperforming, not because the software is flawed, but because your teams can't, or won't, fully adopt it?Because real agility was never about buying faster tools. It's about having an operating model that can actually turn a tool's potential into results, and keep doing it as the tools keep changing.Today we're digging into the p
Domo Chief Design Officer Chris Willis on speed vs. trust in product design
What if the real risk with AI isn't moving too slowly, but instead moving fast on a foundation that hasn't quite earned its trust?Because agility was never really about speed. It's about being able to change again and again without the whole thing coming apart — and that depends on groundwork most organizations are tempted to skip.Today we're going to dig into that groundwork — the unglamorous par
ISM's Paul Brenner and IAB's Collin Colburn on why the old rules no longer apply to retail media measurement
What if the biggest barrier to scaling your retail media investment isn't technology, but a fundamental disagreement on what success even looks like?Agility requires not just adopting new tools, but also being willing to challenge the measurement frameworks we've grown accustomed to.Today, we're going to talk about the nuanced world of in-store retail media measurement and why the old rules no lon
AdRoll's Alison Clark on connecting CTV to an omnichannel approach
What if the biggest screen in the home could be treated less like a billboard and more like a direct response channel?Agility requires moving beyond the "set it and forget it" mindset of traditional media. It means having the data and the tools to react to performance signals in real-time, whether that's on a social feed or a living room screen.Today, we're going to talk about unlocking the full p
OX's Jenna Kennedy and Guy Gunter Home's William Webster on e-commerce for both B2C and B2B
What happens when your e-commerce platform treats your most valuable professional clients like everyday consumers?Agility means looking past a platform's out-of-the-box features and building an experience that reflects how your different customer segments actually do business.This episode is brought to you by The Office of Experience, a design-driven, digital-first, vertically integrated and colla
Treasure AI Chief Product and Growth Officer Rafael Flores on evolving CDPs to activation platforms
For about a decade, a customer data platform's job was to be the place your customer data lived. What happens to that job when the most valuable thing a system can do goes beyond remembering and evolves to deciding and acting?Agility, in a category that's been declared dead more than once, isn't chasing whatever the market renames itself this quarter. It's being able to change what your product do
CareFirst CMO Mack McGee on building the total experience across customers and employees
Whose job is it to ensure the brand promise you market is the same one your customers and employees actually experience?Real agility isn't just rapid execution — it's a whole organization responding as one to what customers, employees, and the market actually need.Today, we're talking about "Total Experience" and what it takes to make brand, customer, and employee experience add up to one company,
Front's Kevin Yang on maximizing both speed and coordination
What if the AI tools you bought to make your team faster are quietly making that team harder to coordinate?Agility depends less on how quickly you adopt new technology and more on how well you understand the work that technology is supposed to improve.Today, we're going to talk about:- The operational costs buried inside customer-facing work — and why they're so hard to see, let alone measure.- Wh
From Ai4: Dataiku CMO Mark Abramowitz on speed versus agility in AI adoption
What happens to a brand when the story it tells about its AI adoption moves faster than the results it can actually show?Agility isn't about telling that story faster. It's about being able to change what you say — repeatedly, as the technology changes — without losing the thread of what your company is actually for.Today, we're going to talk about the widening gap between AI ambition and business
NiCE CTO Kevin Lee on moving from AI pilot to production
What if the real risk in your AI adoption plan isn't that the pilot fails — it's that it succeeds, and you still can't get it into production?Agility isn't how fast you can launch a pilot. It's whether the organization can absorb what works and still behave like one company while it does.Today, we're going to talk about moving enterprise AI from theory to practice in customer experience. Specifica
From Ai4: Big Spaceship's CEO Taryn Crouthers on prioritizing human judgment while moving fast
When a brand says it "used AI," that could mean anything from a tool speeding up a human's first draft to a system generating and shipping work on its own — and almost all of the real risk lives in the difference. So as AI moves deeper into creative work, which decisions are you certain still belong to a human?Real agility here isn't being quick with the latest tools. It's moving fast without losi
From Ai4: Coca-Cola FEMSA's Jose Martinez on balancing continuous improvement and CX consistency
