Search Captions & Ask AI

How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing

January 24, 2026 / 32:19

This episode of Marketing Matters covers AI in marketing, compound marketing, and the role of data in enhancing customer experiences. Guests include Chris O'Neal, CEO of Growth Loop, who discusses how AI can optimize marketing strategies.

Barbara Khan and America Reed introduce the topic by referencing a presentation by Kevin Lee from the University of Michigan, which highlighted a 33% lift in marketing effectiveness through AI. They express interest in the concept of agentic AI and its implications for marketers.

Chris O'Neal shares his background, detailing his journey from a small Canadian town to significant roles at companies like Google. He explains the concept of compound marketing, emphasizing the importance of small, consistent actions leading to exponential results.

The discussion shifts to the practical applications of AI in marketing, with O'Neal providing a concrete example involving Costco and DeWalt tools. He illustrates how AI can quickly identify high-propensity customers and optimize marketing strategies.

O'Neal concludes by emphasizing the importance of creating delightful customer experiences and the collaborative role of marketers and technology in achieving this goal.

TLDR

Chris O'Neal discusses AI's role in optimizing marketing strategies and enhancing customer experiences through compound marketing.

Episode

32:19
00:00:00
Hello and welcome. You're listening to Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast
00:00:05
Network, which is our weekly podcast where we analyze the latest in advertising, marketing, customer
00:00:11
behavior, new product launches, retailing, branding, anything marketing. I'm Barbara Khan, the Patty and JH Baker
00:00:19
Professor of Marketing, and I'm joined by my co-host, America Reed, the Whitney
00:00:23
M. Young Jr. Professor of Marketing and the Brand identity theorist. Hello Americus.
00:00:30
>> Hello Barbara. So last week we sat in on a presentation in our department uh
00:00:36
professor by the name of Kevin Lee, University of Michigan marketing prof talking about AI and how AI can be used
00:00:43
agentically to help design your emails and outreach and protocols and different collaterals
00:00:52
for your marketing efforts. and they actually introduced this idea of having AI sort of help you figure out in AB
00:01:00
testing what's working, what's you know what's not working and so on. So really
00:01:06
>> really cool result. They actually reported a 33% lift. So now I'm wondering I I want to go deeper on this
00:01:12
idea of of agentic AI and like the the marriage Barbara between these new tools and us as marketers trying to measure
00:01:22
stuff trying to elevate and amplify. Is there anything you've got for me that
00:01:27
can help shed some light on this today? >> Why don't we get someone who really
00:01:30
knows what he's talking about? Uh, and I'm really happy to have with us in the
00:01:35
studio today Chris O'Neal who's the CEO of Growth Loop. And Growth Loop is
00:01:41
trying to redefine that future of marketing using, as you're suggesting, AI and data. Chris, welcome to our show.
00:01:50
>> Hi, Chris. >> It's great to be here with you. >> So, Chris, before you tell us about the
00:01:54
world of AI and marketing and how to improve everything, can you tell us your background, how you got to where you
00:02:00
are? Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in a very small town of 7,000 people in the middle
00:02:06
of nowhere up in Canada and I found my way to the valley for two months uh before graduate school and that's turned
00:02:14
into 25 years. I've been very fortunate to be part of some incredible companies
00:02:18
like Google, some amazing teams and brands. Um and really uh the first wave of that was really trying to figure out
00:02:25
how you actually use this thing called digital marketing to help um build personal connections or just connections
00:02:32
with with consumers and businesses. So that was the first wave and now we're uh
00:02:37
here an exciting new wave with applying AI in uh in an even more transformative way. So I'm really lucky. I've been part
00:02:44
of some incredible teams and boards and um and that's that's really uh been a
00:02:48
fun journey and I'm really excited to share some of it with you. >> So I mean just because Americus went to
00:02:53
that lecture but I didn't. So like there's like a bunch of stuff that I don't even understand the words of. So
00:02:58
can so I understand growth loop which is the company you're CEO of uh has something to do with compound marketing
00:03:06
like what what does that term mean and and what does aentic AI mean? Can you just start at the really basic?
00:03:13
>> Yes. Yes. >> Cuz we know compound we know compound interest is a good thing, Chris.
00:03:18
>> 100%. And that's where it started. You know, in that small town, we used to get
00:03:23
a lot of snow in the winter. And I remember my we'd have parents, friends of our of ours come in and sometimes
00:03:28
they get stuck. Like literally, it' be that much snow. And I was given a book
00:03:31
during one of these four-day stays when some some family members read some books
00:03:35
and they left me this book. And it was called The Wealthy Barber. And it was a story about a proverbial wealthy barber
00:03:40
who did some really small investing and compounded it over time and he became wealthy. And that started a lifelong
00:03:46
