In the pod’s latest episode Joerg engages with Balazs Fejes, CEO & President of the global software engineering player EPAM Systems, for a tight 32-minute conversation on why AI is forcing organisations to fundamentally rethink leadership, operations, workforce design, and enterprise transformation.

One of Balazs’ strongest messages: AI is not transforming IT. It is transforming the business itself.

According to Balazs, AI initiatives stall when they remain isolated inside technology teams.

Successful transformation requires active involvement from CEOs, CFOs, and business leaders because AI changes how organizations operate—not just the tools they use.

Key Balazs insights from Balazs:

• AI transformation must be owned by the business, not just IT
• Leadership engagement determines whether AI scales or stalls
• Organizational culture remains the biggest barrier to adoption
• AI requires redesigning business processes, not automating existing ones
• Companies must move beyond pilots and begin enterprise-wide implementation
• Talent development is the foundation of successful AI transformation
• Change management matters just as much as technology

As CEO of EPAM Systems, Balazs’ has led one of the world’s largest engineering organizations through enterprise AI transformation while helping global companies redesign how they build, operate, and scale in the AI era.

If you’re navigating the AI transformation landscape (who is not in some form?), follow Joerg on LinkedIn and subscribe to the Digital Storm podcast and newsletter.

The content boom: budgets up, volume surging, AI leading the charge

Content production is accelerating at a pace that’s outstripping expectations, fueled by expanding channels and AI innovations:

• Rising budgets: Over 80% of organizations plan to increase content and creative budgets in the near future, up from 70% in 2024. Notably, 29% expect significant increases, a jump from 19% in 2023.
• Volume explosion: 82% of teams reported higher content output last year, with 27% seeing significant growth. AI is the primary driver, with 75% of professionals saying it has boosted volume—30% significantly.
• Evolving ROI metrics: Success is measured through a mix of engagement (40%), brand awareness (38%), conversions/lead gen (38%), and sales revenue (38%). ROI is improving, with 28% reporting significant gains (up from 19% last year).

Teams with mature workflows are reaping the rewards, being 3x more likely to see substantial ROI. This underscores the need for investments in AI, automation, and centralized systems to handle the surge without sacrificing quality.

Content operations: maturity matters, fragmentation hurts

Operational challenges persist, but top performers are addressing them head-on. Canto’s report highlights persistent pain points like keeping up with content demands (40%) and managing volume (36%), but also shows progress in tech adoption.

• Workflow maturity: Only 43% have advanced, standardized workflows, but these teams report 48% significant ROI increases compared to 0% for those with ad-hoc processes.
• Improvement tactics: 51% are using AI for creation, tagging, and organization; 41% are enhancing cross-team collaboration; and 36% are introducing automation to cut manual work.
• AI’s role in efficiency: Widespread AI users find maintaining brand consistency extremely easy (49% vs. 6-9% for non-users).

High-ROI teams prioritize automation (47%), templates (45%), and asset distribution (33%), proving that streamlining operations directly boosts returns.

Digital Asset Management: centralization is key to avoiding chaos

Fragmented asset storage, a persistent problem, remains a major drag, with most teams using multiple systems like cloud storage (62%) and DAM solutions (47%). The consequences are clear:

Only 35% are very confident employees use up-to-date brand assets, meaning most perceive that colleagues in sales, product management, customer service and the broader marketing team are using dated, often inaccurate materials which exposes their brands to numerous risks.

In contrast, DAM users report smoother operations, and those unifying assets with product content see 4x higher ROI gains.

For product-focused teams, accuracy is critical: 88% struggle with consistency across channels, but centralized approaches reduce duplication and improve access.

Tech stack optimization: closing gaps for better scale

Content teams lose time on manual tasks, with 22% prioritizing AI automation and 21% better search/retrieval. Core capabilities like analytics (43%) and standardized workflows (41%) are established in many organizations, but only 24% have fully optimized stacks.

Teams with strong ROI excel in AI tools (59%), analytics (50%), and automated tagging (42%). As stacks mature, expect more focus on integration to eliminate silos.

AI throughout the lifecycle: from analysis to personalization

AI is embedded across operations, with top uses in performance analysis (41%), SEO optimization (40%), and tagging (39%). High-ROI teams apply it more broadly, especially in personalization (41%) and discovery (43%).

Looking ahead, teams want AI for streamlining reviews (38%), smart search (36%), and reuse recommendations (35%). Adoption is at 77%, with 81% confident in AI’s accuracy for tagging—higher among heavy users.

