The AI Marketing Companion

Bots are clicking your ads, and AI is making buying decisions you never approved. How do you benefit from AI agents without losing control of your ad budget? In this episode of The AI Marketing Companion, Sandy Carter talks with Brad Wardell, founder and CEO of Stardock and creator of Clairvoyance AI, about bot traffic, click fraud and what happens when Google, Microsoft and Meta turn AI-run ad buying on by default. Brad explains how bots differ from agents, why suspicious clicks deserve a closer look, and where marketers should keep a human in the loop. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN - The difference between AI bots and AI agents - How bot traffic wastes ad budgets, and how to spot it - How agents can monitor campaigns, reviews and lead quality - When to let AI work alone and when a human should approve - Why human-written content still matters, and why attention is marketing's scarcest resource - How to plan for AI costs rising

THE BIG TAKEAWAY Automation without oversight introduces new risks. The goal isn't to give AI more control. It's to know what you're delegating, monitor the results and keep your tools working toward real business outcomes.

Are you using AI to improve your marketing decisions, or handing it control without knowing what it's doing? Tell us in the comments.

Subscribe to The AI Marketing Companion for weekly conversations on AI marketing, automation and digital strategy.

Guest: Brad Wardell | Host: Sandy Carter Sponsored by DaVinci Commerce, an agentic commerce platform that helps brands get discovered and bought inside LLMs.

#AIMarketing #AIAgents #AdFraud #MarketingAutomation #DigitalMarketing

What happens when your personal AI agent starts shopping with a brand's AI agent? Sandy Carter talks with Diaz Nesamoney, CEO of DaVinci Commerce, about the shift from GEO to Agentic Commerce Optimization, why "mentioned is not bought," and how personal agents, brand agents and richer product context could reshape the customer journey.

They explore what Meta Muse, OpenAI Dots, ChatGPT and the rise of agentic commerce mean for marketers, and what brands need to do now to make their products understandable, trusted and recommendable by AI agents.

CMOs are putting more than 15% of their marketing budgets into Al. But 70% say their own marketing processes aren't ready for it. Where Does Your Next Marketing Dollar Go? Before you spend your next marketing dollar on Al, look at what Gartner found when it asked 401 CMOs about their budgets this year. They are putting more than 15 percent of the marketing budget into Al, and 70 percent of them say their own processes aren't ready for it

My guest on this episode of The AI Marketing Companion has an explanation for that gap. Marie Bahl is the CMO of Uptempo, whose software helps marketing teams at companies like IBM and IKEA plan and track every dollar they spend. She has marketed enterprise software for 30 years, and she writes for both CMOs and CFOs.

Who Wires Together Every Marketing Dollar?

A quick primer first. A point solution is software built to do one job: send email, run webinars, score leads, report attribution. Marie counts more than 15,000 of them sold to marketers. A large team might run 50, each bought at a different time by a different person, and few of them share numbers. In finance or HR, IT or a consulting firm connects the systems. In marketing, that wiring job landed on the CMO.

Marie's description of the result:

"We've allowed this crazy patchwork quilt of solutions to ineffectively represent us, and what happens in the mix is we lose credibility."

Her one-line summary of the job today: "The CMO job today is mostly defensive. We're playing defense instead of offense."

Marketing Is a Business, So Defend the Marketing Dollar Like One

Marie argues that marketing is a business inside the business. Marketers build the market, and they create a series of products that deliver that market on behalf of what the company sells. Running it that way means trading impressions and clicks for measures a CFO already uses.

She told me the story of IBM seeing its entire marketing budget in one view for the first time. The Kentucky Derby sponsorship couldn't justify itself next to everything else on the page, so IBM walked away from it. Could your biggest line item survive that same view?

Play Along: Keep, Kill, or Hand It Back

I asked Marie to sort five tasks that sit on a typical CMO's desk:

Choosing and wiring the marketing software Reconciling the budget with finance Buying AI tools for the team Cleaning customer data Building the attribution report for the board

Sort them for your own desk before you listen. Then hear which one Marie still owns herself, and the sentence she thinks every marketing leader should say to their CIO this week.

Her challenge to all of us: "It's time to stop and ask for the underpinning that you need in order to be credible on behalf of your business."

