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Consolidating the MarTech stack was supposed to produce one clear reporting picture. It did not. Adrianne Haynes-Samuel, digital and technology principal at Modern, argues the tooling is rarely the problem. The data model underneath it is. It goes out of date as service offerings change and CRM fields get edited. Taryn Breetzke speaks with Adrianne about Halo IQ, the product she heads up. It sits on top of an existing stack, normalises CRM data and maps every interaction on an account. She explains why around half of CMOs distrust the attribution model they already have. The second half turns to the dark funnel. When buyers research inside AI platforms first, first touch stops being measurable. Adrianne argues for measuring AI references instead. Four takeaways Attribution assumes consistent data. Change a CRM field and the two year view breaks. Governance comes before tooling. Frameworks produce the attribution model, not the reverse. Lead counts do not answer what boards actually want to discuss. Most AI projects are automation projects. The foundational problems sit underneath. Timestamps 00:01:45 What led to building Halo IQ 00:02:20 Why plugging tools together made reporting worse 00:03:30 Data redundancy and reporting across an 18 to 24 month journey 00:04:30 Orchestration on top of the stack instead of ripping things out 00:05:50 Mapping the full account journey to defend marketing budget 00:06:45 The gumball machine problem 00:08:30 Fishbone mapping by hand and why it had to be automated 00:11:50 Proving marketing impact at board level 00:12:50 Why CMOs do not trust their own data 00:13:50 Linking spend across long campaign cycles to ROI 00:17:30 Moving the board conversation from leads to growth 00:18:50 Boards reining in marketing and MarTech spend 00:19:50 Foundational process focus rising from 11% to 31% 00:20:50 Holding tech suppliers to KPIs rather than treating them as vendors 00:22:00 Governance frameworks for selecting tech 00:23:50 Sales and marketing sharing attribution instead of claiming credit 00:25:00 Where AI helps and where it is really an automation problem 00:27:40 Freeing up 20% of a day for thinking 00:29:20 The GEO shift and the dark funnel 00:30:20 Measuring AI references instead of first touch 00:32:40 Review platforms and how AI compares you to competitors 00:34:40 Employee and industry influencers as a channel 00:38:20 The one belief B2B marketing leaders should let go of 00:40:30 Where to find Modern and Halo IQ Notable quotes "It's really difficult to build a castle on sand if you're not sure what's gonna be happening." Adrianne Haynes-Samuel "Attribution assumes a fundamental, which is that you're working on consistent data." Adrianne Haynes-Samuel "It's not the tech, and it's not attribution that's the North Star." Adrianne Haynes-Samuel Stats and references Around 50% of CMOs do not trust the attribution model they have in place. (Adrianne Haynes-Samuel) CMOs naming foundational process work as a core focus: around 11% to around 31%. (Adrianne Haynes-Samuel) Automating menial tasks can return around 20% of a day for thinking. (Adrianne Haynes-Samuel) Ten accounts mapped by hand could take one person a month. (Adrianne Haynes-Samuel) Connect Adrianne Haynes-Samuel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriannehaynessamuel/ Modern and Halo IQ: https://modernb2b.co Taryn Breetzke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarynbreetzke/  TechPros.io: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techpros-io Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

For decades, business software sat still and waited for you to come to it. You pulled the report, built the pivot table, went looking for the number. That's beginning to flip. The system speaks first. Tim Bond interviews Amir Jirbandey, who leads international marketing at Personio, about what that shift means and where it leads. The conversation moves from a simple proactive nudge ("your team hasn't taken time off in two months") to the harder truth Amir keeps returning to: context, not the model, is the bottleneck. The richest conversations live on WhatsApp and never reach the system. They get into Personio's internal AI drive, a month-long programme and hackathon that produced around 400 agents, the 5,000-plus Gong calls loaded into Snowflake and fed into Claude, the account-targeting model that lifted accepted-pipeline odds from the low thirties to around seventy per cent in some territories, and why AI fluency now shapes who Personio hires. They close on performance management, the big-brother tension, and what leaders should do next. ABOUT THE GUEST Amir leads international marketing at Personio, covering European territories outside DACH. He has spent around 15 years in B2B tech, predominantly in venture-backed startups through expansion, including Mailjet, Paddle and Treatwell, and was the first commercial hire at AI-voice startup Papercup, acquired in 2025. A computer science graduate, he describes himself as a generalist who puts the pieces of the puzzle together. Personio is an all-in-one HR platform for people and HR leaders, founded around ten years ago in Munich. It serves the mid-market, typically organisations of 100 to 2,000 employees. The platform was rebuilt from the ground up alongside a rebrand last year. TIMESTAMPS [00:00] Cold open: the missing piece in AI for marketing is contextual awareness, not the model[00:02] The startup journey: Mailjet, Paddle, Treatwell and Papercup[00:05] Different pressures: VC-backed startups vs PE-backed and public companies[00:09] AI as a tool: handing teams back 20 to 40% of menial work, the AI-dubbing analogy[00:12] Why context awareness is the real unlock[00:13] Claude Enterprise at Personio: context-aware chats, a personal "CMO" sparring agent, MCP connectors[00:16] The data problem: stale information and the conversations trapped on WhatsApp[00:19] Garbage in, garbage out: why the right data is paramount[00:22] Three differentiators: a ground-up rebuild, deep reporting customisation, and a fast-growing HR function[00:25] The HR tech AI story: reactive and proactive