What this means for your marketing strategy

The report paints a clear picture: success in 2026 hinges on operational maturity. Fragmented systems fuel burnout, waste and magnify risks, while AI-driven, centralized approaches unlock speed, consistency, and ROI. If your team is stuck in manual workflows or siloed assets, now’s the time to audit and optimize.

I help businesses in Tasmania and beyond implement these strategies— from AI integration to DAM setups. If you’re ready to scale your content operations, let’s talk. Download the full Canto report here to dive deeper. Let’s turn these insights into action for your business.

Key takeaways from the piece include:

• Democratization of Building: With AI making creation and automation “free” or low-cost, the real challenge shifts to distribution. As Bodnar puts it, “When building is free, distribution becomes everything — and that means more money, attention and energy will flow here than ever.” This signals a surge in investment toward marketing strategies that cut through noise and capture audience attention.
• Pivoting to Complexity: Initially focused on simplifying paid ads for smaller users, Bodnar’s team adapted by developing sophisticated AI workflows for large ad agencies managing hundreds of accounts. This highlights AI’s role in scaling operations but underscores the enduring need for human oversight—especially in high-stakes areas like budget allocation on platforms such as Google Ads or Meta, where errors can be costly.
• Human-AI Synergy: While AI empowers non-experts to handle end-to-end marketing workflows, Bodnar and commenters emphasize the risks. Non-specialists might miss nuances or errors in AI suggestions, reinforcing the value of expert-guided AI systems for trust and performance.

This evolution in martech points to a future where AI agents handle routine tasks, freeing marketers to focus on strategy, storytelling, taste, and building genuine consumer trust. However, it also warns of potential disruptions for traditional agencies and tools that don’t adapt quickly.

Bodnar’s experience is a timely reminder for marketing professionals: Embrace AI as an amplifier, not a replacement, and prioritize distribution in an era of abundant creation. For those in the sector, it’s worth checking out the full article on X for deeper insights into building resilient AI-driven strategies.

(Originally shared by @irabukht on X: https://x.com/irabukht/status/2025846968245948795)

What is Martec’s Law?

At its core, Martec’s Law observes that technological progress follows an exponential curve—think Moore’s Law, where computing power doubles roughly every two years, or Metcalfe’s Law, which shows how network value grows exponentially with connections. Social media’s rapid evolution is another prime example: what started as simple platforms has exploded into complex ecosystems that reshape how we communicate and market.

In contrast, organizations evolve much more slowly, on a logarithmic scale. This isn’t just about size or bureaucracy; it’s rooted in human factors like established processes, cultural inertia, incentives, and the sheer effort required to shift behaviors. Larger teams amplify this resistance, making change feel like pushing a boulder uphill. Without strong leadership, stagnation becomes the norm.

Brinker calls this dynamic “the great management dilemma of the 21st century”.

Implications for Marketing and Beyond

For marketers, this law is especially relevant in the martech space, where tools and platforms multiply at a dizzying rate. It’s not just about adopting the latest AI-driven analytics or automation software—it’s about integrating them into your team’s workflow without causing disruption. The risk? Overwhelmed employees, half-baked implementations, and missed opportunities as competitors who bridge the gap pull ahead.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Brinker emphasizes that even the best-led organizations can’t match technology’s pace outright. Instead, the key is strategic selection: consciously choosing which changes to embrace and which to ignore, aligning them with your broader business goals. As he draws from A.G. Lafley’s Playing to Win, strategy is about making tough choices—what’s “in” (the red area) and what’s “out” (the blue).

How to Bridge the Gap

To make Martec’s Law work for you, focus on absorption as much as adoption. This means:

• Strategic Prioritization: Evaluate tech changes against your organization’s mission. Not every shiny new tool deserves a spot in your stack.
• Cultural Integration: Go beyond installation—invest in coaching, training, and inspiring your team. Educate on why the change matters, nurture buy-in, and elevate those who champion it. A experienced consultant once recommended to myself that for every $1 committed to software licensing/subscribing, $3 should be allocated to training and change management.
• Proactive Leadership: Anticipate the gap and plan for it. In marketing, this could involve piloting martech tools in small teams before scaling, ensuring they enhance rather than hinder creativity.

I’ve seen businesses thrive by applying these principles. For instance, a mid-sized firm might skip the hype around every new AI platform and instead double down on data privacy tech that aligns with their customer trust strategy.

If you’re grappling with martech overload, Martec’s Law offers a roadmap. It’s a reminder that thoughtful adaptation beats frantic chasing. Check out Brinker’s original article for a deeper dive, and let’s discuss how this applies to your organization—drop a comment below or reach out via the contact form.

