Forget churning out more content; the real advantage now is coaching intelligent systems to deliver work that still feels unmistakably human. We sit down with Johann Wrede, CMO of UserTesting, to unpack why the modern marketing leader must operate like a business generalist, not a channel specialist—and how AI raises the floor on execution while threatening to flatten differentiation.

Johann traces an unconventional path from engineering to sales to marketing to the C-suite, revealing why integrated thinking beats siloed teams and how curiosity has been the throughline in every step. We dig into the shift from outputs to outcomes, the growing responsibility CMOs have across finance, talent, and culture, and the practical ways to build teams that prompt for critique, pressure-test assumptions, and use AI as a typist and analyst while protecting the origin of ideas.

The conversation gets tactical: how to detect and avoid “common denominator” content, when to bet on in-person experiences to earn authentic digital lift, and why brand voice matters even more when a bot handles the first touch. Johan shares lessons from UserTesting customers who test tone, empathy, and clarity before deploying AI into apps and contact centers, aiming for helpful, on-brand interactions without pretending the machine is human. If you’re rethinking your marketing operating model—designing briefs for agents, calibrating prompts for better judgment, and building tight research loops with real people—this one maps the path.

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The excitement around agentic AI is loud, but the real story starts where hype meets accountability. We sit down with Eric Karofsky, CEO of Vector HX, to separate narrow task agents from agentic systems that plan, reason, and negotiate across steps—and to ask the uncomfortable question: who do you trust when your agent starts talking to someone else’s agent?

Eric walks us through the gaps leaders often miss. It’s easy to mandate AI from the top; it’s harder to redesign the workflows that make measurable impact. We explore why trust breaks down when autonomy spreads across tools, teams, and vendors, how hallucinations become career risk inside enterprises, and what guardrails look like in regulated sectors. The conversation stays grounded with two practical wins. First, a pharma literature review pipeline that shrinks from six months and $250,000 to roughly two weeks by structuring extractions, adding human checks where accuracy matters most, and instrumenting the process end to end. Second, a document discovery platform that stitches together siloed repositories with smart metadata, natural language search, and relationship mapping that surfaces parent, child, sibling, and multilingual versions of critical procedures.

If you’re wondering where to start, Eric’s advice is simple and hard: map the jobs to be done, pick a high-friction workflow with measurable outcomes, and redesign it around human needs. Save broad agentic autonomy for bounded domains with clear policies, identity, and audit trails. The best KPI for the next 12 months might be whether your core processes actually change; if you’re doing the same work the same way next year, you probably missed the point.

Ready to rethink your approach to AI beyond better emails? Listen now, subscribe for new episodes, and share this with a teammate who owns process change. Your take: where would agentic AI actually earn trust in your organization?

The future of retail isn’t just about shiny tech on the sales floor; it’s about the unseen engine that makes every experience feel effortless. With Verizon Business’s Katie Riddle, we unpack how sensorized products, unified IoT platforms, and edge AI are transforming inventory accuracy, employee workflows, and the shopper journey—while forcing retailers to rethink bandwidth, security, and the true cost of scale.

We start with the ground game: real‑time visibility. As RFID and low‑cost sensors spread through stores and DCs, managers can spot low stock, recover misplaced items, and treat shelves with the same precision we expect from ecommerce analytics. Katie shares how Verizon’s ThingSpace creates a single pane of glass for devices and environments—HVAC, refrigeration, digital shelf labels, and more—turning disconnected data into actions that cut waste and improve availability.

Then we zoom out to the network layer. Smaller formats benefit from fixed wireless access, larger boxes lean on private 5G, and everyone needs fast, reliable Wi‑Fi. That mix matters because AI tools and retail media networks are hungry. Natural‑language search for associates, computer vision for measurement, and privacy‑safe attention analytics all demand low‑latency compute at the edge. Katie explains how to separate mission‑critical systems from media traffic, prove in‑store ad lift with 5G Video Insights using existing cameras, and fund the initiatives that actually move the brand forward.

