Shows / The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX
Marketing technology, AI, and customer experience, explained by the people building it. Three times a week, Greg Kihlström interviews CMOs, product leaders, and martech executives from platform companies like Adobe, Braze, Qualtrics, Salesforce, and Optimizely, and brands like Marriott, Georgia-Pacific, Nestlé, and Zoom about what is actually working inside enterprise marketing organizations.
Each episode runs 20–30 minutes: one guest, one specific problem, no filler. Recent conversations cover…
Episodes
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXCyara 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXGeorgia-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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXInfolinks 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXMERGE 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXOnfire 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXLou 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 Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXAcoustic 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXCriteo 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXHubSpot 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXCalifornia 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?…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXCrunchbase 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFurniture.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?…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXReflexAI 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXInfobip'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXLiveRamp'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXForrester'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXForrester'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXSalesforce'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFrom 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXTwilio'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFrom 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFrom 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFrom 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXMavlers' 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXBrillio'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXFrom 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXAsana 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXVasion 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXMintegral'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXSitecore 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXIntuit 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXLean 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXCOLIBRIX 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXShopback'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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXMoburst 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXKlaviyo 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXRGP 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXResident 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXUniversity 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXMarketingOps 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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CXTealium'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?…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#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…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#846: Red Points' Daniel Shapiro on brand protection in a deepfake world
In an age of AI-powered deepfakes and sophisticated counterfeits, is your brand's core identity becoming more of a liability than an asset online? Agility…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#845: Bright Data Chief Product Officer Ariel Shulman on why access to real-time web data is critical in the age of autonomous AI
We talk endlessly about the power of AI models, but what happens when the public web data they rely on is incomplete, outdated, or just plain wrong? Agility…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#844: adMarketplace's John Nitti on GEO and the future of paid search
For over two decades now, many marketers have built their careers on mastering Google and paid search. What if the playbook you spent your entire career…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#843: Pega's Matt Healy on the hidden costs of outdated technology
What if the biggest obstacle to your AI strategy isn't the algorithm, but the 20-year-old software your team is forced to use every day? Agility requires not…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#842: Braze Chief Product Officer Kevin Wang on how AI has forever changed product development
With AI promising to accelerate everything, is the most important role for a leader now to be the one who knows when to hit the brakes? Agility requires a…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#841: NiCE CMO Michelle Cooper on the most common mistake brands make with AI and CX
We've all been sold the dream of AI transforming the customer experience, but what if the most common approach is actually making it worse? Agility requires…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#840: Adobe's Hannah Elsakr on what happens after the hype: operationalizing AI at enterprise scale
Is generative AI on track to become the biggest productivity unlock for marketers since the internet, or will it forever be stuck in endless pilot projects and…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#839: Medallia's Courtney Shealy on moving contact centers from cost center to strategic asset
What if your company’s most valuable source of competitive intelligence and brand insight isn’t a market research report, but your contact center? Agility…
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® | What CMOs Need to Know About Marketing Technology, AI & CX#838: BrandShield CEO Yoav Keren on the dark side of digital engagement
What if your biggest competitor this holiday season isn't another brand, but an army of AI-powered scammers stealing your customers and destroying your brand…