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The AI Lie: Volume Isn't Revenue
170 Plays27 days ago
Crack open one of the biggest misconceptions in AI-driven marketing: more output does not mean more revenue.
Brendan and Brian sit down with Karla Congson, CEO & CTO of Agentive, to cut through the hype and get real about how AI is actually impacting B2B marketing performance today.
They dig into what real ROI from AI looks like, how to measure it in terms your CFO will care about, and why time savings is only half the story. From pipeline velocity to reducing costly mistakes, this conversation reframes AI as a strategic lever—not just a production tool.
Karla also tackles a few uncomfortable truths:
- Why “AI will replace marketers” is a dangerous myth
- How poor governance creates risk, not speed
- And why over-reliance on AI can quietly erode critical thinking across your team
If you’re a marketing leader trying to scale results without scaling spend, this episode gives you a playbook: use AI to raise your floor, not lower your ceiling.
Because in B2B marketing, volume is easy. Revenue is harder—and that’s where the real work begins.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Carla Kongson, AI Expert and Entrepreneur
00:00:28
Brian O'Grady
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I've got great news. It's another episode of B2B Marketing Pint. You're here for it. Brendan, who are we talking to today?
00:00:39
Brendan Ziolo
It is my great pleasure to introduce Karla Congson who I have met a few years ago at an event here locally. And I was thrilled when she said yes to be on the podcast with us because today's topic is AI and she is An entrepreneur, AI integrated leader, CEO and CTO of Agentive, which is an enterprise AI platform. So she knows her beep.
00:01:06
Brendan Ziolo
i won't I won't curse here on this topic and can't wait to have her dive in. She's basically been involved for a couple of decades now in the...
Carla's Background in Brand Strategy and Digital Transformation
00:01:17
Brendan Ziolo
Brand, strategy, digital transformation areas. So she brings an extensive background, not only in AI, but things that are relevant to our lovely listeners and watchers on the marketing front. She's worked with organizations like Ford, CIBC, Canada Post, Invesco, and many, many others, which I'm sure many of you have heard of some of that. She was also recently named Canada's top one of Canada's top 50 women over 50.
00:01:45
Brendan Ziolo
So that is another kudo and feather in your cap, Karla We're thrilled to have you here and thrilled to have you teach us, share a number of insights around AI, especially as it applied to leadership, marketing and other relevant topics. So welcome, Karla
00:02:01
Karla Congson
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
00:02:05
Brendan Ziolo
All right, so to get the ball rolling as we do on most of these, Karla what are you drinking today?
00:02:12
Karla Congson
So today i am drinking what looks like alcoholic Muppet juice, Elmo Badlands Brewing.
00:02:21
Brendan Ziolo
like Well, there we go. Our first Muppet juice on a podcast episode, Brian.
00:02:27
Brian O'Grady
If anybody out there is going to create a punk band after this episode, I vote for alcoholic Muppet juice.
00:02:36
Brian O'Grady
What you drinking, Brendan?
00:02:38
Brendan Ziolo
I am. I'm probably repeating, but I don't think I've had it on season two yet. I'm having an athletic brewing company, which is one of the best non-alcohol beers that I have come across. It's a great IPA. So look looking forward to enjoying that because it's been a while. I can't always find them.
00:02:56
Brian O'Grady
Seems to be a favorite of yours.
00:02:58
Brendan Ziolo
it It is. This is a good one. And Brian, what are you drinking?
00:03:01
Brian O'Grady
Well, I know we don't want to marry or even know when these particular episodes come out, but it is it is close to a certain time of year. So I would be remiss.
00:03:13
Brendan Ziolo
there we go.
00:03:14
Brian O'Grady
I am im genetically predisposed towards certain things, maybe. And this is one of them. So we're having Guinness today.
00:03:23
Brendan Ziolo
and and knowing Brian, this that special event he's talking about is not a one-day celebration. So this could be any time this month, this year, episode.
