For decades, marketing has surfed one technology wave after another – from the cloud and business intelligence to IoT and augmented reality. Each came with promises of transformation; few truly changed the marketer’s job.
According to Kaveri Camire, an AI-native marketing and communications leader, the current Artificial Intelligence wave is fundamentally different. This isn’t about doing the same work faster. It’s about elevating marketing to deliver entirely new, higher-value work.
From Hype Cycles to a Golden Era
Camire argued that everyone is in a golden era of disruption. Either you become part of the disruption journey, or you get disrupted. The crucial difference this time is democratisation.
AI is no longer the preserve of a few specialists; it’s broadly accessible, and day-to-day use is quickly becoming table stakes. The question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to refine it and apply it with an outcome-driven mindset.
That shift opens the door to reimagining the function itself: embedding AI into workflows, cultivating “super learners,” and tracking a bold new metric – Trust ROI. By Camire’s framing, AI is the great equaliser. As productivity spikes, it creates space for something marketers have been craving: more imagination and innovation.
Putting a Price on the Intangible: Trust ROI
Trust has long been an intangible in business. In the AI era, Camire believes it can be measured – and even monetised. Trust, she contends, is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a strategic asset that directly drives loyalty, advocacy and growth.
Her team’s answer is to become their own “client zero,” pressure-testing new agentic workflows across legal, HR and marketing before taking them to market. The result is a repeatable path to scale where solutions are tested and trusted – with security, governance and outcomes validated in real-world conditions.
Clients can adapt with confidence, knowing the learnings have already been banked. That trust creates a flywheel: it encourages richer data sharing, which improves outcomes, deepens client relationships and opens the door to new opportunities.
Proof in the Outcomes
The approach is already delivering tangible results across industries:
Equitable Holdings launched a GenAI-powered claims chatbot in just 30 days, cutting call times by 80% and markedly improving customer service. The programme shows how targeted, low-disruption initiatives can explore AI’s potential without derailing day-to-day operations.
European Space Agency (ESA) partnered with DXC to evolve a prototype into ASK ESA – a secure, enterprise-grade generative AI platform built for speed, scale and insight. Engineers are saving hours each week, freeing researchers to focus on what matters most: unlocking the mysteries of space.
Ventia, an infrastructure powerhouse, is using a tailored generative AI platform from DXC to slash bid response times from days to minutes. Faster, smarter proposals mean stronger competitiveness for high-value, multi-million-pound contracts – and a decisive edge in the tender room.
Across these projects, the common thread is outcomes that earn trust – and trust that accelerates outcomes.
People at the Centre, AI in the Loop
Camire is clear: the point is not to replace people but to raise their game. Her teams are experimenting hands-on with AI in content creation, producing fully AI-generated videos – animation, audio and voice – using ten different tools.
Yet the human remains central, ensuring accuracy, accountability and imagination. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s speed, creativity and collective learning.
She calls the operating model lean intelligence: use AI to reduce manual tasks, reinvest the time in strategy and creativity, and align work tightly to business objectives. The early dividends are measurable – a 30% reduction in time-intensive tasks to produce content, with the capacity redeployed to higher-value activity.
The Bigger Economic Picture
The implications extend well beyond marketing. Global knowledge work is valued at $20–30 trillion. Even a 20–30% productivity uplift from AI could unlock as much as $5 trillion in economic value.
At that scale, the game doesn’t merely change – it resets.
For marketing leaders, that reset offers a blueprint. Those who adopt an AI-first mindset gain an edge in data quality, speed of decision-making and alignment with growth. And alignment matters: as Camire notes, if marketing isn’t connected to growth objectives, that’s a problem – AI or no AI.
What’s different today is that AI makes that alignment achievable at both speed and scale.
A New Operating System for Marketing
So what does the blueprint look like in practice?
- Be outcome-obsessed. Tie every AI initiative to measurable results – from customer experience to pipeline and revenue contribution.
- Build super learners. Reward curiosity, experimentation and knowledge sharing. Make hands-on trials the default, not the exception.
- Operationalise trust. Treat trust like a P&L line item. Design governance, security and validation into every workflow.
- Scale what works. Learn fast, fail smart and standardise proven patterns so they can be rolled out across teams and markets.
Crucially, the work is cultural as much as technical. Democratise access, teach the craft and give teams permission to play. The tools are powerful; their real value lies in the doors they open for talent to operate at new creative levels.
Conclusion: Put Creativity in the Driver’s Seat
AI presents a rare opportunity to reinvent marketing – not by automating the past, but by inventing the future.
The organisations that will win are already putting people at the centre, using AI to amplify human creativity and performance, and making Trust ROI a measurable, monetisable asset. Camire’s message is as challenging as it is energising: lean in, get uncomfortable and connect every experiment to outcomes that matter.
Do that, and AI becomes more than a productivity boost; it becomes the engine that turns imagination and performance into sustainable growth. This is marketing’s golden disruption – and the moment to be in the driver’s seat.
