Defining AI-Driven Platform Standards for the Modern Age
This is an excellent reference implementation for what it means to be a platform in the AI age. https://lnkd.in/esSuibY4 #martech #AI
Marketing Teams Should Both Build and Buy AI
Maybe the biggest false choice in martech right now is asking, “Should we build or buy AI?” Our new State of Martech 2026 research suggests the real answer is: yes. Across 70 AI marketing use cases, leading teams aren’t choosing...
Video Needs Systematic Integration in Martech
A quick disclosure up front: this post is sponsored by Goldcast . I was comfortable doing it because we use Goldcast ourselves for our events — including the upcoming #MartechDay release of the State of Martech 2026 report on May...
Marketing Ops Now Build on AI Infrastructure, Not Apps
For most of the SaaS era, martech platforms won by shipping applications. That era is ending. The most sophisticated marketing ops leaders I've talked to recently don't live inside their MAPs anymore. They're building their own AI apps and agents...
Unlock 2026 Martech Insights and 70+ AI Use Cases
🚀 Registration is now open for #MartechDay. On May 5, Frans Riemersma and I will debut the new State of Martech 2026 report and the updated 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape. If you register, you’ll be first to receive both — along with...
Attribution: From Credit Scoreboard to Coordination Engine
Attribution was supposed to tell us which channels deserve credit. It mostly told us which teams should fight about it. Frans Riemersma and I just published The State of Marketing Attribution 2026 (sponsored by CaliberMind), and the finding that hit hardest...
Introducing Forward Deployed Martech: Real‑World Buyer Intelligence
Big announcement: chiefmartec has acquired Watchem, Bugg & Hyde, a boutique investigative services firm, to launch what I believe is the industry's first Forward Deployed Martech practice. Here's the thesis: Every martech vendor talks about "intent signals" and "buyer intelligence." But let's...
Marketers Embrace AI “Vibe Coding” To Build Tools
For years, the most automated thing in marketing was the auto-reply on your engineering ticket. Now marketers are building their own dashboards, integrations, automations, and internal apps — no engineering queue required. Just a prompt, an AI model, and a clearer...
AI Powers Agency Boom, Small Firms Match Giants
Hot take from the 4A's Decisions event in Boston this week: While SaaS companies wrestle with AI angst, agencies and service providers are quietly entering their best era. More clients need more help than ever. AI lets small firms do what used...
AI Demands a Composable Martech Canvas, Not Stacked Tools
Bryce Peake, who led marketing decision sciences at Domino’s, says this in my new report with Databricks, released this morning — and I think it gets to the heart of it: “We’ve been trying to modify the same martech stack we’ve...
Beyond Crawl‑Walk‑Run: A More Realistic Implementation Framework
Having sat through thousands of crawl-walk-run presentations in my life, I thought it might be helpful to expand the model a bit to cover more, um, realistic implementation paths. https://t.co/fGXlclB0Qi
Build Systems for Exponential Growth, Not Linear Output
Fantastic article by John Maeda on building systems for exponential growth vs. merely delivering ouputs that track to linear growth — and why this distinction is crucial in the AI Age. -- LINEAR GROWTH: "Linear growth is steady and visible....
Third‑Party AI Apps Thrive Amid Model‑Built Race
"Are enterprises building directly on models, or are they buying applications, instead? The answer is nuanced, but one thing is clear: the reported death of third party apps is greatly exaggerated, to put it mildly." Reading through the latest "Leaders,...
Legacy Records Must Evolve Into Ecosystem‑Driven Platforms
"Why can or can't legacy systems of record just add AI?" Great reflections by Jamin Ball in his latest "Clouded Judgment" newsletter (link in comments). I'll just add that this is one of the best arguments for those legacy systems...
Scalability, Not Ambition, Is Marketing’s New Bottleneck
The results are in from the Adapt or Die: 2026 Resilient Marketer Survey that I collaborated on with the team at MoEngage . One pattern is already clear: the challenge for most B2C marketing teams is no longer experimentation or...