00:03:31
Brian O'Grady
It's hard to pack all the celebration of 24 hours.
00:03:36
Brendan Ziolo
All right, can we crack it open?
00:03:37
Brian O'Grady
We can, and mine might foam all over my keyboards. If I disappear, you'll know what's happened.
00:03:42
Brendan Ziolo
Perfect.
00:03:45
Brian O'Grady
There's an art to pouring these, you know,
00:03:48
Brendan Ziolo
All right, there we go.
00:03:52
Brendan Ziolo
All right.
00:03:54
Karla Congson
Love it. You only drink muppet juice straight out of the can, boys.
00:03:55
Brendan Ziolo
Love it. All right. Wow. Clearly, clearly, clearly.
00:03:58
Karla Congson
Yeah.
00:04:00
Brian O'Grady
I have to wait a while.
00:04:00
Brendan Ziolo
Cheers. here's to Here's to a great conversation and a great episode. And while I drink, I'm to let Brian kick it off just as he takes a sip.
00:04:10
Brian O'Grady
Deal. All right.
Financial ROI of AI in Marketing
00:04:13
Brian O'Grady
Let's talk Turkey, business, AI and marketing. Our alleged title for this and we talked about in our preparation for this episode is you've got these cool pillars you talk about for responsible AI, Karla
00:04:27
Brian O'Grady
And i want to ask you about them and I want to ask you about the first and foremost one, least for me. I don't know if it's the one you go you go to first, but you frame responsible AI through a few lenses and one of them is financial, which is close to the hearts of a lot of the audience members, both of them who listen to us regularly.
00:04:46
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:04:47
Brian O'Grady
So for a B2B marketing lead, a person in that kind of position, What is the ROI? What is the financial ROI from AI actually look like right now?
00:04:59
Brian O'Grady
How are you measuring it? There's a there's a thousand different KPIs you could use could be revenue, it could be margin, pipeline velocity, cost control, etc. You know the list. So how should these marketing leaders be evaluating financially whether an AI initiative deserves more investment or they should cut and run and go spend their money somewhere else?
00:05:22
Karla Congson
Great question. And this all comes from the principle that if you can't measure it, you can't defend the budget when times get tough, right? and And right now, every CFO is scrutinizing every marketing spend. So you better have some good, cold, hard numbers when you start talking about AI. But the story isn't really black and white. It's not necessarily sales lift or sales growth because AI touches a lot of what we do as marketers. So when you think about ROI from AI a B2B marketing tools, you need to consider a few things. One might be time recaptured that translates into strategic capacity. Now that's a qualitative and a quantitative number, right? But think about it this way. If your team reclaims eight to 10 hours per week from routine content production or email responses or data synthesis, what's the dollar value? What's eight to 10 hours if you have 25 people? That could be five FTEs a week. So at $100,000 a pop, that could be half a million dollars, right? And it's not just a salary cost, but you also have to look at what they can do with that time. Can they run two more strategic campaigns quarterly and the lift from those campaigns? Are they able to develop deeper customer insights? Are they able to build stronger client relationships? That full picture is actually a real ROI.
00:06:44
Karla Congson
The other thing to think about when you think about that measurement is pipeline velocity acceleration. Now that's a mouthful. So we've seen marketing teams cut campaign planning cycles by using AI for research, for competitive analysis, initial creative development you know by 3x, right?
00:07:02
Karla Congson
So rather than taking two months to develop a campaign, they might be able to go through that whole sales cycle within about three weeks.
00:07:09
Brian O'Grady
Thank
00:07:10
Karla Congson
And so if you can compound that accelerated activity and have more velocity, that can have a real impact on your sales. How about consistent quality at scale?