insights[00:28] Performance management: still human-led, deliberately not handed to AI[00:29] The bigger question, and the big-brother tension[00:34] 5,000+ Gong calls into Snowflake, married to cleaned data[00:35] Account propensity rising from around 30 to 35% up to around 70% accepted pipeline in some territories[00:38] The internal AI drive: month-long programme, hackathon, around 400 agents[00:42] AI fluency as a hiring bar KEY QUOTES AI is a tool that's going to enable you to do 20, 30, 40% of the more menial work that you do... so that way you can focus your kind of craft on the top end of the spectrum. — Amir Jirbandey The component that's missing right now to be able to do that using AI is the contextual awareness. — Amir Jirbandey Did you know that your team hasn't taken any time off for the last two months? Here is a nudge to do it. — Amir Jirbandey Garbage in, garbage out... having the right data is paramount to be able to get the right insights. — Amir Jirbandey If our base layer of our books of business we had 30, 35% chance of turning that to accepted pipeline... in certain territories and certain books of business, that went up to 70%. — Amir Jirbandey CONNECT Amir Jirbandey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajirbandey/ Personio - https://www.linkedin.com/company/personio Tim Bond  -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/ TechPros.io - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techpros-io

Right now, Anthropic's most powerful model Mythos Preview is the talk of the enterprise. 200 select organisations have been given access under Project Glasswing, Anthropic's restricted-access programme for vetted critical infrastructure and cybersecurity organisations. Anthropic reported that 50 partners had already used Mythos Preview to find more than 10,000 high or critical severity vulnerabilities. Tim Bond interviews Radi El Haj, CEO of RS2 a global payment technology company with 35 years of market experience to explore what Mythos-level AI means for a bank's technology stack. The conversation moves quickly from the technical threat to the harder truth: technology change is driven by people change, and the real battle is organisational. They discuss the commercial implications of procrastination, the extraordinary market power Anthropic holds right now (and how a post-IPO world may tighten that grip further), and why European banks currently cannot access Mythos directly. They finish on the build vs buy conversation happening in every boardroom, and what CIOs and CTOs need to be thinking, doing and saying before 2028. About the guest Radi El Haj is CEO and principal shareholder of RS2 PLC a global payment technology company operating a single unified platform for card issuing and acquiring. Cloud-native since 2016. Active across Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific and North America. Regulated in Germany under BaFin. RS2 has been in the market for 35 years across three business lines: licensing, outsourcing, and regulated financial services. Timestamps [00:00] Introduction: accelerating AI capability and the security challenge it poses for financial services [00:05] The problem statement: Mythos identifies vulnerabilities in legacy banking systems in seconds. Mitigation takes weeks or months. That gap is the crisis. [00:07] Why legacy banking is especially exposed: COBOL code built since 1987, fragmented systems, the same customer held in different identity records across the same institution [00:09] Who has access to Mythos Preview: US institutions given priority; European banks currently excluded and accessing through third-party consultancies with Anthropic relationships [00:12] Scale of change needed in the next 12 months: risk decisioning, AML and compliance monitoring, merchant intelligence. Proof of concept becomes production. AI infrastructure becomes a board-level concern. [00:15] People and process: why organisational structure and ownership clarity determine whether banks survive this or not. [00:19] Build vs buy vs outsource: what banks must own and what they should never build themselves [00:21] Orchestration explained: not a product. An architectural posture. How to modernise a tier-one bank without ever telling them to rip and replace. [00:29] AI at RS2: used across the business, with one deliberate exception: the core source code. Plus the integration case study: 8 FTEs over six months became one developer in three days. [00:35] What CIOs and boards need to do now: audit your data, build your orchestration blueprint, demand a risk register with named owners. And any AI-driven decision must have a human as the final authority. Key quotes "We are talking about a human being fighting against AI." -Radi El Haj "You cannot own what you are not willing to maintain. Ownership without investment becomes a liability." - Radi El Haj "Orchestration is not a product. It is an architectural posture to adopt."-Radi El Haj "Before 2028, institutions can choose. After 2028, they will have no choice. They will be forced to implement what they are mandated to do." - Radi El Haj "On a board level, you need to demand a risk register with named owners, timelines and financial exposures, not a slide deck." - Radi El Haj Connect Radi El Haj https://www.linkedin.com/in/radie/  RS2 https://www.linkedin.com/company/rs2plc/ Tim Bond linkedin.com/in/timbond TechPros.io https://www.linkedin.com/company/techpros-io