fascination with the notion of compounding. And when you stop and think about it, compounding is everywhere.
00:03:52
Albert Einstein famously said it's the eighth wonder of the world. Compound interest, right? It's in nature, right?
00:03:57
If you think about how forests happen, it's actually compounding. There's like
00:04:00
the worldwide wood uh worldwide wood they call it. It's a mitochondria like underneath the soil. It's in nature.
00:04:07
It's in technology. You know, when you think about network effects, that's
00:04:10
compounding. Um James Clear, who I'm a huge fan of, if you get 1% better every
00:04:15
day, by the end of the year, you'll be 37 times better. So, it's the notion of
00:04:21
little things that are done consistently over time that start to lead to exponential results. And we got to
00:04:26
thinking, okay, gosh, we're trying to combine data and AI with people in the
00:04:31
loop to unleash the brand's potential, right? whether it's a personal connection with a brand or whether it's
00:04:36
the different variety of of tools and channels you can bring together to offer truly personalized and really great
00:04:42
experiences. So we borrowed the term compounding shamelessly and say hey what if we could compound marketing and so
00:04:48
that's really where it starts. Um the second part with with aantic really like
00:04:54
AI is interesting in so many ways and we'll unpack some of it today but many
00:04:58
of the changes in marketing were were kind of the demand side meaning we changed the consumers changed how they
00:05:04
interacted right we went from desktops to mobile right analog to digital and certainly there's elements of demand
00:05:11
side change here but the bigger change is supply side what I mean by that is the way in which we do marketing the way
00:05:17
in which we go about workflows uh with AI in the middle uh is really exciting and we're just scratching the surface
00:05:25
and again I'm keen to get into it with you today because I think it's a supply
00:05:29
side meaning it's changing the way in which we interact with people in a very
00:05:33
personal way in a way which in many ways has been the holy grail forever and we've been living with this unfulfilled
00:05:40
promise of marketing as a cost center or marketing as some interruption and there's so much more we can do together
00:05:46
and I know you feel the same uh and I'm keen to as I said get into it a little
00:05:50
bit with you today. >> So, okay. So, you had this big idea of compound marketing and you understand
00:05:56
more of how all this works. So, with that in mind, did you start growth loop or like how did the whole company get
00:06:03
started or what is what is it exactly? >> So, I've been fortunate remember I
00:06:07
talked about great brands and teams and Google was one of them. I was at uh Google for 10 years during a very great
00:06:13
in you know really really wonderful time during a very obviously generational company and during that time I met some
00:06:19
incredible people including the two founders of growth loop uh they worked for an old CMO of mine when I was up
00:06:25
running Google in Canada uh and they are like just incredible entrepreneurs and they they looked at how Google did
00:06:32
marketing and they said gosh for a company that's allegedly so innovative they sure don't don't like really always
00:06:37
think about marketing an interesting way So Chris and David, the founders, said,
00:06:41
"Hey, why is it that I, as a product marketing manager with goals to drive value for a particular product, have to
00:06:49
go and line up outside a data team just to basically get a hypothesis tested with SQL and all this code and that
00:06:55
bounces back and forth and takes days and weeks and up to a month just to do one campaign. They thought that was in
00:07:00
that was silly, right? So basically they had the innovation to to build on top of
00:07:05
a data cloud, right? So increasingly we're putting data in fewer places these
00:07:09
things called data clouds that's Google bigquery this is Google cloud company
00:07:13
like snowflake data bricks Azure um Amazon there are many data clouds but the notion was how about you start there
00:07:21
by putting an intelligence layer on top of the data as opposed to pushing the data everywhere really and this is
00:07:28
incredibly important from a cost perspective from a compute perspective security perspective and now of course
00:07:34
with AI you want to have your data and your understanding and your intelligence on your customers in one place so you
00:07:41
can apply the full effect of this magical technology called AI. So that's the insight where it started. And then
00:07:48
the other part with compounding is the notion that it's not a funnel so much as
00:07:52
it's a loop, right? You basically have ideas who you should be speaking to, where you should be speaking to them and
00:07:58
then do closed loop experiments where you get a little bit better every time and then it really compounds as you do.
00:08:04
So >> wait, I got you got a because I'm like big on this funnel and this loop. So I I
00:08:10
really need you to unpack that a little more. So you have a different structural
00:08:14
model of dealing with the customer rather than thinking about it like >> a funnel which is traditional. So you
00:08:21
know are you in the product category then you're considering the brand then you know my brand compared to others
00:08:27
you're suggesting some kind of loop. So what exactly does that mean? I I I don't
00:08:32