None of this works without robust security and a plan that outpaces growth. Every new endpoint expands the attack surface, so zero trust, segmentation, and managed detection become table stakes. Sustainability rounds out the story: sensors that prevent spoilage, energy‑smart operations, and circular programs that align with how customers want to buy. The takeaway is clear—technology is your brand now. Overbuild the right way, measure what matters, and protect the experience end to end.

If this conversation helped you see what’s next, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more retail leaders can find it.

What happens when retail stops waiting for shoppers to arrive and starts responding to every signal in real time? We dive into a candid, practical look at how AI is reshaping the entire customer journey—from discovery sparked in chat interfaces to fulfillment choices optimized for margin and sustainability. With SAP Customer Experience leader Balaji Balasubramanian, we unpack the systems, data, and decisions required to turn conversations into commerce and curiosity into profitable growth.

We explore why unified data is the real unlock for AI in retail and how a business data cloud gives models the context they need: customer profiles, orders, invoices, inventory, pricing, and unstructured signals. Balaji explains Joule, SAP’s conversational co-pilot, and how it sits on top of business AI and knowledge graphs to answer questions, trigger actions, and summarize insights for teams in the flow of work. We also talk about WalkMe’s role in accelerating adoption and giving users context-aware guidance and shortcuts. The result is a stack that reduces friction, shortens cycles, and makes bold ideas operational—without replacing the people who bring judgment and brand sense to the table.

The conversation tackles big shifts many leaders feel but haven’t fully mapped: destination shopping becoming instant demand; personalization evolving into proactive orchestration; and loyalty moving from points to trust. We consider how to tie recommendations back to inventory location, margin, and sustainable delivery so that offers are both relevant and responsible. We also address tough realities like a five-point slide in true loyalty and the widening expectation gap, and why AI-driven pilots—margin-aware personalization, proactive service, dynamic bundling—are the fastest path to learning what works at scale. If you’re serious about real-time retail and want a playbook that blends strategy with execution, this conversation delivers clear steps and fresh energy.

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A grocery cart that acts like a high-performing media channel sounds bold, until you hear how it actually works. We sit down with Yaniv Zukerman, CMO at Cust2Mate, to unpack how a retrofit smart cart platform turns the physical aisle into an addressable, measurable environment where shoppers get guidance, retailers unlock new revenue, and brands finally see real attribution at the shelf.

We start with the origin story: a clip-on panel that transforms any existing cart into a smart cart, complete with scanning, guided lists, service counter booking, and on-cart checkout. Then we zoom out to the platform: charging and docking systems, fleet management, and deep integrations with POS and loyalty for identity, context, and closed-loop outcomes. Yanev shares why the system is designed as an open marketplace, making room for retail media networks, CPG campaigns, and third-party apps like recipes, wellness content, reviews, and even local offers that fit the trip.

The core breakthrough is precision. Instead of spray-and-pray store screens, a dedicated cart display travels with each shopper for about 45 minutes, informed by lists, scans, dwell time, and exact location. That enables real-time triggers, personalized promotions, and full attribution from impression to conversion. Retailers see faster checkout, labor relief, and a new profit engine from in-store retail media and data monetization. Brands gain verified reach at the point of decision. And shoppers get less friction, more relevance, and a smoother path to pay-and-go.

We also dig into the playbook for adoption: pilots with clear KPIs, structured integrations, cross-functional teams, and onsite support to train staff and customers. Beyond grocery, we explore use cases in pharmacy and DIY, plus cross-retail partnerships and digital assortment sold from the cart for home delivery. Looking two years ahead, Yanev outlines a future where stores become the most data-rich, accountable channels in retail—real-time, attributable, and truly shopper-centric.

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The most valuable loyalty program isn’t a points card—it’s a living system that knows each shopper, adapts in real time, and proves it can drive incremental spend. We sit down with Jeff Baskin, Chief Revenue Officer at Eagle Eye, to unpack how unified commerce and true one-to-one personalization are reshaping grocery, convenience, and hospitality. Instead of stitching tools together, Jeff explains how a single platform that connects payments, promotions, loyalty, and engagement unlocks a complete customer view and makes every interaction feel relevant across channels.

