Emma Chalwin, CMO of Workday, joined us at Pipeline Summit AI to help set the tone for how B2B marketing leaders should be thinking about the rapid shifts we’re navigating in the Age of AI. She also shared what she changes she thinks we need to be preparing ourselves for in 2024 as we head into planning cycles for next year. 

During her conversation with our CEO, Kraig Swensrud, Emma emphasized the significant role of AI in understanding customer requirements and allowing precise targeting. Emma also spent time discussing symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing teams, specifically how the right alignment strategies can make or break your revenue goals. 

For me, if you don't as a marketeer help the organization to create quality pipeline that converts, there really is no business."

––Emma Chalwin, CMO, Workday

Aside from marketing taking a much more prominent seat at the table in B2B in recent years, Emma focused on how much the role of marketing has shifted from throwing creative out into the world to leveraging performance metrics and data as the deciding factors in every channel.

She called this the "Madmen to Mathmen" transition, emphasizing how a successful leader knows how to balance the art and science of marketing. Watch their full conversation below.

The Role of AI in marketing trends

Emma also acknowledged the immense possibilities AI introduces, enabling marketers to predict trends, gather deeper insights, and serve customer needs accurately and efficiently. While the AI boom can still leave some of us feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure where to start, it has already become crystal clear that the advancements made in the last year are helping us better understand our customers and their tech stacks.

But I also see such great opportunities with AI giving us the opportunity to predict, get more insight, for example, with our customer base at Workday leveraging AI really helps me to better understand what products and technology are being leveraged by our customers."

––Emma Chalwin, CMO, Workday

Emma’s perspective really underscored the urgency for CMOs and marketing leaders to address the challenges posed by swiftly changing market trends and have plans in place for navigating them.While AI has the ability to empower executives and customers alike to concentrate on primary tasks, it can also serve as a distraction as we learn what’s truly valuable to our workflows. 

Emma called out that it’s important for CMOs to be able to ride the wave of innovation without losing sight of their pipeline generation goals, and more importantly, future-proofing them. 

As we head into 2024, it's crucial for CMOs and marketing leaders to be ready for what comes next as the hype cycle over AI starts to slow down. Data-driven decision making will still reign supreme, and we'll see how the AI tools that offer the most value trump the flashy, fluffy AI products that flooded the market in 2023.

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