By the time a B2B buyer lands on your site, the shortlist is already drawn up. Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is changing how B2B buyers find and evaluate vendors, often before they ever visit a website. AI engines are quietly deciding which brands they feel safe recommending, and most enterprise marketing teams have no real visibility into where they stand. In this episode, Taryn Breetzke sits down with Bex Howie, Strategy Director at Gilroy, the agency behind LumusIQ. Bex unpacks why the GEO market jumped to measurement before anyone understood the mechanism, what AI is actually looking for when it builds a shortlist, and why most enterprise content is making brands less visible rather than more. Four takeaways Confidence, not ranking, decides AI shortlists. That confidence comes from third-party signals and consistent external mentions, not just your website. Volume metrics are giving way to influence metrics. Traffic is down and engagement is up. The visitors who do click through are more qualified because the research now happens inside LLMs. AI rewards new thinking. Generative engines favour original opinions, fresh data and SME-backed analysis. Opposing expert views strengthen visibility. Personal brand is back. LinkedIn algorithm changes and citation-led discovery now push employee-led commentary above corporate posts. Timestamps 02:45 Why LumusIQ exists 05:21 How AI builds its shortlist of brands 06:17 The zero-click reality check 07:41 SEO and GEO as a budget stack 10:18 Inside the LumusIQ audit 14:13 Trust signals and why AI rewards original thinking 18:25 From audit to activation 21:18 Measuring influence, not traffic 23:12 Common enterprise GEO mistakes 31:50 On-site LLMs and the rise of the "content librarian" Notable quotes "We're entering a zero-click era and it's changing the role of the website and search as we know it." Bex Howie. "I don't see this as a split. I see it as a stack." Bex Howie. "AI loves to learn something new." Bex Howie. "It's less about ranking and more about confidence. AI is effectively building a shortlist of brands it feels safe recommending." Bex Howie. The LumusIQ audit Bex walks through the five-point GEO audit and how each is scored. Generative AI referrals. Are you being cited in responses across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity? Technical crawlability and rendering. Can generative systems access, interpret and index your content? Search and content health. Are you discoverable for category-level, non-branded, high-intent queries? Accessibility and metadata. Is your site structured for clarity, speed and summarisation? Third-party signals and authority. Do you provide the trust signals AI engines rely on to recommend you? Stats and references Around 30 million American adults claim to have used AI for search, projected to rise to roughly 90 million by 2027 (Bex Howie). LumusIQ by Gilroy. Audit and activation programme that improves how brands show up in AI-led discovery. Visit LumusIQ to apply for a GEO audit or try the on-site content librarian: https://www.gilroy.co.uk/lumus-iq Resources and links Connect with Bex Howie on LinkedIn Connect with Taryn Breetzke on LinkedIn Email: [email protected]  Do you have burning topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/ TechPros runs research-led thought leadership programmes that surface original thinking from senior B2B leaders. Visit techpros.io to join over 4,000 professionals who have participated in challenge forum roundtables, interviews and industry reports. To sponsor a programme get in touch with Taryn Breetzke

Why can AI reach only 86% accuracy in hospitals and courtrooms, yet language services remain a £6 million to £100 million opportunity? Joshua Gould, founder and CEO of The Big Word, reveals why language is fundamentally a technology problem that requires scaling human expertise, not replacing it. As the language services industry prepares to double by 2032, Gould explains the real disruption: automating your own business before the market forces you to. He discusses how government bodies are outpacing the private sector in adopting language technology, and why the biggest opportunities lie at the intersection of human quality and technological scale. Guest bio Joshua Gould is founder and CEO of The Big Word, a multilingual communication technology platform connecting 15,000 linguists across government, healthcare, and legal sectors in the US, UK, and Europe. He scaled the company from £6 million to over £100 million in revenue before securing private equity investment. Gould is recognised for his unconventional leadership approach and focus on building technology infrastructure at the edges of human communication. Key discussion points 00:02:00 Building The Big Word - the 'get rich slow' philosophy 00:05:00 Processing volume through technology and people 00:07:00 The pivot to government work after the Great Recession 00:10:00 Being a tech company versus a government contractor 00:13:00 How video, audio and AI reshape service delivery 00:17:00 Digital-first workflows and hospital system integration 00:20:00 Virtual interpreting and on-demand video services 00:23:00 Scale at the edges - courts, police and asylum services 00:25:00 Why only 1% of online content is human-translated 00:28:00 The accuracy ceiling - why voice-to-voice interpretation is harder 00:31:00 The 86% accuracy limit in critical settings 00:33:00 Tuning AI for specific use cases and brand differentiation 00:40:00 The Blockbuster moment - disruption in business 00:43:00 Disrupting your own business before someone else does 00:46:00 How unit prices fall but total revenue grows Resources and links Connect with Joshua Gould on LinkedIn  Connect with Tim Bond on LinkedIn  Visit thebigword Email Joshua [email protected] Learn more about TechPros.io  Upcoming events and roundtables – https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/ Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents? Get your free AI Opportunity Report (https://cogniscale.com/ai-acceleration-report). This quick survey and consultation maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme for organisations with teams of six or more. Use promo code PODCAST. Follow and rate the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Got a burning topic or question? Email [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Upcoming events and roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/ Calls to action Enjoyed the discussion? Subscribe to the Enterprise Thought Leadership podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Rate and review the show to help other business leaders discover the podcast. Join our growing community of business professionals on LinkedIn and share this episode with your network. Do you have burning topics or questions you'd like us to explore? Email our team at [email protected].