Jose Martinez, Global Chief Data Officer at Coca-Cola FEMSA, says customers don't experience an AI system's mistake as a data problem — they experience it as a company that doesn't know them. Recorded live at Ai4 at the Venetian in Las Vegas, he and Greg Kihlström get into what has to be true underneath before AI systems can act on your data at all.A data foundation AI can act on is a different th
Eikona CEO Nir Weingarten on the limitations of traditional A/B testing and how to make it better
What if the 'winning' variation from your A/B test is actually the wrong choice for the majority of your audience?Agility requires shifting from a mindset of finding a single 'winner' to one of continuous learning and adaptation for every customer interaction.This show is brought to you by Eikona, an agentic marketing system for retention teams that produces double-digit uplifts from email and SMS
Thryv's Patricia Rollins on what enterprise leaders can learn from small business
Is the biggest threat to your market share a traditional competitor, or is it a wave of thousands of hyper-specialized small businesses powered by accessible AI?Agility requires not just adapting to change, but also understanding the forces driving it at every level of the market. This includes recognizing how the barriers to entry for starting and scaling a business have fundamentally changed.Tod
Adobe CMO Enterprise Rachel Thornton on agents as customers
What happens when the thing evaluating your brand isn't a person — but an agent shopping on their behalf, one that doesn't respond to a great story and doesn't care how your homepage makes anyone feel?Agility has usually meant adapting faster than the market. This is a different kind of adaptation: the audience itself is changing shape, and the brands that handle it well will be the ones that adap
Taelor CEO Anya Cheng on AI, fashion, and sustainability
In an era where personalization is king, can a brand truly be sustainable, or are we just using new technology to fuel the same old consumption patterns?Agility requires a willingness to challenge established business models and integrate new technologies not just for efficiency, but for purpose. It demands we rethink the entire value chain, from production to the end of a product's life.Today, we
Cyara CEO Sushil Kumar on finding the right balance of AI in your CX
What if your biggest CX innovation is also your biggest source of customer churn?Agility requires a clear-eyed view of both the promise and the peril of new technologies. It’s the ability to embrace innovation like AI not just for efficiency, but with a rigorous focus on the customer outcomes that build long-term value.Today, we're going to talk about the delicate balance of implementing AI in the
Georgia-Pacific's Jason Ippen on the intersection of brand creativity and AI
"As algorithms and AI increasingly automate the ""what"" and the ""how"" of marketing, what is the enduring value of human creativity, and how do we prove its worth?Agility requires not just adapting our tools, but fundamentally rethinking how we define, nurture, and measure creative value in a world increasingly guided by machine logic.Today, we're going to talk about the intersection of brand cr
Infolinks CEO Bob Regular on getting ad tech to work better for brands
In a world obsessed with optimizing the ad tech supply chain, what if the focus on 'shorter' paths is a complete misdirection from building 'smarter' ones that actually align with brand value?Agility requires brands to move beyond incremental optimization and fundamentally rethink their media operating models. It’s about building a framework that is inherently resilient to platform shifts, privacy
MERGE CEO Stephanie Trunzo on keeping essential human elements during your AI transformation
In the race to implement AI for operational efficiency, are we accidentally designing the essential human elements of creativity, judgment, and trust out of our organizations?Agility requires not just the rapid adoption of new technologies like AI, but the deliberate and human-centered redesign of the culture and processes that support them.Today, we're going to talk about:- Why AI adoption is les
Onfire CEO Tal Peretz on AI that actually drives revenue
In the push to integrate AI into go-to-market strategies, are we optimizing for activity or for intelligence?Agility requires not just adopting new technologies like AI, but critically evaluating how they deliver contextual intelligence. It’s about adapting your strategy based on smarter signals, not just automating existing processes at a higher volume.Today, we're going to talk about moving beyo
Lou Carbone on a new understanding of brand
If a brand is no longer what a company says it is, but the sum of every experience a customer has, what does that mean for the marketing department's role in the organization?Agility requires more than just adapting to market changes; it demands a fundamental shift from broadcasting a message to engineering an experience. It requires a willingness to unlearn old definitions of brand and embrace a
Acoustic CMO Alexi Hatch on rebuilding your customer relationship strategy
What if the marketing playbook you've relied on for the past decade is quickly failing to get results? When customers rapidly shift their behaviors, agility requires being willing to rethink how you build and earn customer relationships from the ground up.Today, we're going to talk about the shift away from rented audiences and unreliable signals toward building durable, first-party data asse