00:07:20
Karla Congson
Here's an ROI figure that nobody talks about is is reducing the cost of mistakes. What's the cost when you go out there with a campaign that you've rushed but didn't actually deliver the initial numbers? When junior team members use AI trained on your brand guidelines, best practices, rules, you get fewer of those off-brand campaigns and fewer compliance issues, fewer expensive revisions. And you could calculate what brand inconsistency or regular missteps can actually cost you when you look at your history. That's defensive ROI, if you would. And so getting down to brass tacks, if you want to evaluate AI initiatives, you want to ask three questions. First, is adoption actually happening? Right? Because you can you can assess that ROI, but are people actually using it? and And it's not, did we buy the tool and did we implement it? That's just tactics, right? Is the team using it? Are you seeing 60% adoption? Are you seeing time savings by person? And are are you investing in the right things?
00:08:20
Karla Congson
Second, can you measure the time savings or output quality improvements? Have you put in measures where you can look at that? you know, a speed to market, et cetera. And then the third is, are are you actually seeing capacity for strategic work or are you just making the busy work faster, right? Like, so if you're just producing more, that's not an ROI figure. it You might just be making more noise. But is your senior strategist spending 60% of their time previously in execution? And that's now flipped where they're spending 80% of their time on hard strategy that's that's really focusing on the on the the thinking that you're paying for. Those are are the real wins.
00:09:04
Brian O'Grady
I love it. There's a lot of food for thought there. think my favorite is, and I've always, always thought about the time saved in the AI argument as financials. I guess I should have occurred to me, but didn't is, well, what else is happening then when with that time you saved, are you doing something else wonderful and worthwhile?
00:09:21
Brian O'Grady
Cause that's a double whammy. If you are, it's not just the savings, it's the doubling down. Cool.
00:09:26
Karla Congson
100%. that's actually in our in our tagline, right? Like it's time saved, but also time scaled. And and that's really what to think about is is if you had more of that more valuable time, how are you moving your business forward?
00:09:40
Brian O'Grady
I love it. Brendan, what do you got?
00:09:43
Brendan Ziolo
Well, I wanted to pick up, you gave us a number of good examples or great examples there from you know the brands, mistakes or inconsistencies, as you pointed out. You talked a bit about the research, content creation. You gave us a number of examples where AI can help.
00:09:59
Brendan Ziolo
Is there any of those where you're seeing A I do better or create real lift or something that you know real improvement there and then maybe flipping that around is there some area of marketing that you're seeing people.
00:10:13
Brendan Ziolo
Use a I for and that's just it's noise it's not really helping in the big scheme of things are not doing as well as as the others.
00:10:21
Karla Congson
For sure, for
AI's Impact on Task Reduction and Strategic Enhancement
00:10:22
Karla Congson
sure. so So there's some easy wins and and that's what we we hear a lot of people talk about, which is producing more, right? But if you dig down, there's actually more interesting areas rather than just content volume. and And content volume often comes synonymous with like AI slop that's out there, right? Like it's more isn't actually better. i i The big gains that I'm actually seeing is is reducing the boring, or repetitive work that nobody really wants to do. i kind of challenge people when I want to come in and speak is I guarantee if you're working in in a corporate world, 30 to 40% of what you do, you didn't jump out of bed to do. It's like, I don't get to do expense reports or... I don't get to revise that work back schedule for the 40th time, right? Because someone couldn't make a date. So when we take a look at some of the things that are repetitive, it might not actually just be tactical. So massive wins include things like research and competitive intelligence, right? Where you're paying a junior analyst and it might take them you know five days or or you know even a couple of weeks. to go out, do a search, synthesize competitive positioning, market trends, customer sentiment. Now you can actually do that in a few hours first with deep research AI. This is real and measurable and is happening right now. Second, which we're seeing a lot in in many agencies and marketing groups is content variation and localization, right? Like, so you would hire a great creative director to come up with a concept and, you know, something that only human can really get to that fine nuance, but then you got to atomize it.