Jeff pulls back the curtain on two standout case studies. Giant Eagle combined loyalty with digital promotions to generate hundreds of millions in incremental sales by influencing the next purchase, not just rewarding the last. Tesco’s AI challenges push personalization further: models weigh 190+ decisions per shopper to assign tailored goals and rewards, scaling from 3 million to 10 million customers quickly while guaranteeing measurable uplift. These programs win CPG support because they tie spend to clear ROI, not vague impressions, and they help retailers grow margin by moving shoppers into higher-value behaviors.

We also get practical about the messy middle: data silos, legacy POS programs, and organizational friction. Jeff shares why a consultative approach matters—start with customer outcomes, treat data as a strategic asset, and build a feedback loop that improves with every transaction. We compare Walmart’s tech-driven experience gains with the edge regional grocers can reclaim by pairing human connection with AI-powered relevance. The takeaway is simple: personalization works because it mirrors how people already consume content on Netflix and Instagram. When retailers deliver that level of relevance across store and digital, loyalty stops being a cost and becomes a growth engine.

Subscribe, share with a colleague who cares about loyalty, and tell us: where are your silos, and what would you test first?

Fraud doesn’t just show up as a stolen card anymore—it arrives as coordinated global operations and as “friendly” misuse from customers who otherwise look perfect on paper. We sit down with Arman Najarian, CMO at Sift, to unpack how merchants can block the bad without breaking the checkout flow for everyone else. From account takeovers and identity theft to policy abuse and return gaming, Armin explains why risk isn’t a back‑office metric but a core part of customer experience, where a single false positive can cost a loyal buyer and a long relationship.

We dig into how Sift evaluates identity in real time, returning a risk score in about 200 ms, and why context across a network of merchants beats one‑off signals. It takes a network to fight a network, and that shared view turns fragmented behavior into reliable trust decisions. The conversation moves to agentic commerce—AI agents that can discover, sign up, and transact on our behalf. Convenience is huge, but so are questions: how do we authenticate agents, delegate consent, assign liability, and keep fraudsters from hiding behind machine identities? With card networks, banks, processors, and solution providers racing toward standards, the stakes rise as forecasts point to a leap from billions today to over a trillion dollars in agent‑driven transactions by 2030.

We also explore why Gen Z gets phished more despite digital fluency, the practical limits of self‑sovereign identity in the private sector, and the growing dual threat: organized crime scaling up and first‑party misuse spreading inside customer bases. If you care about conversion, approval rates, and loyalty as much as chargebacks, this is a roadmap for making trust invisible when it should be, and unmistakable when it must be. If this conversation helped you see risk differently, follow, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

If you’ve felt the creep of “good enough” in your marketing, you’re not imagining it. We dig into why plausible outputs are everywhere, how AI accelerates the trend, and what it takes to compete on strategic value when leaders only lean in for metrics tied to money. With Andrew Schulkind of Andigo, we get candid about the gap between process metrics and business metrics, the lure of “ornamentrics,” and the practical steps that reconnect campaigns to revenue, profitability, and customer outcomes.

We start where most frameworks gloss over: defining audience segments through real conversations. Not just with sales and success, but with product teams, long-term customers, and the ones who churned. Those insights expose the pains people actually feel and the outcomes they will pay to achieve. From there, we show how to use both fear and aspiration responsibly: articulate the problem that causes daytime heartburn, paint the future state buyers want, and keep your message grounded in what they value rather than what you want to sell.

Then we turn strategy into motion. You’ll hear a simple nurture cadence built around three core pains and three matching outcomes, each email carrying proof, a useful resource, and a micro-CTA that reveals intent. Track those signals, learn which messages trigger movement, and tie engagement to pipeline and revenue instead of vanity stats. We also talk frankly about when to step on implementation to protect strategic value and how to leverage AI without losing customer proximity.

If you’re ready to trade shiny metrics for meaningful results, this conversation gives you a clear path forward and tools you can use this week. Enjoy the episode, share it with a teammate who’s buried in dashboards, and if it helps you reframe your plan, subscribe and leave a review so others can find it too.