Originally inspired by Scott Brinker’s article on chiefmartec.com.

Key Highlights from Forrester’s 2026 Predictions

Forrester outlines five pivotal trends that will shape B2B operations this year, all centered on “The Race to Trust and Value.” Here’s a what they mean for marketing, sales, and product teams:

• Governed AI for Smarter Outcomes: While ungoverned generative AI could lead to significant costs, proactive governance opens doors to efficiency. With 75% of sales reps already using AI tools, empowering your team with AI literacy can prevent pitfalls and value through better decision-making.
• Human Expertise as a Competitive Edge: Buyers are craving deeper validation beyond AI—30% viewed genAI as meaningful in 2025, but human interactions with product experts top the list for trust. This shift highlights the power of upskilling your teams to deliver personalized insights, fostering stronger buyer relationships from early stages to post-sale success.
• Influencer Relations as Growth Levers: A huge 75% of B2B enterprises plan to boost budgets here. As buying networks expand, influencers like analysts and experts become key to building trust. Integrating them into your go-to-market (GTM) strategy—via social amplification and endorsements—can elevate proof-of-success over brand reputation, driving measurable impact.
• AI Agents Revolutionizing Payments: Expect AI agents in one-third of B2B payments, streamlining complex workflows like invoicing and trade credit. Vendors like Basware and Coupa are leading the charge, promising higher automation and efficiency—perfect for Australian firms dealing with diverse supply chains.
• Agent-Led Negotiations for Dynamic Deals: 20% of sellers will engage AI buyer agents in quotes, turning negotiations into data-driven, compliant opportunities. This evolution from static pricing to agile interfaces means suppliers with strong AI partners can protect margins while adapting to buyer demands.

These predictions underscore a market where clarity, accountability, and human-AI synergy win big. In volatile times, they’re your roadmap to turning rapid change into sustainable advantage.

Activation guidance

Ready to put Forrester’s insights into action? Here’s practical advice for B2B leaders in Tasmania and beyond:

1. Build AI Governance from the Ground Up: Democratize AI education—train teams to spot bad outputs and integrate governance into commercial apps. Start small: Audit your current tools and invest in “AI intelligence quotient” workshops to boost confidence and reduce risks.
2. Elevate Human Touchpoints: Prioritize product experts and customer success teams early in the buyer journey. Upskill them to handle complex queries, ensuring your offerings meet real needs. This not only validates AI insights but builds lasting trust.
3. Strategize Influencer Engagement: Shift from tactical PR to integrated GTM. Expand your signals to include influencer activity—track commentary and endorsements. Align budgets with performance metrics to see ROI in buyer discovery and conversions.
4. Embrace AI Agents in Workflows: For payments and negotiations, partner with agentic AI vendors. Assess your invoicing and procurement processes for automation potential, starting with pilot programs to scale efficiencies without disrupting operations.
5. Prepare for Buyer Evolution: Equip sales teams with AI agents for counteroffers, focusing on margin protection and compliance. Collaborate with in-house engineers or trusted partners to stay agile in a market where 61% of buyers use genAI for purchasing.

By prioritizing trust and value—as Forrester advises—you’ll position your business for growth in a buyer-empowered world.

For more on how digital marketing can amplify these strategies, from AI-optimized content to influencer campaigns, let’s chat. Connect via mitchellmackey.com.au/contact. Here’s to a prosperous, high-impact 2026!

Mitchell Mackey | Digital Marketing Strategist | Hobart, Tasmania Driving B2B Success in the AI Era

Leading marketing technology consultant Scott Brinker, of Martec, says we marketers are all facing variations of the following challenges:

Subscription Fatigue: Companies are overwhelmed by the sheer number of SaaS subscriptions. Managing dozens of tools—each with its own pricing tier—creates complexity and cost creep. In Martech, this is acute, as teams juggle platforms for email, social, SEO, and more.

Diminishing Returns: Many SaaS tools promise innovation but deliver incremental improvements. Marketers often find overlapping features across platforms, leading to redundancy and inefficiency.

Integration Challenges: The dream of seamless SaaS ecosystems often falls short. Disparate tools require complex integrations, leading to data silos and workflow bottlenecks.

Market Saturation: The martech landscape is overcrowded. New entrants struggle to differentiate, and consolidation (e.g., Zuora’s $1.7B acquisition by Silver Lake and GIC in 2024) signals a maturing market.

Economic Pressures: Complex economic macros and tighter budgets in 2025 are pushing companies to scrutinize SaaS spending. CFOs are questioning the ROI of tools that don’t deliver measurable impact.

