The Marketing & AI Podcast: The MAP

Hal Kimber
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  • Marketing
  • Biweekly

‘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. 1d ago

    Getting Started with Agentic AI? Be Careful What You Wish For...

    What happens when an AI agent does exactly what you've asked it to do – but the outcome is unintentionally negative? In this episode of The Marketing & AI Podcast: The MAP, Hal Kimber and Nick Darby are joined by David Floyd, an experienced technology and value creation leader whose career has spanned NASA, government, global consumer brands and investment firm Permira. David describes autonomous AI agents as potentially becoming “perfect corporate sociopaths” – extraordinarily efficient at pursuing their objectives, but without the human judgement, hesitation or moral constraints that might prevent unintended consequences. At the heart of the conversation is Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. From NHS waiting times and corporate KPIs to AI agents finding ingenious ways to beat supposedly impossible tests, we explore why poorly defined business objectives can create perverse incentives – and why agentic AI could amplify the problem. We discuss: Goodhart's Law in action: How well-intentioned targets can drive entirely the wrong behaviours.The leadership challenge: Why businesses struggle to define meaningful objectives and measure genuine value.The risks of agentic AI: What happens when autonomous agents pursue targets relentlessly, without fully understanding the consequences.Governance and accountability: Who is responsible when an AI agent makes a costly mistake?Five practical principles: David's toolkit for setting better objectives, stress-testing incentives and introducing appropriate guardrails.Beyond faster and cheaper: Why the greatest opportunity from AI may lie in creating better products, services and customer experiences – rather than simply cutting costs.David argues that businesses need to draw on decades of established thinking from Operational Research, economics and management rather than reinventing the wheel for AI. The big question: If your AI agent hits its target next quarter, how will you know whether it actually created value? LinksConnect with David Floyd on LinkedInRead David's article: Goodhart's Law at Machine Speed

  2. Oct 2

    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

  3. Sep 3

    The 7 Communication Superpowers that AI Cannot Automate

    AI is accelerating the work. It cannot replace the human behind it.In this episode Hal Kimber speaks to Alan Boyer - a former CMO and senior marketing executive at AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Equifax, before crossing over to become an Educator - both as a management professor and curriculum architect Alan has recently been focussed on looking at how humans need to equip themselves for the AI era and is here to tell us about his new book “ The 7 Communication Superpowers That AI Cannot Automate — the #1 New Release in Business School Guides on Amazon” Tasks that once required analysis, coordination, writing, and problem-solving can now be completed in seconds. Execution is cheap. What remains — and what becomes more valuable than ever — is everything AI cannot automate: the ability to think clearly under pressure, read signals others miss, govern intelligent systems responsibly, stay steady as conditions shift, and move people toward shared understanding. These are not soft skills. They are not personality traits. They are structured human capabilities — and in an AI-accelerated world, they determine who leads and who plateaus. Follow Alan here: Buy the book here

  4. 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/

  5. Jun 16

    AI in the Engine Room — How Is AI Impacting Business Operations?

    IKEA didn't use AI to cut headcount. It used AI to unlock €1.3 billion in new revenue. So why are so many businesses still getting this wrong? In this episode, Hal and Nick are joined by Guy Meisl, Operations Director at Radley, to ask some uncomfortable questions about AI's impact in the real engine room of business: operations, logistics, and supply chain. Why did Uber burn through its entire 2026 AI budget in just four months — and what does that tell us about the hidden cost of AI at scale? Why, despite decades of digital transformation, is the spreadsheet still the bedrock of demand planning and logistics? And what can Starbucks' decision to scrap its AI stock-counting system after nine months teach every business leader about the gap between the promise and the reality? Plus: Nick hears back his own case study from his work at Unilever on ice cream as a best practice example of using AI for demand planning! Guy Meisl is Operations Director at Radley and can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guymeisl/

  6. 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/

  7. Apr 27

    Beyond AI slop: making content that builds brands, businesses and careers

    How do you take your AI skills to Expert Level?In this episode we speak to Charlie Hills, a London-based entrepreneur who left his 9-to-5 in September 2024 to become a full-time AI-focussed creator. Today Charlie's LinkedIn posts, his Substack and now YouTube channel on using AI for content creation have become the gold standard for those seeking to build their brands, their businesses and their careers. He runs Linked Agency (a LinkedIn-focused content agency), The AI Creators Club (a paid community offering AI-powered LinkedIn growth systems and live coaching), and Vislo (an AI-powered infographic and carousel design tool). Using his AI skills Charlie has grown his LinkedIn following from 0 to 218k+ in roughly two years, and his AI infographics have generated over 7.5 million impressions. In addition he has a Substack newsletter with over 50,000 followers, His Instagram has over 70,000 followers and has just launched his YouTube channel. Charlie's mastery of AI and willingness to share how he does it is truly inspiring - are you ready to build your AI brain? Follow Charlie here: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlie-hills Substack: Martech AI newsletter

  8. Mar 31

    Navigating Organisational Change in the Age of AI: Trust, Bias and Leadership

    The Human Challenge of AI TransformationSuccessful AI adoption is not just a technology challenge — it is a human one too, shaped by culture, diversity of perspective, governance and trust. In this episode, Deepak Patel joins us to discuss the human responsibilities that come with AI transformation. Deepak is an experienced transformation leader and Managing Director of DSP Consulting Ltd, and has previously held senior roles at Deutsche Bank, Nomura and Hitachi. We explore how AI can amplify an organisation’s institutional knowledge and strengths, but also how, when implemented poorly, it can reinforce narrow thinking, weaken culture and disengage employees — scaling existing problems rather than solving them. Connect with Deepak on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepakpatel2/

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‘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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