From concept to deployment in weeks, that's the promise Swati Trehan, COO of Ema, brings to enterprise automation. In this episode, Tim Bond explores how Ema manufactures AI employees that automate end-to-end workflows across HR, finance, supply chain, and beyond. Swati explains why the future of enterprise AI isn't about generic agents that claim to do everything. Instead, it's about specialists: skill-based AI workers that teams can govern in one place. The conversation covers Ema's competitive advantage, pre-built agents trained to excel at specific tasks paired with Ema Fusion, a proprietary mixture-of-experts model that optimises for accuracy, cost, and latency simultaneously. What emerges is not a story about job losses but about white space: the capacity freed by automation that savvy leaders are reinvesting in innovation, strategy, and employee experience. Guest bio Swati Trehan is COO of Ema, an enterprise AI platform that builds AI employees for large-scale automation. She brings 20+ years of product and operations leadership from Google and Shopify, where she led strategy and built large-scale systems. Swati has lived and worked across multiple countries and is based in London. At Ema, she oversees operations and customer success as the company scales automation across Fortune 500 clients globally. Timestamps 00:02:00 Swati's background 00:05:00 Product-service positioning 00:07:00 No-code platform for enterprise 00:10:00 Prior authorisation use case 00:13:00 Workflow building without transcripts 00:16:00 Ema's three core capabilities 00:20:00 Cost and accuracy optimisation 00:22:00 HR operations transformation 00:24:00 Back-office and proposal writing 00:26:00 Proposal interface and workflow 00:29:00 Big Blue logistics case study 00:30:00 Workforce concerns and change 00:32:00 HR team involvement 00:33:00 From efficiency to upskilling 00:37:00 Technology and job creation 00:38:00 Employment optimism 00:40:00 Revenue per employee Resources and links Connect with Swati Trehan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/swatitrehan/ Connect with Tim Bond on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/ Visit Ema – https://Ema.ai Email Swati – [email protected] Learn more about TechPros.io – https://techpros.io/ Upcoming events and roundtables – https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/ Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents? Get your free AI Opportunity Report (https://cogniscale.com/ai-acceleration-report). This quick survey and consultation maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme for organisations with teams of six or more. Use promo code PODCAST. Enjoyed the discussion? Subscribe to the Enterprise Thought Leadership podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Rate and review the show to help other business leaders discover the podcast. Join our growing community of business professionals on LinkedIn and share this episode with your network. Do you have burning topics or questions you'd like us to explore? Email our team at ⁠[email protected]⁠. Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

Tim Bond returns to the conversation with Mark Edwards, author of the white paper The Human Engine: Navigating the Fifth Revolution, to explore a question that will define how organisations succeed in the coming years: can creativity be taught? The fifth revolution—driven by artificial intelligence—is upon us, but it brings with it more than just technological change. Mark explains why most people and organisations are caught in what he calls "zombie loops": patterns of activity that consume energy and time without driving meaningful progress. He discusses why fear of AI persists despite its benefits, how to escape repetitive cycles, and why human amplification—not automation for its own sake—is the real opportunity ahead. This conversation challenges conventional thinking about who is and isn't creative, exposes the dangers of cognitive overload and distracted attention, and reveals what genuinely high-performing organisations look like when they prioritise imagination and human connection alongside technology. Key topics covered: The fifth revolution and why it differs from previous technological shifts Fear of AI and how media narratives shape our perception of technology Zombie loops: getting trapped in activity that doesn't drive growth Competitive space and strategic positioning in a crowded market Creativity as a skill anyone can develop, not an innate talent Why automation has often failed and why amplification matters Human amplification: putting people in positions where they can do their best thinking Building cognitively ergonomic workspaces for real performance The role of ethics in technological change Why attention and focused thinking are more valuable than ever Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction and why we're revisiting this topic 00:01:00 Welcome and episode overview 00:02:00 Mark's background in technology and M&A 00:03:00 What is the fifth revolution? 00:05:00 Understanding fear of AI and the media narrative 00:06:00 The psychological roots of fear and tribalism 00:08:00 Cognitive overload and the zombie loop 00:09:00 What zombie loops are and why they matter 00:14:00 Competitive space and strategic positioning 00:17:00 How new sectors become saturated 00:19:00 Accelerated pace of change and adaptation 00:22:00 Automation versus human amplification 00:23:00 Why previous automation initiatives fell short 00:26:00 The importance of creativity in a changing world 00:28:00 Challenging the myth that creativity is only for creative people 00:30:00 Teaching people to think creatively 00:31:00 The responsibility of leaders in enabling creativity 00:33:00 Ethics and why technology purpose matters 00:37:00 Attention spans and focused thinking 00:39:00 Building cognitively ergonomic workspaces 00:41:00 Practical steps for leaders in the next years 00:44:00 It takes a town: Mark's community project 00:47:00 How to connect with Mark Want to learn more? Mark Edwards' whitepaper – The Human Engine: Navigating the Fifth Revolution Connect with Mark Edwards on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markledwards/ Connect with Tim Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/ If you like our podcast, please do follow us and rate each episode. Do you have burning topics or questions you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Email our team at [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Upcoming Events and Roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join our budding podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