really understand. >> Yeah. No great question. Like so in a funnel, we basically treated the world
00:08:37
as like this big uh this big pool and then you basically pull them through a funnel. Um and there's a consideration
00:08:43
all that stuff we've been we taught when I was in business school. We were taught
00:08:46
about consideration, awareness, all that good stuff. And look, I'm here to say
00:08:50
look, you need to continue to invest in your purpose and your brand and why you why you exist. That is that is as
00:08:56
important if not more important than ever. However, you can do better, right? Rather than treating everyone as like
00:09:02
one big segment, we're actually getting close to the holy grail where you can
00:09:06
actually reasonably into it something interesting about a person at the onetoone level. This is the importance
00:09:13
of what sometimes called first party data information you have on that person. Okay. Um so that you can inter
00:09:20
you can intercept them at the at the right moment >> to ensure loyalty surprise and delight
00:09:26
them. the customer journey kind of model then >> it's an iterative customer journey that
00:09:30
says you're going to treat people or sub subsegments or even onetoone for the
00:09:35
first time in an iterative loop as opposed to just doing what I sometimes call waterfall marketing.
00:09:40
>> It's more agile just like we develop software. >> Yeah. Just let me let me just see if I
00:09:46
got if I have this correct, Chris, because I I don't think what you're saying is somehow
00:09:51
>> uh falsifying the funnel as much as it's saying, hey, you know what? We can make
00:09:56
this funnel super efficient by almost pointing and using tools that allow us >> to kind of get to that that behavioral
00:10:03
part faster. In other words, we can have some understanding and then we can use artificial intelligence to sort of test
00:10:11
kind of immediate sort of intuitions that we have and quote get to the right answer as fast as possible. So there's
00:10:17
less guesswork I guess in this >> also predicated on this notion of touch points like I mean how do you know when
00:10:24
to interact? It has to be when the customer engages I guess. >> Exactly. Exactly. So, quick story. I
00:10:31
serve on the board with a very senior um member at Starbucks, executive at Starbucks, rather, and he he's he he and
00:10:37
I were talking about this this very topic, and he says, "Look, we know that
00:10:41
uh Sally is a vegetarian. So, why is it when Sally visits her local Starbucks, we're offering her meat products? We're
00:10:50
meat." Like, that just seems odd, right? when you can reasonably know with permission and Sally wants to know like
00:10:56
what she she's gonna get when she greet is greeted by the barista they probably
00:11:00
know that but systematically how about you offer something that would be relevant to Sally as opposed to relevant
00:11:06
so it does start absolutely touch points a great a great point >> so when Sally comes to the cash register
00:11:14
>> yeah you learn about >> a script about Sally that's what you're
00:11:17
saying right >> exactly that's customer engages with us. Is that what you're saying?
00:11:23
>> Yeah. >> Exactly. Exactly. And that's just one touch point. I love that term. We
00:11:26
actually, you know, we talk about touch points and moments that matter. Uh because again, sometimes it's it's
00:11:34
leaving Sally alone, right? It's not just constantly interrupting. It's >> implies you know Sally and Sally's going
00:11:39
to get to know you, right? I mean, so are you only talking about a situation where I've already had interaction with
00:11:45
the customer and then the way I interact with her at the next moment should reflect that history. But that implies I
00:11:53
have that relationship already. >> Correct. That's correct. Right. So what
00:11:57
we but I am talking about both, right? So you can reasonably intuit it. And this is where back to machine learning,
00:12:02
right? So we we sometimes intermix the term machine learning with AI. Machine learning says, okay, how can we go about
00:12:08
into the rest of the the potential prospects or potential touch points to basically inform the set of next actions
00:12:16
which would reasonably do do the right thing for the brand and for the long-term customer relationship. And
00:12:23
this is a really exciting part where you can actually get to causality, right? So
00:12:28
most of marketing is correlative. It's like we think these things worked but we
00:12:32
don't know, right? And that's the thing that's holding back a lot of marketing
00:12:36
is like, you know, BF know the CFO and the CMO need to be BFFs, right? It needs to be you talk the language of the CFO
00:12:44
and that's really one of the things that I think separates the great CMOs from
00:12:48
the sort of mediocre ones. >> Yeah, that's I love the CFO and the CMO need to be BFFs. That's fantastic. I
00:12:55
need that on a t-shirt, Chris. All right. Now, listen. So I I want to make sure I'm I'm unpacking this correctly
00:13:01
because I think what you're saying is like hey the fact that we have tools that allow us to unpack insights and
00:13:06
data very quickly now allows us to be much more >> uh much more inductive right so we can
00:13:13
kind of go to Barbara's point we can kind of immediately we have a touch point with Sally and we have we have
00:13:18
some inferences about what she's done in the marketplace and not what she reported on a survey but what she's
00:13:23
