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  1. The Marketing Millennials
  2. The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350
The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials · Sep 19, 2025

Zapier's Head of Enterprise Innovation shares how to correctly integrate AI into marketing, moving beyond simple automation to orchestrated agents.

Build a Personal AI Agent to Filter Internal Company Communications

Overwhelmed by Slack messages and internal documents? Build a Zapier agent connected to your company's knowledge base. Feed it your job description and current projects, and the agent can proactively scan all communications and deliver a weekly summary of only the updates relevant to your specific role.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

Replace Costly SaaS Point Solutions by Building Them in Zapier

Marketers often buy specialized SaaS tools for tasks like lead routing. These are often just a database, workflows, and an AI model, which can be replicated for a fraction of the cost using an orchestration platform like Zapier. This approach provides more control and customization over your marketing stack.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

Use AI to Tee Up Decisions, Not Make Them Autonomously

Marketers mistakenly believe implementing AI means full automation. Instead, design "human-in-the-loop" workflows. Have an AI score a lead and draft an email, but then send that draft to a human for final approval via a Slack message with "approve/reject" buttons. This balances efficiency with critical human oversight.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

Marketers Must Use Their Personal Brand for Rapid Audience Testing

Don't wait for large corporate campaigns to get audience feedback. Marketers should be "religiously" creating content on their personal social channels to micro-test messaging, language, and program ideas. This provides a direct, rapid feedback loop on what the audience actually cares about, enabling content-led innovation.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

Improve AI Prompts by Asking the AI What Information It Needs

Instead of spending time trying to craft the perfect prompt from scratch, provide a basic one and then ask the AI a simple follow-up: "What do you need from me to improve this prompt?" The AI will then list the specific context and details it requires, turning prompt engineering into a simple Q&A session.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

People Managers Will Soon Be Better at Managing AI Than Technical Experts

As AI tools become operable via plain English, the key skill shifts from technical implementation to effective management. People managers excel at providing context, defining roles, giving feedback, and reporting on performance—all crucial for orchestrating a "team" of AI agents. Their skills will become more valuable than pure AI expertise.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago

Use a Second AI Agent to Continuously Improve Your Lead Scoring Model

Don't just set and forget your lead scoring AI. Create a separate, time-based agent that analyzes recent closed-won deals. This "meta-agent" can then identify new success patterns and suggest updates to the primary scoring agent's prompt, ensuring your qualification model evolves with live data.

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350 thumbnail

The Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make with AI (And How to Fix It) with Phil Lakin, Head of Enterprise Innovation at Zapier | Ep. 350

The Marketing Millennials·5 months ago