Just a few blocks away from Dreamforce, HG Insights transformed El Dorado Latin Fusion into a private runway for its second CMO Huddles panel, “First-Class CMOs: Staying on Course in the Age of AI.”
It wasn’t a massive crowd, and that was intentional. Between lively conversations and Latin-fusion appetizers, CMOs from CultureAmp, Wrike, and HG Insights gathered to answer a single question:
How do you keep growth engines steady when AI keeps rewriting the flight plan?
The Compression Effect
“Buyer cycles are compressing,” said Paige Leland, CMO of CultureAmp. “People go to ChatGPT for pointers before they ever visit a vendor site.”
Her team recognized this shift early. Traditional search optimization wasn’t enough anymore, they needed LLM optimization, structuring content that works for both machines and humans.
“The content we build today has to speak two languages,” Paige explained. “We now index for AI summarization as much as for Google ranking.”
This shift is fueled by Gen Z decision-makers who expect hyper-personalization, zero friction, and authenticity. It’s not just about visibility; it’s about creating a human connection in an AI-driven world.
From Workflows to Workflows That Learn
Christine Royston, CMO of Wrike, shared how her marketing team’s transformation started small, with content repurposing and localization.
Then came a turning point: AI Sales Development Representatives (AI SDRs).
“These digital assistants handle early-stage website conversations, qualifying interest, capturing nuance, and escalating when human connection is needed,” Christine said.
The result? About a 10% boost in efficiency each month, giving her team more time for strategy and creativity. “The goal isn’t to have AI write better copy,” she added. “It’s to give people more room to think.”
Building at AI Speed
Shekar Hariharan, Senior Vice President of Marketing at HG Insights, shared an example that made the room pause. His team now builds thousands of personalized campaign pages in just weeks, a process that once took entire quarters.
The source? Real customer conversations captured through Gong transcripts, powering AI-driven ABM (account-based marketing) experiences. Interns now produce up to twenty personalized pages each week.
Shekar calls this new hybrid marketer the GTM engineer, part technologist, part storyteller.
“They don’t wait for IT,” he said. “They connect systems themselves.”
Flat is the New Up
Drew Neisser, Founder of CMO Huddles, reminded the group: “CEOs are asking CMOs to cut fifty percent. Flat budgets are a win.”
For Paige Leland, smaller teams haven’t meant smaller results. “Our pipeline is up twenty percent,” she said.
Christine echoed the same sentiment—expectations are rising, but headcount isn’t.
Shekar added an important perspective: “Efficiency shouldn’t mean fewer people. Everyone should use AI, but that doesn’t mean AI needs a seat on the org chart.”
Christine countered with a long-term view: “Eventually, yes. We’ll all need AI fluency to stay competitive.”
Different paths, same destination: marketing is evolving, and every role now includes AI.
The Human Variable
Amid all the automation talk, the conversation circled back to people.
Paige shared a story of a senior marketer on her team who was initially skeptical about AI. Her Chief of Staff spent a few weeks collaborating closely, testing prompts, refining workflows, and celebrating small wins.
Within a month, the skeptic became one of the most vocal advocates.
Once fear gave way to curiosity, adoption accelerated. As Paige put it, “Culture changes faster than code.”
Design Partners, Not Passive Buyers
Shekar described a shift in how HG Insights collaborates with vendors. Instead of waiting for new features, his team now asks: “Can we be design partners?”
With PathFactory, HG Insights helped shape roadmap decisions, a move that reflects marketing as co-builder, not consumer.
Re-Training for Lift-Off
As the conversation turned to skills, everyone agreed that the modern marketer needs technical intuition, an understanding of APIs, data structures, and experimentation.
“One day, marketers will be engineers who tell stories,” Drew joked.
Their final advice came rapid-fire:
- Upskill weekly
- Budget time for experimentation
- Don’t sacrifice creativity for efficiency
- Always remember the human element
Altitude Over Speed
As the panel wrapped up, Shekar left the group with a line that summed it all up:
“We’re not replacing people with AI. We’re teaching people to work at AI speed.”
The first wave of AI-driven marketing is about speed. The next is about altitude, using that speed to see farther, connect signals faster, and let humans decide what matters most.
The CMOs in that room weren’t talking about replacing marketers. They were sketching the flight plan for the next era of marketing, where creativity and computation finally fly in the same direction.