Criteo Chief Product Officer Todd Parsons on breaking down those channel silos
Are the platforms you rely on most for growth also the biggest barriers to understanding it?Agility requires a clear view of the entire customer journey, not just the isolated moments within a single platform. This means brands must adapt their strategies to operate effectively across the open internet, not just within its walled gardens.Today, we're going to talk about a fundamental disconnect in
HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar on brand discovery in an age of AI search
What if your most valuable future customers are discovering solutions in a place your current attribution models can't even see?Agility requires not just adapting to new channels, but completely rethinking how we measure discovery and value when the customer journey starts with a conversation with an AI.Today, we're going to talk about:- How the shift from keyword-based search to conversational AI
California Pizza Kitchen Co-Founder Rick Rosenfield on building a brand from the inside out
With brands being defined by every customer interaction, who is really in charge of your customer experience: your C-suite, or your frontline employees?Agility requires more than just the right technology; it demands a culture where empowered teams can make decisions and respond to customer needs in the moment.Today, we're going to talk about building a brand from the inside out, focusing on the p
Crunchbase CRO Ann Davis on the pressure to show ROI from AI
What if the biggest obstacle to AI-driven ROI isn't the AI itself, but everything you’re feeding it?Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new technologies like AI, but the clarity to recognize when foundational elements, like your data strategy, must be fixed first to unlock true potential.Today, we're going to talk about the intense pressure on revenue and marketing leaders to demonstrate
Furniture.com's CMO Dan Bennett and SVP Alexandra Seaman on helping consumers navigate endless choice
What if the infinite shelf of e-commerce hasn't made customers more confident, but has instead created a new kind of friction: the paralysis of endless choice?Agility requires brands to shift their focus from simply providing more options to actively helping customers navigate them.Today, we're going to talk about:- Understanding the modern customer journey when discovery is no longer the primary
ReflexAI CEO Sam Dorison on the gap between sales training and what happens in the real world
How much of your marketing and CX investment is being undermined in the final mile by a sales conversation that goes off the rails?Agility requires our customer-facing teams do more than recite a script; they need the situational awareness to navigate complex conversations in real time. This capability isn't just a sales skill—it's a critical component of the overall customer experience.Today, we'
Infobip's Ben Lewis on building deeper relationships with sports fans
In a world of infinite entertainment choices, how does a sports franchise earn a fan's loyalty when the game isn't being played?Agility requires meeting fans where they are, with the right message at the right moment, whether they're on their couch or in their seat. This means adapting communication strategies in real-time to create a conversation, not just a broadcast.Today, we're going to talk a
LiveRamp's Daniella Harkins on distinguishing AI hype and real innovation
With every vendor claiming their platform is a revolutionary AI silver bullet, how do enterprise leaders distinguish between genuine innovation and what's essentially just marketing hype wrapped in a new algorithm?Agility requires a clear-eyed strategy for adopting new technologies, especially AI, focusing on practical outcomes over speculative promises.Today, we're going to talk about moving past
Forrester's Gina Bhawalkar on building great CX with an AI-enabled workflow
As generative and agentic AI promise to accelerate everything we do, are we at risk of becoming incredibly efficient at producing forgettable customer experiences?Today, we are here in Brooklyn at Forrester CX Forum East and we're going to talk about building better experiences with an AI-enabled design workflow. Specifically, we’ll cover:- Balancing the speed of AI with the intentional, human-led
Forrester's Chuck Gahun on AI agents as decision makers in the buyer's journey
What if your next customer isn't a person, but an AI agent acting on their behalf? And what if that agent is evaluating your brand on a purely logical, data-driven basis, completely devoid of the emotional hooks your marketing has always relied on?Agility requires not just adapting to changing customer behaviors, but also redefining who—or what—our customer even is. It demands that we build operat
Salesforce's Nitin Mangtani on how AI is evolving on-site search
What if the most common point of failure in your digital customer experience: the 'no results found' page, could become your greatest opportunity for conversion and discovery?Agility requires not just adopting new technologies, but fundamentally rethinking core customer interactions, like search, that have remained static for far too long. It demands a shift from rigid rules to responsive, intelli