The Rise of SaaS

SaaS emerged as a game-changer in the early 2000s, driven by pioneers like Salesforce. By delivering software over the internet, SaaS eliminated the need for costly on-premise installations, enabling businesses to scale quickly and pay only for what they used. In Martech, this fueled an explosion of tools, covering everything from CRM to analytics and automation. The low barrier to entry empowered startups and enterprises alike, democratizing access to cutting-edge technology.

The appeal was clear:

• Cost Efficiency: Subscription models spread costs over time.
• Scalability: Tools could grow with a company’s needs.
• Accessibility: Cloud-based platforms allowed global, real-time collaboration.

For marketers, SaaS meant agility. Teams could deploy tools like HubSpot or Marketo to orchestrate campaigns, analyze data, and personalize customer experiences without heavy IT involvement.

The Fall of SaaS?

However the SaaS trajectory is shifting. Brinker argues that we’re entering a “post-SaaS” era, where the model evolves or gives way to new paradigms. Key trends include:

• Consolidation and Platforms: Mega-platforms like Salesforce and Adobe are absorbing smaller players, creating all-in-one suites. This reduces the need for multiple subscriptions but risks vendor lock-in.
• AI-Driven Automation: AI is reshaping martech, with tools embedding generative capabilities to automate content creation, analytics, and personalization. This could reduce reliance on specialized SaaS tools.
• Open-Source and Hybrid Models: Businesses are exploring open-source alternatives or hybrid solutions (e.g., self-hosted SaaS) to cut costs and gain control.
• Usage-Based Pricing: Some SaaS providers are shifting to pay-per-use models, aligning costs with actual value delivered.

What This Means for Marketers

For Australian businesses, particularly those leveraging martech, the evolving SaaS landscape demands a strategic rethink:

• Audit Your Stack: Review your SaaS subscriptions to eliminate redundancy. Tools like our consulting services can help optimize your martech stack.
• Prioritize Integration: Invest in platforms that integrate seamlessly or leverage APIs to connect your ecosystem.
• Embrace AI: Adopt AI-powered tools to streamline workflows and reduce dependency on multiple SaaS products.
• Negotiate Contracts: With market consolidation, negotiate better terms with SaaS providers to maximize value.

Looking Ahead

SaaS transformed martech, but its challenges—cost, complexity, and saturation—are undeniable. As Brinker notes, the future lies in smarter, more integrated solutions that prioritize outcomes over subscriptions. At MitchellMackey.com.au, we’re committed to helping Australian businesses navigate this shift, ensuring your martech investments deliver real results.

This post is adapted from Scott Brinker’s insights in the State of Martech 2025 report, co-authored with Frans Riemersma. For the full report and more Martech insights, visit chiefmartec.com or download the report at content.martechday.com/state-of-martech-2025.pdf.

Brinker’s key theme is that marketing has become a technology-powered discipline, and therefore marketing organizations must infuse technical capabilities into their DNA. I agree.

Scott and his Martech Tribe colleague Frans Riemersma now have created a dedicated platform to assist marketers filter and navigate through their subcategories and options.

They have also produced a comprehensive assessment of AI’s impact on the Martech universe. Despite (and maybe also because of) its 111-page length, Martech for 2025 is well worth reviewing.

As marketers navigate this dynamic era, the report highlights five key segments driving growth and innovation, alongside practical strategies for leveraging AI effectively.

AI-Powered Martech Growth

The surge in Martech tools, which have jumped from 11,038 in 2023 to 15,385 in 2025, shows no sign of slowing down. The growth is largely fueled by AI-powered solutions. These are categorized into five segments:

1. Indie Tools: Specialized, AI-native startups focusing on niche marketing tasks like content creation and sales automation.
2. Incumbent Platforms: Established players (e.g., Adobe, Salesforce) embedding AI to enhance existing products.
3. Challenger Platforms: Emerging platforms leveraging AI to disrupt traditional categories, such as digital experience platforms (DXPs), formerly CMS tools or website Content Management Systems.
4. Instant Software: Custom, AI-generated software created on-the-fly to address specific business needs. Salesforce, recognising an emerging commercial threat, is proactively warning against this approach, labelling it DIY AI software.
5. Service-as-a-Software: AI-driven solutions that perform tasks autonomously, like customer service or campaign orchestration, often with outcome-based pricing.

