If you happen to follow me on LinkedIn, you’ve probably seen me publishing a whole load of insights from the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing event that just took place in Orlando.
My main takeaway from 3 days of presentations: The hype around AI still outweighs the actual delivery. In a nutshell: We’ve not reached the singularity (at least not yet).
Many of the presentations that featured AI felt highly produced and maybe a little too polished to feel real. You get the sense that if you spoke to the teams behind the presenters, they might say, ‘yeah, some of what was discussed isn’t truly happening on the ground — yet.’
Whatever your thoughts about AI’s integration into marketing, this year’s conference centered on a new reality: Marketing is in a period of systemic change. The conversation has moved beyond “what AI can do” to “how leaders, brands, and systems must adapt.” Technology, culture, and creativity were woven through every presentation that I saw, but the underlying message was still about judgment and leadership and how marketers navigate the intersection of speed, substance, and purpose.
It’s hard to edit down over 15 excellent keynote presentations into a few bullet points, but here’s my best attempt at extracting what I felt to be the key themes.
1. AI is the new infrastructure — and the new test of leadership
Both Peter Hinssen and Shelly Palmer explored the scale and speed of AI’s transformation and what it means for marketers.
Hinssen opened with the observation that AI’s “hype cycle” has turned into the new normal.
“We’ve gone from investment in terms of billions to trillions of dollars. This isn’t a storm; it’s the new climate.”
He dissected the current ecosystem, which includes three brands relatively unknown to the general public: Nvidia, TSMC, and ASML. He called them the “three kings” of the AI economy and warned that we’ve entered a full industrial phase.
Palmer picked up this theme with some bluntness:
“AI isn’t a technology challenge. It’s a leadership imperative.”
He described an AI landscape driven by the power grid, not just innovation, pointing out that Microsoft has done a deal to reopen the Three Mile Island reactor and Meta issued an RFP for nuclear power plants to meet their energy needs.
Where Hinssen focused on infrastructure and acceleration, Palmer focused on agency.
“You are the architects of the future you want to live in. The tech will be brand new every morning for the rest of your life.”
Together, they reframed AI from a marketing tool to a test of leadership maturity. The companies that win will not just be those who can deploy AI, but the ones that can adapt, govern, and lead through technological chaos.
2. The art and science rebalance
Hinssen described an AI landscape driven by the power grid, not just innovation, pointing out that Microsoft has done a deal to reopen the Three Mile Island reactor and Meta issued an RFP for nuclear power plants to meet their energy needs.
Where Hinssen focused on infrastructure and acceleration, Palmer focused on agency.
“You are the architects of the future you want to live in. The tech will be brand new every morning for the rest of your life.”
Together, they reframed AI from a marketing tool to a test of leadership maturity. The companies that win will not just be those who can deploy AI, but the ones that can adapt, govern, and lead through technological chaos.
Todd Kaplan of Heinz offered a strong counterpoint to the AI buzz, calling for a return to fundamentals: brand building, creativity, and cultural resonance.
“We’ve had a lot of talk about data and AI. But there’s a little something also. It’s part of marketing. It’s called brand building.”
He argued that while data gives precision, it doesn’t create meaning. Heinz’s campaigns like Draw Ketchup prove that when a brand has distinctiveness baked into culture, even AI recognizes it.
“When people were asked to draw ketchup, they drew the Heinz bottle.” Interestingly, when prompted, so did the AI.
His warning was that marketers risk mistaking optimization for connection and that the next era of effectiveness will come from blending the two.
3. Tech brands want to be loved, not just used
Don McGuire, CMO of Qualcomm, brought the conversation from theory to execution. He offered a rare case of how a B2B company turned a technical product into an emotional brand.
“We wanted to move from being the magic inside the device to being a brand that people feel connected to.”
McGuire’s “recipe for resonance” Audience → Context → Relevance → Resonance → Action — showed how even a semiconductor brand can build meaning through community, partnerships, and purpose. The result: Snapdragon’s awareness and advocacy metrics now rival consumer icons, with the brand debuting on Kantar’s BrandZ Top 50.
4. Marketing at the speed of culture
Across TikTok, PepsiCo, and NFL, the focus was on participation over promotion.
TikTok’s team emphasized that discovery and creativity are rewriting the media playbook:
“It’s not about who you know. It’s about what you make.”
PepsiCo’s Hernán Tantardini spoke about “food culture” as the next growth engine, not a trend. “We don’t just build brands. We build categories by understanding how people eat and celebrate.”
These brands are leaning into communities, ritual, and fan behaviors or “cultural edges” because that’s where growth now lives.
5. Human relevance still wins
United Airlines’ Maggie Schmerin grounded the event (sorry couldn’t resist the pun) with a simple reminder: “not every brand can move fast and break things.”
“The biggest threat to brands today isn’t AI. It’s being irrelevant.”
Her team’s mantra — “Move fast and don’t break things” — reflects a disciplined approach to innovation within the realities of safety, trust, and legacy. The message resonated with many in traditional sectors: progress must serve the brand, not risk it.
6. Craft, patience, and the luxury mindset
LVMH’s presentation stood out for its restraint. The message: in a world obsessed with speed, luxury brands win by slowing down.
“Luxury is not about speed. It’s about meaning.”
By treating art, design, and storytelling as long-term investments, LVMH demonstrated that cultural relevance doesn’t always require disruption, “sometimes it’s about consistency and craft.”
7. AI in practice, not in theory
Melanie Huet of Newell Brands and Peter Hinssen both pushed for pragmatic AI adoption.
Huet explained how AI has reduced the company’s innovation cycle “from four months to five days” by merging generative tools with human insight.
“It’s important to understand that most of this is available to you right now. You can do this yourself.”
Her practical examples of where Newell is actively using AI complemented Hinssen’s macro view: while the landscape is chaotic, the opportunity is operational, using AI to strip away “yesterwork” and build resilience.
8. Common thread: Meaning in the machine age
The tension between technology and humanity defined this event.
From Palmer’s “architects of the future” to Kaplan’s defense of brand building and McGuire’s emotional engineering, the message was consistent: The next great marketing transformation won’t be powered by machines alone. It will be led by people who know when not to use them.
“The best AI is still human imagination.” Marc Pritchard, P&G
Where do we go from here?
If last year’s Masters of Marketing event was about exploring AI’s potential, this year was about defining responsibility for implementing it. The leaders in the room were challenged to modernize without losing their compasses. As Hinssen put it, “Maybe only ten percent of jobs disappear but one hundred percent will change.”
While it’s clear that AI isn’t delivering everything it promises and some believe it never will, this tension isn’t a reason to hold off. It’s a call to use it thoughtfully and keep pushing forward, rather than obsessing over what it can’t do. Future generations won’t care about its limitations. They’ll only care about what we built with it.
Remember this: “The potential to try and experiment gets cheaper every single day, but the cost of waiting goes up,” as Peter Hinssen said. That’s something we all need to remember as we push forward with our plans to develop our own AI tools and incorporate it in our workflows.
And a big thank you to Jon Goode for a thoroughly enjoyable performance by the The Moth that kept us all grounded and entertained at the end of the conference.
Author Bio
Robin Riddle is the Chief Strategy Officer at Content Solutions. He works across B2B as well as B2C and specializes in financial services, insurance and healthcare. Prior to his time here, he led content marketing businesses at both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. A passionate advocate for the value of content marketing, Riddle is also heavily involved in industry issues and speaks at many events on the intersections of content marketing, native advertising and AI.