Tim Bond explores Mark Edwards' white paper on the cognitive age and the shift from an industrial mindset to a new era of human-machine collaboration. This conversation uncovers what Edwards calls the liminal hour moment, a threshold point in human history where we face two fundamentally different futures. The episode traces the evolution of technological revolutions from mechanisation through to artificial intelligence, examining why our education system has left us unprepared for cognitive work, and why the answer to technological change is amplification rather than automation. Through frameworks like lighthouse versus radar, zombie loops, and the symbiosis between human judgment and machine calculation, this discussion addresses real anxiety about the future of work whilst arguing that the future is something we shape, not something that happens to us. Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction and the question that sparked this episode 00:01:00 Five workshop participants express anxiety about the future 00:02:00 The paradox: job data shows employment growing despite AI adoption 00:03:00 Jobs are bundles of tasks, tasks become redundant, not jobs 00:04:00 Introducing Mark Edwards' white paper, The Human Engine 00:05:00 The liminal hour: waking at 4 AM and seeing two futures 00:06:00 A threshold moment between two eras: industrial age to cognitive age 00:07:00 Drift and zombie loops: the cost of cognitive overload 00:08:00 Why we're trapped in cycles of activity without insight 00:09:00 Education for an industrial era, applied to a cognitive age 00:10:00 The biological reality of cognitive load and decision-making 00:11:00 The five technological revolutions and the pattern 00:12:00 The lighthouse versus radar analogy: shifting from focus to context 00:13:00 Automation versus amplification: the critical reframe 00:14:00 Convergence: the fusion of separate AI modalities 00:15:00 Concrete examples: doctors, city planners, and the mesh in action 00:16:00 Technology must adapt to humans, not vice versa 00:17:00 The human engine framework: cleaning the cognitive lens 00:18:00 Cognitive ergonomics and aircraft cockpit design principles 00:19:00 Clarity by design and human-first structures 00:20:00 Machines compute, humans imagine 00:21:00 Capability versus authority: what machines can and cannot decide 00:22:00 The Einstein rule: 55 minutes on the problem, five on the solution 00:23:00 Moral revolution and the choice between drift and design Guest bio Mark Edwards brings three decades of experience in software company mergers and acquisitions. As founder of Boss Equity (established 1999), he has worked with thousands of software companies across document management, workflow automation and enterprise solutions. His pattern-matching across hundreds of exits reveals why most software businesses fail to escape mediocrity. Mark combines his early creative background in photography with deep commercial expertise to help founders understand strategic positioning and market dynamics. Connect with Mark on LinkedIn. Resources and links mentioned Tim Bond on LinkedIn Mark Edwards on LinkedIn Access Mark Edwards' whitepaper – The Human Engine: Navigating the Fifth Revolution  Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Opportunity Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. Follow and rate the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Got a burning topic or question? Email [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Upcoming events and roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

Marie Wilcox, VP of Marketing at Binalyze, has built a marketing engine powered by AI agents—what she calls Nova Bots—that has fundamentally changed her go-to-market motion. Moving from a traditional SDR model to agentic workflows trained on intent data and personalised content, she has achieved MQL-to-SQL conversion rates of 18–20%, improved lead quality significantly, and accelerated sales cycles. But here's the critical insight: the technology only works if the foundation is solid.  "Without good training, without good product knowledge, you just end up with rubbish," Marie says. In this episode, she walks through the practical implementation, the role of tools like HubSpot, Clay, n8n, and custom GPTs, and why the future of marketing demands prompt engineering and GTM engineering skills. The conversation challenges the myth that AI replaces people—instead, it augments expertise when deployed thoughtfully. Timestamps 00:00:00 - AI as enhancement, not replacement. 00:03:00 - Finalize and the problem it solves. 00:05:00 - How forensic data automation works. 00:08:00 - Enterprise and MSP customer base. 00:09:00 - Marketing mix: thought leadership, events, inbound, outbound. 00:10:00 - Replacing SDRs with AI agents. 00:11:00 - Nova Bots: personalisation at scale using Clay and N8N. 00:13:00 - Building custom GPTs for consistent messaging. 00:16:00 - How sophisticated workflows simplify outbound. 00:18:00 - Intercom and website chat automation. 00:20:00 - Results: conversion rates and ROI. 00:21:00 - MQL to SQL conversion improvement to 18-20%. 00:23:00 - AI training, hallucination risks, and human oversight. 00:25:00 - Company-wide AI Day and N8N learning. 00:28:00 - AI as a resource, not a replacement. 00:30:00 - The future of marketing skills. 00:33:00 - The evolving landscape of AI tools. 00:34:00 - Final advice for marketers embracing AI.   Guest bio Marie Wilcox is Vice President of Marketing at Binalyze, a next-generation automated investigation and response platform for cybersecurity teams. With 20 years of B2B marketing experience across cybersecurity, data analytics, and SaaS, she has worked with enterprises including BAE Systems, Siemens, and McLaren Applied, as well as high-growth scale-ups. Marie is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, chairs the CIM Southeast Region, and sits on the board of the Chartered Institute of Information Security. She pioneered two Gartner market categories: Continuous Controls Monitoring and Cloud Investigation Response Automation. Resources and links mentioned Marie Wilcox on LinkedIn  Tim Bond on LinkedIn  Binalyze HubSpot Clay  n8n Intercom Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Opportunity Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. Follow and rate the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Got a burning topic or question? Email [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io Upcoming events and roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/   Follow the Enterprise Thought Leadership podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Rate and review the show on your preferred platform. Join the growing podcast community on LinkedIn to connect with other business leaders exploring AI, automation, and the future of work. Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents? Get your free AI Acceleration Report at cogniscale.com/ai-acceleration-report. This quick survey and consultation maps priority workflows, time saved, and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Available for organisations with teams of six or more. Use promo code PODCAST when you visit.

