In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles is joined by Emma Tronson, Deputy Director of Marketing at Aston University, for a practical, honest and refreshingly structured look at how to move beyond AI experimentation and into real organisational adoption.

Many teams are stuck in what Daniel calls "pilot purgatory". Everyone is testing tools. Everyone is experimenting. But very few organisations have truly embedded AI into day-to-day operations. Workloads have not reduced. If anything, they have increased.

This episode explores what it actually takes to embed AI into a complex organisation with multiple stakeholders, legacy systems, risk concerns and competing priorities

Emma shares her step-by-step journey of launching an AI task force, securing leadership buy-in, aligning with institutional strategy, and creating a structured framework for adoption that delivered tangible outcomes within a year.In This Episode:

From career setback to AI champion
Emma explains how missing out on a promotion led her to proactively position herself as indispensable by embracing AI learning

Mission AI Impossible
How she pitched a structured AI task force aligned to Aston University's 2030 strategy and secured budget, time and executive support.

Why time matters more than money
Resource allocation and protected "lab time" proved more critical than financial investment.

The six focus areas model
Data and analytics, general work support, copywriting, visual and creative, SEO and web, and social and community. Each task force member owned one domain.

Start small and build confidence
Select staff were upskilled first before launching more widely across the department.

Align AI to real use cases
Experimentation was always tied to live marketing and admissions challenges rather than abstract testing.

Governance before scale
Clear internal guidance helped build confidence in responsible AI usage.

The system integration challenge
Legacy systems and risk aversion slowed deeper embedding, a common challenge across many organisations.

Cohort Two and scaling adoption
Expansion into wider teams with three new priority workstreams: personalisation, data, and custom builds.

Why AI will not replace marketing teams
Instead, it will reward those who actively upskill and adapt.

AI adoption requires structure.

Align initiatives to business strategy from the outset.

Start with a focused pilot group, then scale.

Protected experimentation time is essential.

Bring sceptics into the process rather than excluding them.

System integration and governance are often the biggest blockers.

Innovation must be baked into everyday work, not treated as a side project.

📥 Access the show notes, tools, and links at: https://targetinternet.com/resources/how-to-drive-ai-adoption

In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles sits down with Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, to discuss what may be the most disruptive year in marketing history.

Kipp believes that 2026 could represent the biggest single wave of change our industry has ever seen. Weeks feel like months. Channels are fragmenting. Discovery is shifting. AI agents are entering workflows. And traditional attribution models are starting to break down.

From Answer Engine Optimisation to AI agents, rising ad costs to workflow automation, this conversation explores how marketers can stay ahead when the pace of change is accelerating.

Why 2026 may be the biggest year of change in marketing history
Kipp explains why discovery, personalisation and team workflows are being reshaped simultaneously.

Answer Engine Optimisation vs traditional SEO
The shift from short keyword queries to ultra long-tail, conversational prompts of 40 to 60 words changes everything.

Mentions vs citations in AI search
Why brand visibility in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude is more complex than link-based SEO ever was.

The first mover advantage in AI discovery
Early adopters can make exponential gains because competition is still low and optimisation is immature.

Why AI agents are thriving in customer service but lagging in marketing
Marketing problems are less formulaic and more complex, making agent adoption slower but highly promising.

The practical AI workflow hack every marketer should try
Record yourself completing a repetitive task, upload it to Google Gemini, and ask how to automate it. A simple but powerful shortcut to AI adoption

Why attribution is becoming harder again
The "golden age" of clean click-to-conversion tracking is fading as AI intermediates discovery.

Rising ad costs and the need for new growth channels
With paid media inflation increasing, marketers must adopt emerging channels such as AEO and AI-enabled creative optimisation.

The importance of strategic conviction
AEO cannot be treated as a side project. It must be embedded as a core capability.

HubSpot's approach to AI and context
Positioning HubSpot as the context layer for AI, enabling agents and assistants to work from real customer data.

Discovery is changing faster than most organisations are adapting.

Answer Engine Optimisation requires different content structures, including FAQs and machine-friendly formatting.

Early adoption in AI search offers outsized returns.

AI-assisted workflows are often more impactful than fully autonomous agents in marketing today.

Marketing teams must bake experimentation and innovation into daily operations.

The biggest risk is not AI itself, but failing to evolve working practices alongside it.

📥 Access the show notes, tools, and links at: https://targetinternet.com/resources/the-hubspot-cmo-interview-kipp-bodnar-on-ai-answer-engine-optimisation-and-the-future-of-marketing

AI is accelerating change at a pace most organisations have never had to manage before. For marketers and business leaders, this is not just another wave of innovation. It is a fundamental shift from linear change to exponential change, where familiar planning cycles, transformation programmes, and long-term roadmaps start to break down.

In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles is joined by Geoff Tuff, Consulting Principal at Deloitte and co-author of Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. Together, they explore why traditional transformation initiatives fail so often, and what leaders can do instead to build organisations that continuously adapt without losing their sense of direction. Drawing on real-world examples, behavioural science, and lessons from Geofff's latest book, the conversation reframes change as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-off event, and offers a practical way to respond to the disruption created by AI and other exponential forces .

Why AI represents a shift from linear to exponential change, and why this makes traditional planning models fragile

Why large-scale transformation programmes fail so frequently, and the hidden costs they create for organisations

The concept of "drift" and how companies slowly move away from their original purpose without realising it

The difference between sharpening and honing, and why constant realignment beats radical reinvention

How leaders can "bake in" innovation so it becomes urgent, not just important

Why behaviour, not technology, is the real engine of change inside organisations

The role of management systems as the invisible drivers of culture and decision-making

What Minimally Viable Moves are, and how they help organisations adapt without overcommitting

Lessons from Amazon and Jeff Bezos on designing systems that reinforce the right behaviours

How informal signals from senior leaders can unintentionally shape priorities and outcomes

Exponential change makes waiting for the perfect moment to transform a dangerous strategy

Most organisations drift off course through accumulated small decisions, not dramatic failures

Honing is about continuous, incremental alignment rather than destructive overhauls

Leadership power lies less in vision statements and more in the systems that guide everyday behaviour

Small, testable moves reduce risk and keep organisations responsive in uncertain environments

What leaders praise, question, or ignore can matter more than formal strategy documents

Staying aligned to purpose requires constant attention, not periodic transformation projects

📥 Access the show notes, tools, and links at: https://targetinternet.com/resources/dealing-with-exponential-change-leading-in-an-ai-driven-world