13. Mai 2025
In today’s digital landscape, the role of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) goes beyond brand awareness and campaign performance. You’re tasked with orchestrating transformation and leading the adoption of advanced technologies like AI while delivering seamless, personalized experiences across every channel.
This isn’t just a marketing shift. It’s an enterprise one. And while the ambition is high, the execution often falters.
AI is a strategic priority, but implementation is falling short
Artificial intelligence is no longer optional. A recent survey found that 72% of executives plan to integrate AI into their daily operations, with 25% focused on specialized applications like translation. The commitment is clear — AI is a central driver of business growth, efficiency and competitiveness.
Yet most organizations struggle to turn that potential into impact. The reality? AI adoption is harder than it looks.
The challenges facing CMOs today
Long timelines, slow ROI
Enterprise AI projects often require heavy lifting and long lead times. By the time they launch, the market has already moved on and the business has lost patience.
Strategy-execution disconnect
AI can promise the world in strategy decks. But translating that vision into scalable, operational solutions is another story. Without clear ownership and alignment, projects stall.
Tech overload
The AI ecosystem is expanding fast and teams are overwhelmed with choices. Decision-making becomes a bottleneck without a roadmap to evaluate and integrate the right tools.
Siloed teams
Marketing and IT don’t always speak the same language. Without tight collaboration between creative and technical functions, it’s tough to build AI solutions that are both powerful and usable.
Pressure to perform
In a results-driven environment, AI needs to show value fast. If it doesn’t deliver quick wins, support fades. Most teams can’t afford a 12-month wait to prove the business case.
The playbook for progress: A better way forward
To break through the noise and realize AI’s potential, CMOs need more than vision. They need velocity. The key is shifting from long-term transformation projects to short-term experimentation with clear ROI.
Here’s how we recommend approaching the journey:
1. Start small, but think big
Pick one or two use cases that are low-risk and high-impact. Deliver a fast win that builds trust and opens the door to scaling.
2. Measure what matters
Don’t just track AI metrics. Tie every project to business KPIs — like product conversion rates, reduced returns and speed to publish.
3. Design for iteration
Perfection isn’t the goal. Progress is. Build feedback loops that let your team test, learn and refine quickly.
4. Build capabilities, not one-off projects
Each initiative should contribute to a larger foundation of AI fluency and infrastructure. Think modular, not monolithic.
5. Put experience at the center
AI should never feel robotic. It should elevate creativity, customer understanding and brand expression. If it doesn’t improve the experience, it’s the wrong investment.
Why AI should be your co-pilot, not your pilot
Let’s clear something up. AI isn’t here to replace creativity but to amplify it.
The best outcomes happen when human vision leads and AI supports. Whether it's helping merchandisers write richer product copy or enabling CX teams to personalize at scale, AI works best when it enhances human intuition and insight.
At Valtech, we build systems that let marketers do more of what they do best, with less manual effort and more intelligence guiding the way.
What success with AI looks like
We’ve helped brands across industries realize fast, measurable wins with AI:
- Smarter content at scale. We helped retailer like MATALAN use GenAI to transform how they write, enrich and publish product descriptions, reviews, and metadata — cutting production time by 90%.
- Hyper-personalized experiences. We delivered a loyalty transformation project for a leading coffee chain, which leveraged customer data to personalize product discovery, messaging and support across the entire journey.
- Lean, automated operations. We helped a global sporting goods company use AI to automate repetitive tasks like image editing, tagging and catalog management, freeing up teams and reducing time to market.
Ready to play in the AI field?
Everyone’s talking about AI. But few are getting it right.
To compete, you need more than ambition. You need working prototypes, faster iteration cycles and a team that brings creative and technical worlds together.
You’ll get all of that and more in our DigitalXelerate program, a cross-functional accelerator that turns your AI vision into a working prototype and proves its value in just four weeks.
So, stop waiting for transformation. Let’s build it together. Find out more about DigitalXelerate and book your spot today.