00:11:53
Karla Congson
So you have to create 12 email variations and 15 social posts and, you know, 17 cut downs that particular idea. So AI can take a great human led big idea and then begin to atomize it into dozens, if not hundreds of A, B testing opportunity. So really looking anywhere where you might have high value volume, like pattern based work with quality standards, you can apply ai to do that. But there are areas where there definitely is noise, where there's more hype than actual reality.
Importance of AI Governance
00:12:27
Karla Congson
So like I said in the beginning, AI slop, right? Using AI to just produce more when you should actually be producing better. You know, you can create 10x more content, but people won't see them if they're not good, if they don't have that creative nuance, that insight that's actually going to connect with your customer. the The problem isn't about producing more volume. It's about strategic insight, right? More noise. doesn't actually equal more impact for marketers.
00:12:55
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, that's that's a great point. And the repetitive tasks, I think, definitely touches back on what you were talking about from an ROI perspective or earlier. And yeah, i can I can think back early in my career to the the lovely things I was asked to do that I had to jump at because they were so exciting.
00:13:14
Brendan Ziolo
But that's that's very good.
00:13:14
Brian O'Grady
What is it? This is a time reporting timesheets or TPS reports or something like that.
00:13:18
Brendan Ziolo
Yes. Yes, exactly.
00:13:20
Brian O'Grady
Okay. Well, let's
00:13:21
Karla Congson
That's where muppet juice can make that more exciting.
00:13:24
Brendan Ziolo
That's true. That's true. I did drink more back then. So maybe that's why the repetitive tasks. We'll blame that.
00:13:29
Brian O'Grady
that could be a whole other episode. Yeah. There's an episode in that for sure. Okay. Well, I can stay away from that because, For my personality type, this is kind of a repetitive task because i want to I want to bring up what I consider a dirty word, which I think is another one of the pillars of your philosophy, Karla
00:13:49
Brian O'Grady
And it's a word that really doesn't make me jump out of bed in the morning, to your point. And that word is governance. I don't know too many people who are like, yay, I get to do compliance and governance today.
00:13:59
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:14:00
Brian O'Grady
What a good time.
00:14:01
Karla Congson
Except for the compliance officer, they actually do. So, yeah.
00:14:04
Brian O'Grady
And those people don't get invited to parties, right?
00:14:07
Brendan Ziolo
you.
00:14:08
Brian O'Grady
But I'm not saying they're not important.
00:14:08
Karla Congson
no
00:14:10
Brian O'Grady
I'm not saying they're not valuable. I'm saying that's just not a good time. So what's the governance pillar here with with AI? If everybody's eyes glaze over at a marketing meeting, when we bring up the word governance and all of my advertising peers out there, i'm going to say GDPR and they're going to run screaming from the room.
00:14:28
Brian O'Grady
They get it and I've experienced it. You've experienced it
00:14:31
Brendan Ziolo
right.
00:14:31
Brian O'Grady
why should frontline marketers care about governance in an AI situation? Or is that just a corner office issue and the the junior folks can let let the people in the corner offices worry about that?
00:14:43
Karla Congson
that That's an amazing question and I'm i'm glad you brought up the G word, right? So you guys, do you guys like fast cars? Have you ever been, have you ever watched NASCAR? Is that kind of fun?
00:14:54
Karla Congson
So maybe, maybe not, but so when you think about race car driving and I'm going somewhere with this, the best race car drivers are actually the guys that have the best brakes and know how to use them, right?
00:15:06
Karla Congson
Think about that for a second. And so when I talk about ai and governance, the the philosophy that I talk to a lot of companies and boards about is you have to go slow to go fast.
00:15:19
Karla Congson
And when you look at AI, one of the big risks is weaponized enthusiasm, which is running with scissors really, really fast. and then not actually understanding the risks that you're taking.
00:15:29
Brian O'Grady
Can I use that? Nice enthusiasm.
00:15:34
Karla Congson
Right. So it's the guardrails that actually let you move fast really quickly. And so when your company is clear, AI governance, so that could be approved tools that could be what data do you put in?