[Listen to the full episode]

Hear Marie out, then decide where your next marketing dollar goes.

Creators are dead. Long live creators. The experimental era of creator marketing is over, and 40% of marketing budgets now flow to creators. The brands still treating that spend like a test are already behind.

Jeff Barrett has lived every side of the creator economy: Shorty Award winning creator, creator partnerships lead for Fortune 500 brands like Adobe and Oracle, It's No Fluke columnist on Yahoo Creators, and board chair of the Creator Guild of America.

In this episode of The AI Marketing Companion, Jeff and Sandy Carter get into why trust is pulling budgets toward creators, how creators became the new creative department, and the mistake brands make when they pay for authenticity and then script it away.

WHAT WE COVER: ▶ The lesson Jeff learned wearing all three hats: creator, agent, and brand buyer ▶ Why 40% of marketing budgets now flow to creators ▶ Trust and the parasocial relationships brands can't manufacture ▶ Creators as the new creative department, involved from ideation ▶ The "ick": what happens when brands over-script creator content ▶ Why Jenny Hoyos is the blueprint for the next generation of creators ▶ How to select the right creator: motivation and niche fit over raw metrics

CONNECT WITH SANDY CARTER: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyacarter/

The AI Marketing Companion is a top 1% podcast globally and a 5-time podcast award winner.

#CreatorEconomy #InfluencerMarketing #AIMarketing #MarketingStrategy #JeffBarrett

What is the real AI status symbol in 2026? It may not be what you think.

Artificial intelligence is changing how we work, create, communicate and compete. But beyond simply using AI tools, there is a bigger shift happening in how people and businesses think about AI, productivity and the future.

In this video, we explore the real AI status symbol and what it reveals about the changing relationship between people, technology and artificial intelligence.

You'll discover why AI adoption is becoming more than just a technology trend, what separates people who use AI from those who truly understand how to leverage it, and why AI skills could become increasingly valuable in the future.

Whether you're a business owner, creator, professional, entrepreneur or simply interested in the future of technology, this conversation will give you a different perspective on what AI really means in today's world.

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AITools

TIME Top 100 creator Shira Lazar shares her creator playbook. Before "creator" became a career path, Shira Lazar was already building one. In this episode of The AI Marketing Companion, Shira shares the lessons she's learned from more than 15 years of building media brands, identifying trends, and helping creators navigate a rapidly changing digital landscape.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and Shira's journey from early digital media to the creator economy

04:25 How to recognize a real trend before it reaches peak popularity

10:18 Why follower counts don't tell the whole story when selecting creator partners

16:42 How to use AI to enhance your work without losing your authentic voice

22:10 Authenticity in an era of AI-generated content and invisible watermarking

27:35 The Creator Bill of Rights and building healthier creator partnerships

31:12 Shira's homework assignment for every marketer

What signals are you missing? Which creator partnerships are worth pursuing? And how can AI amplify your work without replacing what makes it uniquely yours?

Listen in for a practical playbook from one of the world's most influential creators.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyacarter/

Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sandycarter/

Sandy Carter: https://sandycarter.net/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@aifirstmarketing?si=Qkyd3smETP8HQ7SM

Cathy Hackl on what AI is doing to brands. Fewer than 10% of the sources AI assistants cite rank in Google's top 10 for the same question. Your brand equity moved and nobody sent a memo. Cathy Hackl has spent a decade being early. She was calling the metaverse before most boardrooms could spell it. USA Today named her one of the best predictors of tech behavior in the world, Newsweek named her a top AI visionary, and she is the number one voice on LinkedIn for spatial AI. As CEO of Future Dynamics, co-founder of Journey, and Futurist in Residence at Nokia, she has guided Nike, Walmart, Louis Vuitton, and Estee Lauder through what comes next. But she did not just predict the technology. She built one of the most recognizable personal brands in tech while doing it. So this conversation is about both kinds of brand, the company one and the personal one, now that AI sits between you and everyone you are trying to reach. We get into what a slop moment really costs, and whether one machine-sounding post means you lose the benefit of the doubt on everything you have ever written. Why executives believe young audiences are fine with AI content far more than those audiences say they are. What happens to persuasion when agentic shopping goes from 19% to 46% of consumers and the buyer is software that does not care whether your brand is loved. And what proof of human survives when a convincing version of any of us can appear anywhere, voice clone included. CONNECT WITH CATHY HACKL LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathyhackl/ THE AI MARKETING COMPANION New episodes twice a month with Sandy Carter. Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@aifirstmarketing?si=sy4P6ERqEzeQtFqK Sandy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyacarter/ #AIMarketing #PersonalBranding #SpatialAI

The biggest disruption in marketing history isn't coming for your job. It's coming for your customer.