"Efficiency truly is a race to the bottom. If everybody has a hundred times the same capability, it no longer becomes a differentiator." Nikki Barua, CEO and co-founder of FlipWork. Tim Bond speaks with Nikki Barua, CEO and co-founder of FlipWork, about why companies are pouring money into AI technology but leaving their people behind. Nikki calls this the "exponential divide", the growing gap between the speed of AI and the speed at which people are adapting. With 25 years helping Fortune 500 companies navigate technology disruption, she argues that efficiency gains alone are a race to the bottom. The real opportunity lies in what organisations do with the capacity AI creates, and that starts with preparing people, not just installing tools. Guest bio Nikki Barua is CEO and co-founder of FlipWork. A serial entrepreneur and bestselling author, she has spent 25 years driving business change at Fortune 500 companies, with early career roles at EY, Compuware and Sapient. Her work has been featured in CNBC, Bloomberg, Fortune and Forbes. Timestamps  00:00:00 Introduction and Nikki's career background  00:03:00 What is FlipWork and its mission  00:04:00 The people squared concept and human-machine collaboration  00:06:00 Why efficiency is a race to the bottom  00:07:00 The future of AI in areas like leadership judgement and context  00:08:00 Why the quality of human input determines AI output quality  00:09:00 Same-day delivery analogy: when AI efficiency becomes table stakes  00:10:00 The real differentiator: imagination and creativity  00:11:00 How the best companies improve every step of their value chain  00:14:00 What to do with greater collective capacity  00:15:00 A word from our sponsor, CogniScale  00:16:00 FlipWork's grassroots approach using 90-day sprints  00:19:00 Why AI training alone does not change businesses  00:20:00 Who should lead AI adoption and the COO's role  00:22:00 FlipWork's proprietary diagnostic and agentic velocity assessment  00:24:00 Success breeds more success: building momentum across teams  00:25:00 The 36-point diagnostic survey  00:27:00 Phase one: human augmentation vs fully automated workflows  00:28:00 Priming: preparing individuals and teams for the agentic future  00:29:00 Blank slate thinking: designing from the future state back  00:31:00 Why this is good for careers, not just companies  00:32:00 FlipWork's go-to-market: Fortune 500 clients and big four partnerships  00:34:00 Proprietary methodology and partner licensing Resources and links  Nikki Barua on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkibarua/  Tim Bond on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/  FlipWork: https://www.flipwork.ai Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Acceleration Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. Follow and rate the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Got a burning topic or question? Email [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Upcoming events and roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join the podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

Why do successful marketing teams suddenly lose their pipeline? Philippe Ruttens, fractional CMO with 30 years of experience, reveals it's not about tools or tactics. It's about failing to align with commercial reality. Philippe challenges the "AI first" narrative, arguing that revenue marketing must come before AI implementation. He shares his three-phase methodology: foundation, execution and scaling. The conversation explores managing multi-generational dynamics, why marketing's safety net now lies in unique value rather than job titles, and why the CMO of the future must speak the language of the CFO. "The true safety net now is your unique value rather than your employer. Your network, your mindset, being able to say no also is important." Guest bio Philippe Ruttens is a fractional CMO and marketing transformation coach with 30 years of experience across major organisations including Accenture and Arthur Andersen. He specialises in helping B2B marketing teams transition from traditional brand-focused approaches to revenue-centric models, with particular focus on organisational change management across multi-generational teams. Timestamps 00:01:00 – Philippe's 30-year career journey and recent return from Japan 00:02:00 – The speed of change: how every skill and role must adapt 00:04:00 – Mindset versus aptitude: why attitudes are harder to change than skills 00:06:00 – AI's impact on bottom line versus top line: productivity and efficiency 00:07:00 – Organisational alignment as the biggest gap in AI transformation 00:08:00 – Moving a marketing team from AI-agnostic to AI-forward 00:09:00 – Why "AI first" really means human and strategic first 00:11:00 – The three phases: foundation, execution and scaling 00:13:00 – Change management through workshops, reporting and governance 00:15:00 – What transformational leadership looks like during change 00:17:00 – Leading multi-generational teams: Gen X, millennials and Gen Z 00:20:00 – Staying relevant through curiosity, openness and routine learning 00:22:00 – Why your unique value matters more than your employer 00:25:00 – The safety net: being a connector and facilitator 00:26:00 – The CMO's evolving role: from brand focus to revenue marketing 00:29:00 – Agentic AI opportunities and the dangers of shiny objects 00:32:00 – Why human augmentation should come before complex workflows 00:34:00 – Key advice: align your KPIs with board language and priorities Resources and links Philippe Ruttens on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruttens Tim Bond on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/ Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents? Get your FREE AI Acceleration Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. FREE AI Acceleration Report – https://cogniscale.com/ai-acceleration-report Follow the podcast If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us and rate each episode: Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/enterprise-thought-leadership/id1727689721 Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/2NVPXPA0aaDcvHW2EtQcnb Have burning topics or questions for the podcast? Email [email protected] Find out more at techpros.io Upcoming events and roundtables – https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join our podcast community – https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/ Transcript A full transcript of this episode is available on request.