00:15:57
Karla Congson
in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Australia for work that, you know, apparently the citations weren't real because they were AI created, right?
00:16:07
Karla Congson
So once you have these rules in place, you can experiment really boldly because you know the boundaries, you know what you can and can't do, you know where the potential risk points are and how far you can take it.
00:16:08
Brian O'Grady
Thank you.
00:16:18
Karla Congson
And you can move quickly because you're not constantly second guessing whether you're about to make a career ending mistake, right? And when you do something that breaks something, there there isn't a control alt delete button.
00:16:30
Karla Congson
When PII or your data goes out in there in the wild, or you get hacked, the the system essentially stops much like cyber hacking.
00:16:40
Karla Congson
And in fact, in in the most recent Davos initiative earlier this year, one of the biggest risks that organizations that identified was data leaks.
00:16:51
Karla Congson
That's a huge priority in AI and AI fraud. So without governance, you can have some pretty terrible outcomes, right? Teams get paralyzed. They get afraid to use AI because they don't know what's allowed, right? And they're always second guessing what they can put in and they're using it at you know the smallest possible way of very safe stuff. Summarize my email, right? Summarize my email did not transfer companies. Or at the other side, weaponized enthusiasm is Teams Cowboy.
00:17:16
Karla Congson
They're using whatever tools they have. There's a thing called shadow AI now where the reality is in a lot of organizations, 30% of people come in using outside AI that they didn't tell their managers using right on your phones, because we all have our phones, we all have our laptops, and they might be taking screenshots or uploading information that should never have any business being uploaded into AI that doesn't have the protocols or goes into training data.
00:17:42
Karla Congson
Good governance should feel like this. Here's the approved AI tools, which has been vetted, which are safe, which have the security protocols that it it is reducing cybersecurity or fraud risks. Here's what data you can use and can't use when you upload and use these tools. And here's how to make sure the outputs that you got out are actually real and and but before you publish it.
00:18:06
Karla Congson
Those aren't constraining, but those are clear guardrails of how you can use these tools to the utmost possibility.
00:18:15
Brian O'Grady
Damn, I think you might have just made governance cool. and didn't think I didn't think that was an option.
00:18:21
Karla Congson
Making governance sexy again, man. Yeah, that's that's what we're after.
00:18:23
Brendan Ziolo
There we go.
00:18:23
Brian O'Grady
Wow. I do have an anecdote related to your comments. I thought, where are we going with the brakes and going faster? I have gotten my hands on electric vehicle vehicle occasionally, and I did have to learn almost the hard way that if you want to get where you're going long distance in an EV, you get there faster by going slower and reducing your energy consumption so you don't have to charge and stop and charge. So they thought, wow, that's that's a perfect analogy for what you're talking about.
00:18:52
Brian O'Grady
You heard it here first. Karla has made governance interesting again.
00:18:58
Brendan Ziolo
and And if not, she's got Muppet juice for the for the meeting.
00:19:02
Karla Congson
Muppet just makes everything okay.
00:19:03
Brendan Ziolo
Win win. win All right, well I'm going to take us out of governance as exciting and sexy as Carla made it sound and talk about people for a
Strategic Use of AI in Marketing
00:19:12
Brendan Ziolo
second. So with AI everywhere and marketers exploring ways to use it, some marketers using it more than others, there's the risk that, you know, it could make great marketers or even good marketers lazier.
00:19:28
Brendan Ziolo
They stop putting in the critical thinking. They stop you know working through the strategies they just start producing more as you referenced earlier on so do you have any advice for marketing leaders on you know how you can prevent their a players from maybe falling into the trap of oh i can just produce you know 10 blog posts i don't need to worry about the strategy behind it or i can you know skip my research on competitors and just get ai to output a report or whatever the ones could be you've given lots of examples but what are some of the advice for leaders so that you know people use it uh and don't get lazy but use it properly use it to be better use it to produce better uh and get better results
00:20:14
Karla Congson
You've just s nailed it. the reality is today over the last a couple of years, we have inherited the most seductive easy button in the history of mankind.