actually done and we start building that intelligence and testing and iter Iterating and testing and iterating and
00:13:29
testing to get that clear picture of Sally and then see to what extent can we uh predict other Sally's out there as a
00:13:38
function of is that close at all in terms of >> you know so fast personalized data
00:13:44
driven and continuously optimized. This is the notion of a funnel and this is exactly what we're talking about. So you
00:13:49
absolutely nailed it. But so his point though because I I understand once you know the person using that data that
00:13:56
makes sense to me but it I what America said which is taking it another level. And is that what you're saying? The way
00:14:03
you reach people you don't know >> is by optimizing the data you do know.
00:14:08
So that's where you start and then you look for other people like that's what
00:14:12
America said. Is that what you're saying too? >> Yeah. Correct. So you're absolutely
00:14:15
right. There's two modalities. Do you know the person? Do you know something
00:14:19
about them or do you not? And that's like the different techniques are used to to tease those apart. But where it
00:14:24
starts to get magical is when you start to for inform uh one from the other. Um a lot of the a lot of the science is b
00:14:31
sort of the techniques are born from a lot of probabilistic statistics, right? So you'll you'll hear things like
00:14:36
multi-armmed bandits and all that's a fancy way of saying is you're assigning
00:14:40
people to a group and then you have a test and control, right? A lot of the power and things we're super excited
00:14:46
about is that you actually have a test and control group. So you can prove causality. You can basically and have a
00:14:51
hold out group that lasts for a time. Now here's an interesting magic we're
00:14:55
we're really excited about is over time you can use math to basically approximate the control group. So you
00:15:01
don't actually have to hold them out and still determine causality and still
00:15:05
determine is it having the lift and the desired personalized impact and moving the needle on a metric like your
00:15:12
customer lifetime value. That's like whoa. That's like mind-blowing for many
00:15:16
people and we're really just scratching the surface on what's possible there.
00:15:20
>> Interesting. Let me ask this question. I love this point because in some senses
00:15:23
I've heard this quote, Barbara, that marketing starts with math and ends with
00:15:28
art. Uh kind of I don't we'll unpack that later, Barbara. But Chris, help me
00:15:36
because I want to get to to Barbara's level of of understanding here. very specific example to say all right I come
00:15:42
to you Chris in growth loop and I've got a data set >> is that how this happens and then and
00:15:47
then you you look at my data >> and then you build out a kind of AI infrastructure andor agentic
00:15:55
architecture to lay on top of my data in order to help me pull as much insights about what I can understand from the
00:16:03
people in that data set as fast as possible is that some is that correct at all correct let's make it let's make Get
00:16:09
specific. Okay. So, a brand comes to usific. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, so they have a brief,
00:16:13
right? We're familiar with marketing briefs. Just say this is what we were trying to accomplish is the business
00:16:17
objectives is who we're trying to talk to, right? Literally drag and drop the
00:16:20
brief into our agent, our campaign agent, right? We basically start the following. Say discerning what the what
00:16:28
the market is trying to accomplish. And you talk about art. I think art and and and math intertwine at different stages
00:16:35
because it's like the the real role for humans is ingenuity and creativity to
00:16:39
say hey what's happening in this in the zeitgeist that really is relevant to our
00:16:43
customers. So it's a really important role marry that up with what has worked
00:16:46
in the past. So a brief comes in it basically gets processed by an agent and it says what do we know about this um
00:16:54
this objective and these set of campaigns we've run in the past and the people that might be relevant. So it
00:16:58
then it then offers up to the marketer a set of different audiences to basically
00:17:03
go and and and you know treat with something and then it would suggest a journey right to say okay maybe you send
00:17:10
them uh something through your app or your email or you know may maybe you have to give them some time and maybe
00:17:15
then offer them an ad or some form of incentive. So that's that's what happens, right? A brief gets turned into
00:17:22
a specific set of audiences and a specific journey which then gets pushed into the world and then executed and
00:17:28
then run back into what worked and read it back into your data cloud. Lather, rinse and repeat. This is exactly the
00:17:35
work that we're doing with some >> Can you give me like a real concrete
00:17:39
example with specific like just specifics exactly how this worked like a big success story?
00:17:45
>> Sure. I I'll give you a recent one. We we are so fortunate to work with Costco,
00:17:49
right? Everyone knows and loves Costco. >> Chris, you're speaking her language.
00:17:54
COSTCO ALREADY. >> I love Costco. So, um I'm going to give a little bit of a little spin on this,
00:18:02
but Costco is super super into their members, right? And they they put their members above all else. Their business
00:18:08