Foundations for an AI Strategy

The report reinforces the essential reality that a robust AI strategy hinges on a solid data foundation. Scott and Fran emphasize the importance of a universal data layer. 71% of those who responded to a survey for the report claimed to be using cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Google BigQuery) to integrate data across their stacks. Additionally, a universal content layer is emerging to manage personalized content at scale, blending customer data with brand identity for hyper-personalized experiences. API composability is also critical, enabling AI agents to execute actions via large action models (LAMs), which complement large language models (LLMs).

This data challenge is the biggest AI-adoption hurdle for traditional legacy businesses, who, with few exceptions, are yet to genuinely master their myriad data management issues.

Generative AI Use Cases

Generative AI adoption is widespread, with content ideation (69%) and content copy production (62%) leading as the most popular use cases given their obvious low-hanging fruit status. Other notable applications include transcription, summarization, and competitive research. While content and data-related tasks dominate, adoption in advertising and social media is lower, partly due to outsourcing or reliance on platforms like Google’s Performance Max. The report notes that 60% of marketers use both embedded AI in existing tools and new AI-native tools, with frequent use in content and analytics tasks.

Governance and Practical Insights

Only 52% of organizations have a generative AI policy, impacting adoption rates. Those with policies are more likely to cite cost as a reason for discontinuing AI tools, indicating greater maturity in evaluating ROI. The report also highlights the need for governance to address data privacy, security, and compliance concerns.

Key Takeaways

• Experiment Strategically: Start small with AI to test high-impact use cases without overhauling existing systems.
• Prioritize Data: A strong data strategy is essential for unlocking AI’s potential. There is little merit in feeding sophisticated AI engines with poor-quality data fuel.
• Embrace Composability: Build flexible, API-driven stacks to integrate AI seamlessly.
• Focus on Outcomes: Shift from flashy demos to measurable ROI, leveraging AI for efficiency and personalization.

As AI continues to evolve, marketers must balance innovation with governance to harness its transformative power. For a deeper dive, explore the full “Martech for 2025” report.

The Marketoonist Tom Fishburne highlights this assertion. Fishburne, in his commentary on the cartoon, quotes the B2B Institute’s Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo as saying the 95-5 rule means your marketing must ensure that your product or service is remembered when a buyer does activate.

Fishburne says, you can’t push B2B buyers down a funnel, but you can, to quote Dawes’ colleague Jenni Romaniuk, “catch buyers as they fall”.

Announced with characteristic bravado and ambition at the company’s Dreamforce jamboree in San Francisco in September, Genie generalises its CDP capabilities across all its Sales, Service, Marketing and Commerce clouds, as well as its Platform, Tableau, Slack and Mulesoft tools, to enable customer experience orchestration in real time.

Salesforce, which has overtaken SAP to seize enterprise software application leadership by revenue, says Genie connects with the CDP engine to establish a single customer or group of customers with AI and machine learning and connects that data to Salesforce’s Flow automation.

Examples include serving ads, content or offers; making sales recommendations based on browser behaviour, pulling up historical sales and service data or reacting to real-time maintenance alerts to quickly solve customer problems or deleting or restricting customer data when they opt out of marketing.

Users can see exactly how the entire end-to-end process is flowing or stalling, from marketing across to sales, service, compliance, and system-of-record transaction management.

The rebranding of the CDP to Genie was to “make it fun” and, critically, to help customers and stakeholders embrace and understand the value proposition.

In summary, Salesforce asserts that data orchestration blended with engagement capabilities and genuine AI, results in a so-called “real-time” CRM. Next level stuff.

Constellation Research founder Ray Wang was quoted as stating, “to take the CDP to the next level, you really have to do it in a very different way. You have to not just think about the data that’s there, you have to think about how everything’s connected”.

Salesforce claims large companies run an average of 976 separate applications in their businesses, resulting in data fragmentation and an inconsistent environments where value can not flow smoothly.

Salesforce’s CDP leader Rahul Auradkar was quoted as saying that the company’s own customers had said that their own downstream customers were expecting far more personalized experiences now and in the future.

“The power of real time is doing the right thing, at the right time,” said Auradkar.

Let’s see how that promise, oft touted and promised in the CRM world over the years, is delivered.

Nothing wrong with the ambition. Everyone agrees we need to create a hyper-personalised relationship with our customers, pooling and harmonizing data into what Forbes calls a “a reconciled, comprehensive customer portrait”.

Marketing science gurus, Tasman Murray and Ken Roberts, debate Share of Search’s merit, whilst I moderate, in this compelling webinar from the Growth Colony: Australia’s B2B Community.

Be prepared to resort to Google Translate for the Latin that Tas and Ken inject into their exchanges! #shareofsearch.