End users now expect access to all data, all systems, all the time. That simple demand is forcing automation vendors to rethink everything about how they build software. For an industry built on hardware, the shift is fundamental: software has become the key differentiator, the interface customers touch and see. Martin Jette, Vice President of Partner Sales Solution Providers at AVEVA, has spent 30 years navigating this transformation. In this episode, he and host Taryn Breetzke explore the build versus partner dilemma facing automation vendors, the importance of interoperability, and why collaboration across customers, suppliers and even competitors has become essential. The conversation examines the three-layer automation stack creating new competitive pressures, shifting hiring patterns, the Accenture-Siemens partnership and practical frameworks for partnership decisions, highlighting how companies like Rockwell Automation now generate 35% of their revenue from software. Martin explains why the looming 2038 bug means vendors must make architecture decisions now rather than later, and how companies like Eaton and Axens are partnering with AVEVA to create entirely new service-based business models in manufacturing. Guest bio Martin Jette is Vice President of Partner Sales Solution Providers at AVEVA, where he leads embedded and managed solutions programmes. A chemical engineer by training, Martin has spent 30 years at AVEVA building partnerships with automation vendors including Rockwell, Honeywell, Eaton and Yokogawa. He is based in Montreal, Canada. Timestamps 00:01:55 – Martin's background and 30 year journey at AVEVA 00:05:33 – How software has become the differentiator in automation 00:07:41 – The Accenture-Siemens partnership and what it signals 00:09:34 – Customer expectations: all data, all systems, all the time 00:11:40 – Openness and interoperability as table stakes 00:15:02 – The build vs. partner framework 00:19:11 – Radical collaboration and the Axens connected catalyst example 00:21:43 – Competitive pressures and disruption from multiple directions 00:27:31 – Why the partnership approach is here to stay 00:28:15 – Real barriers from automation vendors 00:33:05 – The Y2038 bug and why decisions must be made now 00:33:41 – Measuring success: Rockwell's 35% software revenue 00:38:40 – Three practical recommendations for automation leaders Resources and links Martin Jette on LinkedIn – VP Partner Sales, Embedded and Managed Solutions programs at AVEVA Taryn Breetzke on LinkedIn – Podcast host AVEVA – AVEVA is a global leader in industrial software, helping businesses modernise operations and improve sustainability. Rockwell Automation – Partnership example discussed Eaton Corporation – AVEVA Edge integration example Axens – Connected catalyst case study Thought Leadership research - The software dilemma in industrial automation Subscribe and connect If you enjoyed this episode, please follow and rate the show. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts Join the LinkedIn community Have a topic or question for the podcast? Email [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/

Tim Bond speaks with leadership coach and author Payal Nanjiani, whose work spans Fortune 500 organisations, mid-sized firms and fast-growth teams across the world. Payal explains why many leaders feel unsettled about AI despite their excitement, and how this shift reveals something deeper about how people learn, grow and relate to one another. Payal draws on her experience working across industries from entertainment to manufacturing, sharing why human qualities such as presence, emotional balance and reflective thinking now matter more than ever. She explains how leaders can move from being sources of information to becoming sources of inspiration and transformation for their teams. This episode is brought to you by Cogniscale. Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Acceleration Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST details in the show notes. Timestamps: 00:01:00 Payal's journey from corporate HR to executive coaching 00:04:00 Blending Eastern philosophy with Western leadership 00:06:00 Working across industries on people transformation 00:09:00 AI as a tool for augmentation rather than replacement 00:12:00 Mixed reactions from leaders: excitement and fear 00:16:00 How leaders can help people find themselves 00:19:00 Cultivating qualities that machines cannot replicate 00:21:00 CEO resistance to AI transformation 00:25:00 Moving from top-down announcements to collaborative communication 00:29:00 Partnering with AI without losing individuality 00:33:00 Self-mastery as the key leadership skill 00:34:00 The importance of morning routines and reflection 00:36:00 Remembering what makes humans irreplaceable Want to learn more? Connect with Payal Nanjiani on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/payalnanjiani/ Visit Payal's website: https://nanjiani.com Connect with Tim Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tngbond/ If you like our podcast, please do follow us and rate each episode. Do you have burning topics or questions you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Email our team at [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io: https://techpros.io/ Upcoming Events and Roundtables: https://techpros.io/virtual-experiences/ Join our budding podcast community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-thought-leadership/