model is well predicated on selling memberships and they're very tight. Like
00:18:12
if you ever um you know what the acquired podcast has done a deep deep dive >> into I've listened to that several
00:18:17
times. It's great >> and I love it. So okay so people are familiar with Costco and and Costco is
00:18:22
very in the in the business of working with their brands to basically ensure delightful experiences and connecting
00:18:28
them to you know say it's DeWalt tools right so basically how can you infer the
00:18:33
people in the Costco membership that might have a propensity to buy DeWalt tools we can do that with math right and
00:18:40
then what we're doing is connecting the two we basically say DeWalt Costco here
00:18:45
is here's a subset of customers that used to take you days and weeks just to
00:18:50
do to to to really do the math and really surface the people. We now do that in hours, right? In terms of really
00:18:59
understanding and automating the connection between in this case a brand and a set of high propensity customers.
00:19:06
>> What do you do with that information? Can you show me like >> Yeah. Then then you do you send them an
00:19:11
email? Do you send them an offer? Do you push something into the the Costco app?
00:19:14
It really depends. and you're constantly testing to understand both what offer
00:19:18
resonates with the subset, which channels offer the off um seem to work the best. Maybe it's an instore um
00:19:25
experience. So, it's it's a really multi- channelannel or omni channel. Sometimes people use that term
00:19:30
experience that says, okay, how do we broker this in a way that is additive for the merchant in the home improvement
00:19:36
category and of course the members? It has to be a balance between the two. >> So, so let me just get the it's just
00:19:42
hard for me. So your client is DeWalt Tools and they want to know >> or or your client is Costco and so
00:19:51
Costco pays you to figure out how to optimize the purchases of specific brands within their environment. Is that
00:19:58
how it works or >> that that is one use case exactly? Right. So it is and really just to
00:20:04
abstract it away and talk just in terms like it allows their marketing velocity to be faster. Right. Like where that
00:20:09
used to take weeks, it now takes hours. So therefore, right, DeWalt has money they want to spend and there's many
00:20:15
DeWalts, right? There's n number of brands >> and if it's very manual and takes a long
00:20:21
time. >> Yeah. >> Well, so this is like a retail media network. Is that who your clients are?
00:20:26
>> In this case, that's what it is. Correct. Correct. But we do we do life
00:20:29
cycle marketing and retail media networks and uh really we do the similar stuff with Albertson's and you know
00:20:35
price line and many others. >> Okay. Okay. So your client is the retailer and the retailer's customers
00:20:42
are these brands and you're trying to figure out a way to optimize what the brand can get from the retail media's
00:20:49
data and the way they optimize all that is through you. Is that right? >> Correct. Correct. We we play we play a
00:20:56
part in a broader ecosystem. I want to be clear. But yeah, it's it's it's the
00:21:00
how do you accelerate that get the velocity? We talk about speed. Yeah. And then secondly, did it work? Right. It's
00:21:07
not just did you did you throw out some impressions. No, no, no. Like the the brands with all respect, they care about
00:21:12
moving their product and having dectual experiences. So, we also help them measure incrementality,
00:21:17
>> right? Right. >> In the store, right? And that's that's sounds easier than it is in terms of the
00:21:21
actual math and the calculation. But >> no, incrementality defined as if you
00:21:26
didn't do anything, how much more with what you did matters in some sense. Bingo, right?
00:21:32
>> Yeah. It's a resource allocation problem in some senses. Let me ask you this,
00:21:36
Chris, because I I want to make sure I understand this part because the math gets the retailer to some hypothetical
00:21:44
uh set of audiences to think about. >> Does the retailer then step in because
00:21:49
now it's sort of like, okay, what do I prioritize? Is it an ad? Is it a this?
00:21:53
Is it is it a that? Is that where the marketers then step in and say, "Well, I
00:21:56
know something about some of these groups and now I'm going to bring sort of a creative piece to sort of
00:22:01
prioritize some of the marketing uh protocols that might be used to again is that what happens in this case?"
00:22:09
>> Yeah. Exact. We believe in human in the loop, right? So these agents are working
00:22:12
on behalf of the brands and the customers and they can suggest things the audience the journey the creative
00:22:18
creative like Nano Banana and all these images are getting like so good, right? So I wouldn't have expected that uh the
00:22:24
pace we can we can talk about that separately but yeah it's about suggesting things and yeah it's using
00:22:28
intuition right it's using the understanding of what has worked in the past so so marketers arguably they're
00:22:34
getting out of the mundane stuff right and a lot of that you know the work of the work is so not why marketers signed
00:22:39
up for the job so we're freeing them up to do the job that maybe they wanted to
00:22:43
do in the first place >> along the lines of what America is asking are a lot of the suggestions more
00:22:48
price related or deal related or I mean typically Great question. Yeah. Um, so you know this is where machine learning