From PegaWorld: enGen's Richard Rutkowski on moving agentic AI from theoretical to practical
Most leaders think about AI as a tool to analyze data or assist with tasks. But what happens when your AI becomes an autonomous agent, not just providing insights but actively orchestrating complex processes on its own?Today, we are at PegaWorld 2026 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and, we're going to talk about moving AI from a theoretical concept to a practical, value-driving reality. Specificall
Twilio's Vanessa Thompson on moving to a unified view of your customers
What if the marketing funnel, the foundational model we've relied on for decades, is fundamentally flawed and actively misleading us about what our customers actually want?Agility requires not just reacting quickly, but reacting with intelligence, which is impossible when your customer data is telling you the wrong story.Today, we're going to talk about the shift from legacy metrics to a more inte
From PegaWorld: Unum CIO & CDO Shelia Anderson on AI-augmented enterprise modernization
What if the biggest barrier to your company's transformation isn't your legacy technology, but your legacy thinking about it?Today, we are at PegaWorld 2026 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and, we're going to talk about the immense challenge and opportunity of enterprise modernization. Specifically, we'll cover:- Translating a massive technology initiative into tangible improvements in the cus
From PegaWorld: Pega's Tara DeZao on marketing ROI with agentic AI
We're told AI will revolutionize marketing, but many leaders are finding it just creates more content chaos and operational risk. Is the answer more AI, or a fundamentally different approach to how AI is managed?Today we are at PegaWorld 2026 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and, we're going to talk about:- The shift from generative AI for content creation to agentic AI for end-to-end campaign execu
From PegaWorld: Pega CTO Don Schuerman on AI ambitions versus reality
Nearly every marketing leader has been told to "do more with AI" — and many of them are now sitting on a pile of pilots, a growing bill, and not much to show their CFO. So why is it that adoption of AI in marketing is so high, while the number of organizations actually getting predictable returns from it is so low?Agility requires the discipline to reimagine how work gets done before automating it
Mavlers' Matt Kelly on Lifecycle Marketing in the AI Era
How many marketing leaders can confidently tell their CEO which specific AI use cases are actually driving revenue right now, and which ones are just running up the bill as experiments?Agility isn't just about adapting to new tech like AI. It's about building the solid data and operational models that let you connect those innovations directly to business growth.Today, we are here at CRMC 2026 in
Brillio's Kathleen Ulrich and Anuj Mathur on moving from personalization to agentic transformation
What if the future of marketing isn’t about creating better campaigns, but about designing intelligent agents that render campaigns obsolete?Agility requires not just adapting to new technologies, but fundamentally re-architecting our operating models to harness their potential. Today, we’re going to talk about the move from personalization to agentic experiences and what that means for enterprise
From CRMC: Phaedon's Jaclyn Wands on humanizing loyalty in an AI-driven world
As brands invest billions in AI to personalize the customer experience, are they inadvertently creating a more transactional, less human relationship with their most valuable customers?Agility requires not just the rapid adoption of AI-based solutions, but the wisdom to know when and how to apply them to enhance—without replacing—the human element of the customer relationship.Today, we're going to
Asana CMO Prachi Gore on realizing AI's true potential for marketing operations
What if the biggest risk of AI in marketing isn't about job replacement, but about creating more fragmented, siloed work?Agility requires more than just adopting new tools; it demands a fundamental rethinking of how teams collaborate and orchestrate work. When a technology like AI promises to accelerate individual tasks, true agility means ensuring that acceleration translates into collective mome
Vasion Chief Strategy Officer JD Carter on Building a responsive brand
To keep up in a changing market, are you building a responsive brand, or are you constantly playing catch-up?Agility requires more than just quick reactions; it demands a proactive understanding of evolving customer needs and emerging technologies. It also means building adaptable processes and systems that can flex with market demands.Today, we're going to talk about navigating the complexities
Mintegral's Phoena Pang on the new playbook for performance marketing
Is the relentless pursuit of measurable ROAS fundamentally at odds with building long-term customer trust in a privacy-first world?Agility requires marketers to move beyond legacy attribution models and embrace a more dynamic approach to measurement and monetization. This is especially true in the rapidly evolving mobile ecosystem, where the rules of engagement are constantly being rewritten.Today