00:20:23
Brian O'Grady
Thank you.
00:20:26
Karla Congson
Right. And it is as far away as your phone. I love it.
00:20:30
Brendan Ziolo
I'm sorry.
00:20:31
Karla Congson
Yes. Yes. An AI version of that, right? And there's a term that's going around, and the term is cognitive atrophy or cognitive up offloading, right? And next to governance and cybersecurity and and you know data leaks and all that, that's actually a hidden and significant risk that we all face as business owners, as marketers, et cetera. I always joke when people ask me, you know, how much time do you have? As an entrepreneur, i have minus 20 minutes available in a given week, right? I have lost the fight with my inbox fully. I'm shuffling things around. I'm triple booked on Thursday. i don't have enough time.
00:21:11
Karla Congson
And increasingly, that's the reality of B2B marketers and and people in small marketing organizations. And there's so much pressure because our reality is people are asking for more. And, you know the you know, the easy button that we just inherited lets you do stuff faster. And your boss is saying, hey, you got AI? Like you could do twice the amount of things in in the next five days, right? And we have cognitive overload.
00:21:35
Karla Congson
So before AI, if you wanted to launch a campaign, you had to think about the positioning, the messaging, execution was expensive. But that friction was was actually how we learned and how we got better. And and now... We were experimenting with Lovable. I was was meeting with my business partner and he was able to reframe our entire site with much more advanced interactions in five hours.
00:22:00
Karla Congson
Right. whereas I don't eight years ago, would have hired a a web company, paid them $50,000 to get that that similar in output, and it would probably have taken two to three months. He was able to do it in five hours with lovable. So that's the reality of things are are getting truncated. And so what you're beginning to see is people, particularly juniors, developing output that's actually ahead of their skis and their capability.
00:22:29
Karla Congson
And they're not able to assess it as quality because they just haven't learned how to do that. Like they might not have learned what a SWOT analysis or or how to create a projection, but dang, like Claude was able to put it out and it was pretty convincing that the output was correct until it's not right. And so as as as a leader, a couple of things that you need to think about is you have to separate strategic ideation from the execution timeframes. Just because AI can execute in hours doesn't mean your strategic thinking should compress, right? So you might have saved, you know, whatever, 20 hours doing the research and it gets shorter. That doesn't mean that you should compress the the thinking time, the elevation time, the judgment time to an equal degree.
00:23:17
Karla Congson
It's actually giving you more time and sort of better cognitive bandwidth to do that better, right? You need to maintain that deliberate thinking time, use AI to execute faster, but don't let speed compress the strategic thinking that actually makes the work better and more meaningful. That's where human judgment and the quality of human contribution becomes really critical. The second is implement a critical review step before you publish anything that is AI assisted, right?
00:23:47
Karla Congson
Ask yourself, would you be proud of that work? Does it represent the best of your strategic or your creative thinking? Or am I accepting good enough because it was easy and I have 10 other things to do, right? like So that is just a quick spot check. Third, use AI to raise your floor, not lower your ceiling. AI should make your mediocre work better, but your great work should still be human-driven, strategic thinking that AI enhances and doesn't replace, right? If your best work and your AI's first output are indistinguishable, you haven't tried hard enough, right? You have pushed that easy button and then you've hit copy and paste and sent out that board presentation or that creative presentation. Fourth, create some internal quality standards that AI helps you exceed and and not just get you to, you know, fine, right? Don't let what AI can do quickly become your new standard. Let's make what humans can do to make that thing an A plus the standard.
00:24:47
Karla Congson
So the big danger that we face is like what what you what you talked about, Brennan, right? AI could create a generation of marketers who are tactically good, but strategically shallow because we stopped mentoring them. We stopped, you know, creating sort of that apprenticeship process where human tries, we elevate them and they learn by doing right. And to prevent this requires deliberate and conscious choice from leaders. Use your AI for execution where, you know, you can get more more tactical content faster, but double down on the thinking part because that's where we as humans excel.