00:22:56
and AI actually interact. So machine learning would be a propensity model. So we have high propensity like take
00:23:02
Albertson's. Albertson's knows who's a vegan, right? So they have like
00:23:06
propensity models to say vegans uh have high propensity to provide these products, right? These products and not
00:23:12
these ones. Uh or to your point Barbara, price elasticity, right? Um I serve on the board of GAP and tariffs have had
00:23:20
enormous impact on anyone who's importing things and GAP certainly falls into that camp.
00:23:24
>> So getting an understanding of where and how you can change prices that's a price
00:23:29
elasticity game right. So how do you take >> that would be wonderful. >> I mean it's it's f it's a hard problem
00:23:36
but it's like not just not just in a category all the way down to a skew level and then ideally at an individual
00:23:41
level. So this is where the the math those are those are math problems right machine learning like propensity or
00:23:48
price elasticity. >> Yeah. So, let me let me just go back to the old old world of grocery. Like
00:23:53
before we had all this data and all this fancy stuff and you can do it on each customer, whatever. I remember Catalina
00:24:00
would would put out coupons in the grocery based on what you purchased just at the cash register that time because
00:24:06
they didn't have all the sophistication. And they do one thing or another, which
00:24:10
is kind of what I hear you saying. They'd either give me a price deal of some kind, some kind of coupon for
00:24:17
future purchase, or if I was Pepsi and paying for it and the customer bought Coke, they might give me a coupon for
00:24:26
Pepsi to try to convert me. So, like what you're saying now is in multi-dimensions, much more in a
00:24:32
sophisticated way than Catalina used to do it at the one time at the cash register. I can either give you
00:24:39
different kinds of price deals or like you said if I'm vegan or I can give you
00:24:43
a constellation of brands where I'd be more that's what you meant by propensity
00:24:47
I think more likely to buy that product because I see you bought this in the past therefore you're more likely to buy
00:24:55
carrots than you are to buy steak >> with the veganism is that what is that
00:25:01
kind of very I'm saying in super simple way and you're doing it in a multi-dimensional way but is and 10
00:25:07
times as fast probably. Well 10 that is well said Barbara exactly I remember Catalina well you studied him
00:25:15
and that's exactly now it's it's a it's a version of that but it's like it's
00:25:18
it's so it's faster to your point and is much more much more it take is taking in
00:25:23
so much more data right that's a very simple if this >> is a very simple example but I can
00:25:28
understand it but now if you multiply it by all these different directions and do
00:25:33
it like instantly the power is incredible >> it is it is and you know so let's weave
00:25:38
in you asked early off the top, aantic, what does that mean? Like the reason, you know, I spent three hours yesterday
00:25:44
doing a cloud code um course for PMs in this case, but like I I so recommend people jumping in and trying it and and
00:25:51
why do I get excited? So the the the innovation that cloud code and and variants of uh of it represent or what
00:25:57
they're calling long horizon uh agents, right? So you know when when uh the chat
00:26:03
pimo would happen that was all about pre-training a model and then we had reasoning and inference time compute
00:26:08
like that was where like it's thinking to basically really really run lots of
00:26:12
different permutations and this long horizon agents are a gamecher because it actually can look long horizon and hold
00:26:19
context and look at the whole system. So to your point, Barbara, this is not only
00:26:24
just taking in more information. It's actually thinking about the long horizon
00:26:27
of the relationship, right? So we're just starting to see this where it's
00:26:30
like, well, maybe maybe it is like these se these 10 things. I'm making that
00:26:35
number up, but it's thinking about the entire system and that's where the agent
00:26:40
it is. >> So you're maximizing lifetime value. You're not only at this one occasion
00:26:45
doing it in a million different directions. So, it's not only multi-dimensional in that way with the
00:26:50
different tools you can use and all the different questions you can ask, but it's dynamic. It's long term. So, you're
00:26:55
looking about how to maximize the the That's incredible. >> Ladies and gentlemen, Chris O'Neal has
00:27:03
just split the atom slide on our podcast. >> I mean, amazing. I I can't I mean, I see
00:27:10
why it's so hard to explain because it's just so much. Then you have metrics that
00:27:16
prove you're able to do this somehow or another. >> I mean, you're not just taking it on
00:27:20
faith cuz it's pretty hard to get your brain around all of these things. >> It it is, but you know, you know, the
00:27:25
the math the math we've applied it in ad tech for a long time. Those previous,
00:27:31
you know, run it Google and now this is like how do you bring it into marketing personalization. So, it's borrowing
00:27:36
similar concepts and then and then turbocharging with AI. It's just like it's it is my my bending. You know the
00:27:42
hardest thing is actually changing the people's minds and the workflows in their life. People get used to different
00:27:48