One month after ChatGPT launched, IE University's CEO issued an institutional statement: AI is "here for the rest of our lives". Since then, Chief Data Analytics Officer Francisco Aragonés has led their systematic approach to embedding AI across education. The results? Higher student engagement, improved grades, and a blueprint for how educational institutions can adopt AI whilst keeping humans at the centre. Tim Bond explores how IE University built what Francisco calls a "Swiss Army knife" of AI tools, from Socratic dialogue chatbots that develop critical thinking to AI tutors extending professors' reach beyond the classroom. Guest bio Francisco Aragonés is Chief Data Analytics Officer at IE University in Spain, where he leads AI implementation across all educational programmes. With a background spanning data analytics and educational technology, Francisco oversees the development of multiple AI artifacts designed for different pedagogical needs. Under his leadership, IE University has become a model for AI adoption in higher education, achieving measurable improvements in student outcomes whilst maintaining the human connection essential to learning. Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction to AI in education at IE University 00:02:30 CEO's decisive AI statement one month after ChatGPT 00:05:15 The Swiss Army knife approach to educational AI tools 00:08:45 Building Socratic dialogue chatbots for critical thinking 00:12:20 AI tutors extending professor availability 00:16:00 Measuring impact: engagement rates and grade improvements 00:19:30 Change management: bringing faculty on the journey 00:23:15 Addressing academic integrity and AI detection 00:27:00 Student feedback systems using rubrics 00:31:30 Agent hierarchies adapting to student queries 00:35:45 Making quality education globally accessible 00:39:20 Preparing students for AI-enhanced workplaces 00:43:00 Future vision for AI in education 00:46:30 Practical implementation advice for institutions 00:49:00 Closing thoughts on human-centred AI education Resources and links • Francisco Aragonés on LinkedIn – Chief Data Analytics Officer at IE University • Tim Bond on LinkedIn – Podcast host and enterprise technology expert • IE University – Leading institution for AI in education • The Swiss Army Knife of Educational AI: Empowering Faculty with Modular Tools for Pedagogical Augmentation • ChatGPT in Education Resources – OpenAI educational guidelines • EU AI Act – Regulatory framework mentioned in discussion • Socratic Method in Digital Learning – Educational methodology research Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality, and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Acceleration Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. Follow the podcast • Apple Podcasts • Spotify • LinkedIn: Enterprise Thought Leadership Contact: [email protected]

Sumeet Arora, Chief Product Officer at Teradata, joins Tim Bond to discuss why the shift to autonomous enterprises demands far more than simply deploying AI agents. With Teradata serving major banks, retailers, and global organisations for over four decades, Sumeet explains how the traditional enterprise stack of hundreds of workflow-centric applications is evolving into knowledge fabrics that power agent layers with outcome-oriented interfaces. The conversation explores Teradata's three competitive differentiators: efficient processing engines built for always-on agent workloads, true on-premises and multi-cloud capability that brings AI to where data lives, and industry knowledge models developed across 10 sectors that make agents enterprise-grade rather than experimental. Sumeet shares real examples, including SECI Brazil's 200% increase in credit offers without changing delinquency rates, and explains why 80% of AI projects are not moving from demos to deployment. Timestamps 00:01:05 - Announcing Agent Builder: Teradata's platform for autonomous AI agents. 00:03:13 - The evolution to autonomous enterprise: from connected to digital to autonomous. 00:04:19 - How the enterprise tech stack is changing from applications to knowledge fabrics. 00:08:02 - Why starting with clear, measurable outcomes is essential for AI ROI. 00:11:04 - Foundation models: bring your own LLM or use Teradata's small, medium, large options. 00:12:02 - Agent builder layer: open-source integration with MCP server. 00:13:24 - User experience evolution: from workflow-oriented to outcome-oriented. 00:16:25 - Teradata's three competitive differentiators explained. 00:17:08 - Why agents never sleep: the efficiency advantage of always-on workloads. 00:18:00 - On-premises and multi-cloud: bringing AI to where your data actually lives. 00:20:17 - Industry knowledge models: data models across 10 industries developed over decades. 00:24:48 - Real customer examples: from credit risk to fraud reduction to compliance. 00:28:55 - Organisation readiness: training every employee to build and use agents. 00:31:13 - The people side: augmentation versus replacement in the AI era. 00:34:15 - Going back to basics: AI requires clean code, knowledge and data. 00:36:00 - The architecture conversation enterprises are not having yet. Guest bio Sumeet Arora is Chief Product Officer at Teradata, where he leads product strategy for one of the world's leading enterprise data and analytics platforms. With extensive experience at Cisco, building secure, affordable internet infrastructure and at ThoughtSpot, democratising data analytics for business users, Sumeet focuses on changing industries for the better. At Teradata, he is driving the evolution from data platforms to knowledge platforms that enable the autonomous enterprise. Resources and links Sumeet Arora on LinkedIn Tim Bond on LinkedIn Teradata Agent Builder information This episode is brought to you by Cogniscale, which helps teams build and scale their AI workforce. Want to teach your team to build their own AI agents that act like teammates, boosting productivity, quality, and job satisfaction? Get your FREE AI Acceleration Report (for listeners with teams of six or more), a quick team survey and consultation that maps priority workflows, time saved and ROI from an AI upskilling programme. Visit Cogniscale.com and enter promo code PODCAST. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow Enterprise Thought Leadership on your preferred platform and rate the show. Have burning topics or questions you would like explored? Email the team at [email protected] Find out more about TechPros.io Upcoming events and roundtables Join the podcast community on LinkedIn Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify