To encourage AI adoption, Bitly's marketing team holds a weekly, low-preparation "How I AI" meeting. Team members share personal AI use cases, fostering a safe learning environment, spreading practical knowledge across roles, and helping overcome the common feeling of imposter syndrome around AI.

A CMO's primary job is not just external promotion but also internal marketing. This involves consistently communicating marketing's vision, progress, and wins to other departments to secure buy-in, resources, and cross-functional collaboration.

To drive AI adoption, CMO Laura Kneebush avoids appointing a single expert and instead makes experimentation "everybody's job." She encourages her team to start by simply playing with AI for personal productivity and hobbies, lowering the barrier to entry and fostering organic learning.

To get honest, ground-truth feedback, the CMO hosts quarterly roundtables with sales reps (AEs, BDRs) without their managers on the call. This forum allows him to ask directly what's working, what's not, and what content is effective, bypassing the typical filters of sales leadership.

At Informatica, the CEO made the CMO solely responsible for the company's entire sales pipeline. This shifts marketing's focus from departmental metrics (like MQLs) to the ultimate business outcome, forcing deep alignment with the CRO and sales organization.

Qualcomm's CMO actively learns by calling peers at companies like Lenovo, Google, and American Eagle to ask about their recent work. This highlights a powerful, underutilized strategy: building a network of fellow executives for direct, candid feedback and learning, leveraging the industry's general willingness to share insights.

The initial conversation between a CMO and CIO about AI should not be about specific tools or governance. Instead, it must focus on establishing a shared vocabulary and a common understanding of AI's value proposition specifically within the context of marketing and revenue operations.

To foster a culture of lifelong learning, SAS's CMO implemented "My Focus Friday" for upskilling. Crucially, she led by example, transparently sharing her own learning goals with her team—like needing to get "into the weeds" on AI search. This vulnerability makes it safe for others to admit gaps and prioritize learning.

To stay current, the marketing team dedicates two hours on 30 Tuesdays a year to a learning forum. Each director owns a theme for the year (e.g., AI, competitive intelligence) and is responsible for programming several sessions, ensuring a constant influx of external ideas and internal cross-pollination.