ways of thinking and the longest pull the hardest change is actually changing the ways in which people go about their
00:27:54
business and that's the hardest thing and that's you know I find it deeply
00:27:57
rewarding once you do that. So you're not just applying your existing workflows and your mindsets to a whole
00:28:02
new set of tools or vice versa right new tools on top. When you say people, are you talking about the marketers, the end
00:28:07
users, the retailers? Who are the people you're talking about? >> All the all the above, but particularly
00:28:12
the marketers, right? And so like what's happened? There's always been a
00:28:14
tugof-war between technical people and like the data teams and lots of different parts of large organizations.
00:28:21
>> You know, if you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would have thought that the the
00:28:24
marketing leaders of today or now would be a blend of art and science, right? These people who are have data driven
00:28:31
thing and and deep appreciation for personalization and brand. I would have thought they sort of merged those
00:28:35
together and that's still largely true. But what's happening is the data teams
00:28:40
and the technologists are really leaning in and they're saying, "Hey, you know,
00:28:43
for a long time this promise has not been kept, right? The the BFF thing I mentioned." The reason that's not true
00:28:50
as a rule is that basically marketers haven't leaned in consistently to show
00:28:55
that this isn't just a cost center. This is a growth engine. Right? So the technologist with all these tools we're
00:29:00
talking about, I mean, they're so powerful, it's unbelievable. I wouldn't
00:29:03
have the slope of improvement is incredible. So you're seeing the technologists really play a role and
00:29:10
they're trying to learn marketing faster than marketing is trying to learn tech
00:29:13
and it's a fascinating time to be in business and but it does require a mindset and a partnership of
00:29:18
collaboration that takes time and you know really really um the culture. >> So let's you know just we we are almost
00:29:26
at the end of time if we're not at the end of time. So let's just big picture
00:29:29
this like just to get like >> with all of this power and all this ability that you have to make all these
00:29:35
predictions you know are you would you maintain that you are not only increasing
00:29:43
bottom line for the retailer because the retailer sending this information so the
00:29:47
more useful the information is the more money they'll get for that information
00:29:50
the more value they'll have the marketer who's selling more product but are you
00:29:55
also maximizing the experience for the end user like is that one of the goals too? I mean,
00:30:01
>> I think it's the main goal. Absolutely. Right. For too long, I mean, the reason
00:30:05
I'm in this line of work is like, look, we all experience this in our day-to-day
00:30:09
life, some sub-optimal experiences, whether it's the actual product experience or the marketing experience,
00:30:13
the customer service experience. And like I just think that, you know, this is one of going to be one of the use
00:30:17
cases just like it is for DevOps developing code or customer service interaction where you're applying
00:30:23
agents. Same as in marketing, too. For goodness sake, we know we know information and people are willing to
00:30:29
offer it. in a fair exchange for more delightful experiences and that's what
00:30:34
right great brands I know I think I'm preaching to the to the choir here that
00:30:37
like that's what it's all about that's the higher order bit you know the tech
00:30:40
can be a service to wonderful experiences >> and that's what um that's what gets us
00:30:45
out of bed every morning and we're really really thrilled to put gonna put up for me next like that's I'm going to
00:30:54
be even happier shopping at Costco now >> that's funny I love it though Barbara to
00:30:58
your point though because as Chris saying it's the trifecta, right? I mean, consumer welfare goes up, marketing
00:31:04
efficiency, marketers do their jobs better. I mean, every it's a just win-winwin. This is fantastic.
00:31:10
>> Well, Chris, it's been kind of an amazing little session. If I understand
00:31:14
an eighth of what you're talking about, I'm thrilled. But, uh, it's been
00:31:19
wonderful talking to you. Can you tell us where consumers can learn more about this or our listeners can learn more
00:31:24
about what you're talking about and get into more of the details? you have is
00:31:28
that available for people to dig in? >> Yeah. Yeah, people can track me down on
00:31:32
LinkedIn. That's usually where I spend spend my uh my my social time. Um so people want to track me down on LinkedIn
00:31:38
or check out Growth Loop. Um we'd be happy to to chat or or just really like
00:31:43
help us move this this whole uh industry one one step forward. So thank you so much for for the time and discussion.
00:31:49
I've enjoyed it very much. So thank you very much for having me here. >> Thank you. Chris O'Neal, CEO of Growth
00:31:55
Loop. That's all we have time for today. We'd like to thank our producers, Dion
00:31:59
Simpkins and Marissa Rena. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week.
00:32:04
Till then, this has been Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast Network. I'm Barbara Khan here with Americas
00:32:11
Reed.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 70
    Best concept / idea
  • 60
    Best overall
  • 60
    Most creative