00:25:25
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, there was a lot to take in there and a lot a lot of great advice. But one of the things I loved at the very start was you mentioned the the idea of friction. And one of our recent guests who was a behavioral scientist also talked about friction because there's always that thinking that, you know, make the sign up as easy as possible, reduce steps, reduce fields, reduce buttons, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes adding friction helps get better results, right? And you're kind of using the same thing here on the AI front that, you know, instead of going to AI and asking for these three things, maybe there's a bit of friction, maybe there's some reviews, maybe there's some other steps in there to make sure you're getting better results. And in our other guests analogy, it was better conversion rates. But, you know, I was always a big, you know, less is more, but
00:26:13
Brendan Ziolo
sometimes friction in the right pot spot is great. So yeah, it was it was interesting you you you brought that concept in in a totally different area as well.
00:26:21
Karla Congson
Yeah, think about the times where we made our biggest jump, right? Where we learned the big the the most important things. There was actually friction in that because it was hard. Like you didn't just inject it into your head.
00:26:32
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:26:34
Karla Congson
Like you learned through debate, through sitting down, pushing like the quality a little bit further, like, you know, embrace the friction in your life. Like let AI reduce friction in some places.
00:26:45
Karla Congson
But it it can those moments where you're actually thinking is where you're growing.
00:26:52
Brian O'Grady
I'm going to to go home and think about everything you just said for the last 10 minutes.
00:26:56
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, and we're gonna have to put some friction between you and that easy button, Brian.
00:26:56
Brian O'Grady
but
00:26:59
Brian O'Grady
That's right. Oh, yeah. For anyone who doesn't who's just listening on audio and isn't looking at Carlos reacting. the fact, i actually have an easy button. I don't know why that's true, but I still got a Staples easy button from 15 years ago. And press it as often as possible.
00:27:15
Karla Congson
Thank you.
00:27:15
Brian O'Grady
Karla the part of your response that resonated with me when you said was when you said raise your floor, don't lower your ceiling. And that really spoke to me and our experience with AI at our agency because we initially struggled with AI because we were asking it to perform at the level of a players for what they're best at.
00:27:36
Brian O'Grady
And instead, when we switched and we asked AI to do things that you're weak at, that people are weak at, well, that raised... raise the game instantly for whatever you're weak at from wherever whatever letter grade you want to give it a d a c a b minus to all of a sudden we we're at the b or b plus level for things people were weak at so that really resonated with me raising the floor don't lower the ceiling all right are we ready
00:28:04
Brendan Ziolo
Let's bring it home. Let's bring it home, Brian. I know we could keep going probably for the next five hours with Karla but, but yeah, we were, we're getting to that point where we won't be a pint sized podcast anymore.
00:28:09
Brian O'Grady
yeah i think we're just scratching the surface
00:28:16
Brendan Ziolo
So, so bring it home.
00:28:17
Brian O'Grady
Fair enough. Fair enough. Are you ready, Carla? Because there's a concluding question that everybody on B2B Marketing Pint has to go through, and this is your moment.
00:28:27
Brian O'Grady
Are you ready for it?
00:28:29
Karla Congson
Think so?
00:28:30
Brian O'Grady
Okay. no Don't worry.
00:28:32
Brian O'Grady
i don't but Based on what you've already handled, this will not be a big deal for you, but here it goes. There are myths out there. There are truths and there are realities, and there's a lot of baloney.
00:28:42
Brian O'Grady
So... In your experience, what's the biggest AI myth you hear from marketing leaders right now?
Debunking Myths about AI
00:28:51
Brian O'Grady
And what's the reality that we should probably all understand before we waste a whole lot of money?