Sitecore CMO Michelle BB on 25 years of marketing technology evolution plus what lies ahead
Twenty-five years ago, the goal was to build a website as a digital "single source of truth." In an era of AI agents and hyper-personalized realities, is the very concept of a single, universal brand "truth" now an obstacle to creating a truly relevant customer experience?Agility requires not just adopting new channels and technologies, but fundamentally rethinking the role of content and data in
Intuit Mailchimp's Head of Email Product discusses removing friction from martech
What's the hidden tax your organization pays every time a creative asset moves from a design tool to a marketing platform, and how can you shorten the time to gain important insights about how your campaigns perform?Agility requires more than just speed. It demands that we eliminate the friction between our systems and processes so teams can move from concept to customer with minimal translation e
Lean Startup author Eric Ries on building a brand for the long term
In an era of relentless pressure for quarterly growth, is it even possible for a large brand to stay true to its core mission, or is compromising a brand’s values just an inevitable part of achieving scale?Agility requires more than just reacting quickly to market changes. It requires a resilient, long-term mission that acts as a north star, ensuring that every pivot and experiment builds enduring
COLIBRIX ONE CMO Alexandra Westfal on building a brand that builds trust and growth
When digital payments can feel like a commoditized utility, how do you build a brand that’s seen not just as a processor, but as a strategic partner?Agility requires more than just speed; it demands the ability to innovate within complex regulatory frameworks while simultaneously building and maintaining unwavering customer trust.Today, we're going to talk about the unique challenge of building a
Shopback's Carolina Paradas on how retailers are shifting their channel strategies with cashback
What if the most valuable customer acquisition channel you're ignoring is the one you’ve always written off as just a discount tool?Agility requires not just adapting to new customer behaviors, but fundamentally re-evaluating long-held beliefs about which channels drive growth and which ones are merely a race to the bottom.Retailers are making big moves into the cashback ecosystem.Today, we're goi
Moburst CEO Gilad Bechar on winning in the age of AI-driven discovery
For the last two decades, the primary question for marketers has been "How do we rank on Google?" What happens when the primary question becomes "How do we become the answer for an AI?"Agility requires not just adapting to new tools like AI, but fundamentally rethinking the systems and organizational structures that support them. It’s a shift from optimizing channels to engineering a connected gro
Klaviyo CMO Jamie Domenici on moving from AI as a tool to AI as an autonomous agent
If AI can now execute an entire marketing campaign from a single prompt, what is the new primary function of a marketing leader?While agility often requires adapting to new tools, it can also require fundamentally rethinking the operating model of a marketing organization. It’s about reallocating your most valuable resource—your team’s strategic thinking—to where it can have the greatest impact.To
RGP Chief Strategy & Experience Officer Jennifer Jones on the human experience of digital transformation
What if the biggest obstacle to delivering a world-class customer experience isn't your technology or your strategy, but the very way your teams are structured and enabled to work?Agility requires creating an internal environment that can fluidly adapt to—and even anticipate—the needs of the external customer.Today, we're going to talk about: the often-overlooked foundation of successful business
Resident Expert: Bill Staikos on the CX landscape in 2026
As a leader, you often spend so much time on the strategies and tactics that keep your brand growing that it’s difficult to keep up with what’s going on in the background with the platforms and the companies behind them.That’s why I’m always glad to talk with our guest today, who is both focused on the business of CX as well as the business behind CX and the SaaS platforms driving so many customer
University of Phoenix Chief Strategy Officer Ruth Veloria on higher education and the workforce of the future
With the half-life of professional skills shrinking every year, is the traditional model of corporate learning and development fundamentally broken, and what role should employers play in the new era of continuous education?Agility requires a workforce that can adapt and acquire new skills as quickly as the market changes. This means the old models of education and professional development must be
MarketingOps CEO Mike Rizzo on Marketing Operations as a strategic driver of growth
Most leaders see Marketing Ops as the team that keeps the trains running on time, essentially the plumbers of the marketing department. But what if I told you they’re actually positioned to be the architects of your company’s most durable competitive advantage?Agility requires moving beyond the transactional nature of campaigns and technology. It demands building a durable, responsive ecosystem ar