In this episode of The AI Marketing Companion, Sandy Carter sits down with bestselling author, keynote speaker, and marketing thought leader Mark Schaefer to explore one of the biggest shifts happening in business today: AI isn't just changing marketing—it is fundamentally changing the people we market to.

Mark explains why we're "all in the diaper business," shares the surprising Betty Crocker lesson that every brand needs to understand, and explores how AI companions, cognitive offloading, and machine-driven recommendations are reshaping customer behavior.

In this episode you'll discover:

Why the real disruption is happening to customers, not marketers The "Diaper Business" story everyone is talking about The Betty Crocker lesson that predicts the future of customer experience What AI companions mean for brands and authentic human connection Why algorithms increasingly make decisions before people do How AI search and AI referrals are changing influence and discovery How marketers can remain indispensable in an AI-first world

Whether you're a CMO, founder, marketer, or business leader, this conversation will challenge how you think about customers, trust, and the future of marketing.

America turns 250 this year. Every brand on the planet is reaching for the moment. And most of them are about to miss it completely.

Michael Quinn has spent years studying why, and what to do instead. He is a 3x LinkedIn Top Voice with a following above 360,000, a Forbes Coaches Council member, and the founder of Tenova LLC, with a monthly social reach that exceeds two million people. He knows what makes content land, what makes brands earn trust, and what the difference looks like between honoring a moment and just borrowing it.

In this conversation we get into three ideas that every marketer needs right now. Story is the only strategy that lasts. Authenticity is a decision, not a vibe. And the opportunity sitting inside America's AI disruption is bigger than most brands realize.

Michael also designs an AI-powered campaign to honor the 250th live, and closes with what he wants every marketer to do the moment this episode ends.

If you want to get this moment right, this one's for you.

America is turning 250. And the biggest marketing opportunity of the decade is sitting right in front of every brand on the planet. Most of them are going to waste it.

In this episode of The AI Marketing Companion, Sandy Carter sits down with Michael Quinn, 3x LinkedIn Top Voice, Forbes Coaches Council member, and founder of Tenova LLC, to talk about what it actually takes to own a cultural moment like America's 250th. He shared 3 ideas that are simple but not easy!

Brands are flooding the zone with America 250 content right now. Flags. Fireworks. Slogans. Almost none of it will be remembered by August. Michael has built a following above 360,000 on LinkedIn and a monthly reach beyond two million people by doing one thing differently: starting with a real story, not a campaign brief. The brands that will own this moment are the ones that find a human being at the center of the celebration and let that person speak. Not a tagline. A story with stakes, with heart, with something true at the center of it.

Every brand wants to feel authentic right now. Very few are willing to make the decisions that create it. In a world where AI can generate unlimited content in seconds, the one thing that cannot be faked is a genuine point of view. That is what audiences are filtering for. That is what earns trust. And trust, Michael says, is the only currency that compounds.

AI is reshaping the economy faster than anyone predicted. A lot of people are scared. Michael sees something different. He sees an opening. America at 250 is not just a birthday. It is a reset point. The brands and individuals who use AI as a tool for human storytelling rather than a replacement for it are going to have an extraordinary advantage in the years ahead. The opportunity is real. The window is open.

SGM (Ret.) Michael Quinn is the founder and Chief Growth Officer of Tenova LLC and its HireMilitary brand, a verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. He is a 3x LinkedIn Top Voice with a following above 360,000 and a monthly social reach beyond two million people, a Forbes Coaches Council member, and creator of the Digital Networking Professional Program. His brand promise: Teamwork and Innovation.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinnmi

Tenova LLC: https://tenovallc.com/

HireMilitary: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiremilitary-us

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyacarter/

Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sandycarter/

Sandy Carter: https://sandycarter.net/

If this episode moved you, share it with one marketer who needs to hear it before America's 250th.