00:28:59
Karla Congson
So I'll talk to two. One is that AI is a tool, right? And the opportunity is choosing the best tool or the best model or whatever, right? And the second big myth is that we're going to be able to reduce headcount. And that's the solve, right? So let's unpack both of these, starting with the first one. There's a ton of news about out there right now. So the the gentleman, the CEO of Block, which owns Square, just announced to a couple of a few weeks ago that they're laying off 40% of their staff because they you know AI has replaced them and they've done all their things internally. And when there's a couple of studies by the World Economic Federation and McKinsey and others, where something between 35 and 40% of business leaders think that they can reduce staff because of AI. So job displacement is on all all of our minds, right? The reality is 2025, Despite all the announcements and all the layoffs, only 1% were actually directly attributable attributable to AI-driven productivity. 1%, despite all the you know thousands and the numbers that were out there. so
00:30:16
Karla Congson
organizations that think with all this efficiency, all this productivity, i am going to cut half my staff and I'm going to grow my business. That's a myth, right? Because humans and talent are continued to be important. And the reality is, AI is changing every facet of everything that we do. If you touch a computer, If your business uses computers, your business will need to transform full stop. Pandora is out of the box. If you run your business the way you are running now and you don't change it, you will be out of business in five years because industries, technology, everything is changing. Rashad Tabakawala has a blog and i love I love how he positions it, which is the companies of the future will not fit in the containers of the past. And if we're making that container smaller by reducing headcount, we're actually stopping ourselves from that future transformation, which will give us longevity. So the first myth that I want to debunk is AI will handle all of our marketing or most of our marketing so we can reduce the headcount by 40%. Sure, but you will be out of business if you if you do that, right? Like you need to look at transformation and how do you elevate your people? How do you augment your people? And how do you actually sell more and take advantage of every opportunity that you've left on the table by augmenting them with AI? So myth number one. Myth number two is it's all about the tools. We just need better AI tools that'll solve all of our problems. AI is as much about people as it is about technology.
00:31:50
Karla Congson
and The group, the organization that buys the best models, the best tools will not be the one that wins. It will be the organization that figures out those tools. And it might not be the best ones. It might be the second or third best ones, but figure out how to integrate it into the messy, messy world of humans and human workflow.
00:32:09
Karla Congson
and they're redesigning those workflows. BCG has a great formula, which is 10-20-70. And the concept behind that is if you're going to invest, spend 10% of your investment getting your data figured out and fixed, like make sure your data is is set up properly. 20% on the tools and the technology and infrastructure and governance and safety. And then 70% redesigning your processes, your workflow, your training up your people, upskilling them and helping them embrace this and shift what they do to transform your organization. So really, those are the two key areas that I would encourage people to understand in order to make the most of this opportunity, which is is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
00:32:57
Brian O'Grady
Wow, it's pretty good. That's amazing. So don't fire everybody. That was part one. And part two was, it's not about the tools. It's about the people.
00:33:08
Karla Congson
100%. You were listening. That's awesome.
00:33:10
Brian O'Grady
I'm an active listener, Karla Wow. Brendan, do you want to bring us home?
00:33:17
Brendan Ziolo
Sure. I mean, that was that was awesome, Karla And yeah, i was joking when I said we could keep this going for five hours because I'm sure we could. But we do want to keep our podcasts at least reasonable drive for most people or a reasonable commute or however you're listening to this. So thank you very much, Karla It's been a pleasure to connect again.
00:33:37
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you so much for taking the time to share all your insights with our audience. I'm sure everyone learned a lot. And I'm sure they'll learn more as they continue to explore AI, both in what you do and others as well.
00:33:50
Karla Congson
Thanks so much. was a pleasure being part of your your podcast.
00:33:54
Brendan Ziolo
All right.
00:33:54
Brian O'Grady
Yeah, thank
00:33:54
Brendan Ziolo
Cheers, everyone.
00:33:57
Karla Congson
Cheers.
00:33:58
Brian O'Grady
you.