Tealium's Zack Wenthe on the hidden challenge of AI-driven commerce
As you race to adopt AI-powered shopping experiences, are you creating a new data black box that will make your customer journey less understood, not more?Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new channels like generative AI, but the foresight to ensure these new touchpoints don't become blind spots in your customer journey. It demands that our data strategy evolves as quickly as our custom
#856: CRMC Keynote Speaker Kaihan Krippendorff on making sure your brand is a disruptor not disrupted
When you look at your five-year strategic plan, how much of it is dedicated to defending your current market share versus actively making it obsolete?Agility requires more than just reacting quickly to market shifts; it demands the foresight and structure to initiate those shifts yourself.This episode is brought to by CRMC. Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the ye
#855: Fullstory President Jason Wolf on moving from observation to actively assisting digital customers
What's the bigger blind spot for most brands’ digital experience: knowing that a customer is struggling, or understanding why and being able to help them in that exact moment? Agility requires not just identifying customer friction quickly, but having the tools to resolve it in the moment. It’s about shortening the gap between insight and action to create better experiences, faster.Today, we're go
#854: PGA TOUR's Zach Carlson on creating an amazing fan experience
In an era dominated by high-definition home entertainment and endless digital distractions, what does it take to convince a fan that a live, in-person experience is not just worth their time and money, but is something they can't afford to miss?Agility requires not just having a plan, but building a system to listen and respond to your audience in real time. It’s about turning feedback from a retr
#853: Sköna CEO Jenny Sagström on design consistency in high-growth brands
In the race for B2B growth, we often prioritize speed over everything else. But what's the real cost when your brand starts to look like a collection of spare parts cobbled together by different teams?Agility requires a strong, foundational framework to enable speed without sacrificing coherence. It's about empowering teams to move quickly and independently, while still ensuring every customer tou
#852: Zoom Room CEO Mark Van Wye on agile dogs and agile brands
What if your most visible, most exciting product wasn't your real product at all, but was actually a Trojan horse for building a much deeper, stickier customer relationship?Agility requires more than just a willingness to change; it demands a deep understanding of what truly motivates your customer, allowing you to evolve your model in service of their emotional outcomes, not just their transactio
#851: CRMC Keynote Speaker David Avrin on customer loyalty and being easy to do business with
What if the key to customer loyalty isn't about creating memorable, delightful moments, but about being utterly forgettable in the best possible way?Agility requires more than just rapid campaign execution; it demands a deep-seated ability to re-evaluate and re-engineer core processes in response to shifting customer expectations.Today, we're going to talk about the powerful, and perhaps counterin
#850: Newell VP of E-commerce Tambi Younes on expanding the operational limits of ecommerce capabilities
What's the real cost of only having the bandwidth to focus on your top-performing products?Agility requires systems and processes that not only respond to change but also proactively manage complexity across an entire portfolio. It’s about creating the capacity to act on every opportunity, not just the most obvious ones.Today, we're going to talk about a critical breaking point for large consumer
#849: Siteimprove CEO Nayaki Nayyar on what it means to take a holistic view of digital experience
In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down?Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently.Today, we're going to talk about w
#848: CRMC Keynote Speaker Paul Epstein on building deep connections for greater customer loyalty
What if your brand’s success wasn't dependent on a winning product or favorable market conditions, but on your ability to connect with customers on a human level, one story at a time?Agility requires moving beyond a reliance on market trends or product performance as the primary drivers of success. It demands a deeper, more resilient connection with customers, built on understanding their individu
#847: Acquia CMO Jennifer Griffin Smith on MarTech that delivers beyond the hype
Now that AI can generate endless content, what is the true strategic value of a human-led content strategy?Agility requires more than just adopting the latest tools; it demands a foundational strategy that allows you to integrate new capabilities without disrupting the core customer experience. This means being able to distinguish between a promising innovation and a distraction.Today, we're going
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