The Marketing & AI Podcast: The MAP

Hal Kimber

‘The Marketing and AI Podcast: 'The MAP’ will help marketers navigate the new World driven by Artificial Intelligence. We believe AI will liberate marketers from time-consuming drudgery, freeing us to focus on the inspirational strategic and creative work that matters. In 'The MAP,' we’ll talk with senior marketers already working with AI, to explore how it is transforming their work, their roles and their lives. Because together, as a marketing community, we’ve got this.

  1. 2d ago

    AI and the Dark Funnel: The New Reality of B2B Lead Generation

    How is AI transforming traditional B2B marketing?Around 80% of B2B buyers now complete much of their decision-making before contacting a business. In this new world of “dark funnels”, the tried-and-tested tactics of lead generation and scoring, gated white papers and product demos are being disrupted by AI-led recommendations, peer research and signals that are increasingly difficult to track. So how should businesses respond? And how do marketers take ownership of these changes while ensuring their board reporting inspires confidence from the C-suite rather than difficult questions they can’t answer? In this episode of The Podcast: , Hal Kimber speaks to Caroline Hodson, Founder and CEO of Woolf Hodson — a marketing agency focused on building the operational and technological foundations that enable effective marketing. In a fascinating conversation, Caroline explores how B2B marketing needs to evolve for an AI-first world, including: • Why traditional linear lead scoring is giving way to signal-based models • Why hiding your best thinking behind a form could make it invisible to AI • How marketers can reconnect anonymous “dark funnel” activity with known contacts and accounts • Why clean, unified data is becoming fundamental to effective marketing • How AI can help marketers interrogate performance — but why human judgement remains essential • What marketing reports need to show if they are going to withstand scrutiny from CEOs and CFOs And perhaps most importantly, Caroline explains why marketing needs to stop reporting activity for activity’s sake and build a direct line between business goals, marketing objectives, KPIs and the campaigns designed to deliver them. Follow and contact Caroline: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-hodson-88425719/ Email: caroline.hodson@woolfhodson.com

  2. Aug 4

    From Pilot Pain to P&L Impact: The AI Transformation Playbook

    How can you take AI from pilot experimentation to lasting P&L impact?On this episode of The Marketing and AI Podcast, Hal Kimber and Nick Darby sit down with enterprise transformation specialist Scott Robertson to dismantle the industry hype and focus on what actually drives bottom-line P&L impact. Over his career, Scott has led transformation portfolios of up to £200m and, more importantly, delivered benefits scaling beyond £100m a year. Unlike many consultants in this space, he’s also held senior operational roles with direct trading accountability—giving him a commercial grounding that shapes his work: pragmatic, outcome-led, and focused on decisions and execution rather than theory alone. Scott has been using machine learning, predictive analytics, and AI operationally for nearly a decade, recently completed the AI-Driven Business Transformation programme at Oxford Saïd Business School, and is the creator of the newly launched online AI Transformation Playbook. In this episode, we discuss: Digital Transformation 2.0: Why AI fails on top of chaotic data, and how Superdry fixed inventory accuracy to cut excess stock by 40%.High-ROI Unsexy Wins: How £1.5m athleisure brand JLuxe connects Claude to Shopify to run enterprise-level merchandising without adding headcount.Getting It Right First Time: Actionable steps senior leaders can execute this month to get real ROI out of their AI investments.Links & Resources: Scott Robertson's AI Transformation Playbook: transformationplaybook.aiLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsonsm/

  3. Jun 2

    PR in the Age of AI Search - who owns your narrative now?

    PR used to shape what humans read. Is it now about shaping what AI LLMs summarise? In this episode, we speak to Jackson Wightman, founder of Proper Propaganda, about one of the biggest shifts happening in marketing today: the rise of AI search. By mid-2025, Jackson noticed that AI search engines were becoming a key discovery channel for both his clients and his own agency. Rather than simply advising clients on Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), he decided to put his own business to the test first. The results were striking. After developing a GEO framework and systematically optimising Proper Propaganda's visibility across AI search platforms, the agency saw a 5x increase in inbound leads. In this fascinating conversation, Jackson shares what worked, what surprised him, and why PR may be entering a new era where success is measured not by share of voice, but by share of answer. We discuss: Why AI search is changing the role of PRHow consumers are using AI throughout the buying journeyWhy different AI models require different optimisation approachesThe growing importance of Reddit, Wikipedia and earned mediaWhy AI bots may have become a new customer segmentThe shift from share of voice to share of answerWhat marketers should actually be measuring in the age of AI searchYou can discover more about Jackson and his work below: Website: https://properpropaganda.net/ Email: jackson@properpropaganda.net LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proper-propaganda/ Substack: https://jacksonwightman.substack.com/

  4. Mar 9

    2026: Agentic Commerce is Happening Now

    More than 35% of product discovery is already happening inside AI-driven search experiences rather than on retailer websites. In this episode of The MAP, Hal Kimber and Nick Darby speak with Raj Balasundaram, Founder and CEO of Bayezon AI, about what this shift means for marketers, retailers, and the future of e-commerce. Hal first heard Raj speak at the Digital Leaders Summit, where he described the rise of agentic commerce — a world where AI agents increasingly sit between customers and brands. Instead of browsing product pages and comparing websites, customers can now describe what they want to AI assistants. The AI understands intent, evaluates options, and presents answers instantly. In the conversation, Hal, Nick, and Raj explore: • Why intent-first shopping could replace traditional product search • Why AI interfaces are becoming a major new product discovery channel • How retailers may need to build dynamic, AI-driven store experiences • Why brands must start architecting their systems for AI agents — not just humans • How removing friction from the buying journey could reshape e-commerce Raj argues that this shift is not a distant future scenario. Consumer behaviour is already changing — and brands that fail to adapt risk disappearing from the buying journey entirely. For marketers and e-commerce leaders, the question becomes: If AI agents increasingly guide the buying journey, how do brands remain visible, trusted, and chosen? About the Guest Raj Balasundaram is Founder and CEO of Bayezon AI, which recently launched what it describes as the world’s first agentic commerce platform, designed to help retailers and brands interact with AI agents and deliver more personalised, frictionless commerce experiences. https://www.bayezon.ai/

About

‘The Marketing and AI Podcast: 'The MAP’ will help marketers navigate the new World driven by Artificial Intelligence. We believe AI will liberate marketers from time-consuming drudgery, freeing us to focus on the inspirational strategic and creative work that matters. In 'The MAP,' we’ll talk with senior marketers already working with AI, to explore how it is transforming their work, their roles and their lives. Because together, as a marketing community, we’ve got this.

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