Episode Highlights

  • The Power of AI in Marketing
    AI can significantly enhance marketing strategies by optimizing outreach and testing.
    “AI can help design your emails and outreach.”
    @ 00m 43s
    January 24, 2026
  • Understanding Compound Marketing
    Chris O'Neal introduces the concept of compound marketing and its importance.
    “Compounding is everywhere.”
    @ 03m 50s
    January 24, 2026
  • The CFO-CMO Relationship
    A strong partnership between CFO and CMO is crucial for effective marketing.
    “The CFO and CMO need to be BFFs.”
    @ 12m 53s
    January 24, 2026
  • The Power of Costco
    Costco prioritizes its members, creating delightful experiences through data-driven marketing.
    “Costco is super super into their members.”
    @ 18m 05s
    January 24, 2026
  • AI in Marketing
    AI is revolutionizing marketing by maximizing lifetime value and enhancing customer experiences.
    “This is not only just taking in more information. It's actually thinking about the long horizon.”
    @ 26m 24s
    January 24, 2026
  • A Win-Win-Win Situation
    Improved marketing efficiency benefits consumers, marketers, and retailers alike.
    “It's a win-win-win.”
    @ 31m 07s
    January 24, 2026

Episode Quotes

  • AI can help design your emails and outreach.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing
  • Compounding is everywhere.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing
  • The CFO and CMO need to be BFFs.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing
  • Marketing starts with math and ends with art.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing
  • Costco is super super into their members.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing
  • It's a win-win-win.
    How Agentic AI Is Transforming Marketing

Key Moments

  • AI in Marketing00:39
  • Compound Marketing03:06
  • CFO-CMO Relationship12:53
  • Costco Focus18:05
  • AI Revolution26:24
  • Win-Win-Win31:07

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown