From Prompt to Pipeline

In partnership with

We used to call it “the work.” Now it’s just… done.

This week, we caught ourselves doing something strange: skipping steps.
 Not on purpose, just naturally. Things that used to take planning, prep, and coordination are just handled now.

What used to be:

• Brief → research → draft → feedback → deck.


Is now:

• Prompt → result → done.

And honestly? It feels weird. A little disorienting. But also… really exciting.

Because for the first time in a long time, it feels like marketers aren’t just reacting to change.
 We’re building on it. Faster. Sharper. With more room to think.

This issue is about that shift.


Meta’s going full automation. Perplexity is your GTM engine. Video, insights, meeting notes, all AI-handled. The question isn’t whether AI is changing marketing. But it is what you will do with the time it just gave you back?

Let’s dive in.

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Meta’s Endgame Taking Shape

Infinite creative. Zero humans.

Meta is building the last campaign engine you’ll ever need. We’ve talked about this before — back when Zuckerberg teased it in his Stratechery interview: the dream of automated growth. One where you give Meta a business goal… and it builds, runs, and optimizes the campaign entirely by itself.

This week, it became real.

Meta has now confirmed it’s officially on track to deliver this by 2026.

“You don’t need creative. You don’t need targeting. Just read the results.”
— Mark Zuckerberg

That’s not a metaphor. That’s the roadmap.

Meta’s AI will soon:

• Generate unlimited ad creatives

• Pick and target the right audiences

• Launch and manage entire campaigns

• Optimize in real-time

• Report outcomes automatically

Internally, they’re calling it infinite creative. AI that spins up endless ad variants to test, learn, and scale, all without human hands.

No media buyers. No strategists. No designers. Just goals in → performance out.

Why it matters for marketers

If you’re a lean B2C or DTC brand, this is a dream come true: full-funnel growth with no added headcount.

But it won’t work for everyone.

Meta’s AI stack assumes:

• You already have product-market fit

• You’re clear on measurable conversion goals

• You have tight creative and brand guardrails

Otherwise, the machine can spin out garbage. Fast.

And if you're an agency? This is your early warning.

The execution layer — campaign setup, targeting, even creative production — is going to zero. Fast.

Video, Without the Studio

HeyGen AI Studio & Captions Mirage

We’re officially out of the uncanny valley.

Two launches this week prove that AI-generated video is no longer just “good enough” — it’s ready for primetime marketing. Both tools deliver production-quality content that looks and feels real, even to trained eyes.

• HeyGen AI Studio: Full creative control over AI avatars. Gesture-by-gesture editing, facial expressions, voice modulation, branding — it’s the director’s chair, and no film crew is required.

• Captions Mirage Studio: Think user-generated style videos, but with synthetic humans so realistic they pass for live talent. Pacing, micro-expressions, and vocal tone — nailed.

This is not your clunky deepfake cousin. These plug-and-play video tools let you scale UGC, testimonials, and explainers without ever booking a shoot.

Why it matters for marketers

This isn’t about saving money (though you will).

It’s about compressing timelines, multiplying creative, and scaling personalization at levels we’ve never had access to — especially for:

• ABM campaigns that need persona-level targeting

• Testimonials localized by language and region

• Explainer content that updates in days, not quarters

Suddenly:

• You can produce a customer story in 3 languages before Monday

• Your BDR team can send hyper-personalized intro videos to top accounts — without ever recording a thing

• Your strategy team can prototype campaigns in video form and align stakeholders with drafts, not decks

All this, created in-house by a marketer with decent taste and 2 hours of training.

PwC AI Jobs Report

AI Isn’t Replacing Teams. It’s Making Them Pricier.

PwC just dropped its 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer, analyzing over 500 million job listings.

The top line?

AI doesn’t reduce headcount.
It increases impact and compensation.

Key findings:

• Companies using AI saw 27% higher revenue per employee

• Professionals with AI skills earned 56% more than their peers

• No evidence of widespread layoffs tied to AI adoption

It’s not just about hiring machine learning engineers.

This applies to:

• Marketers who can use AI to scale campaigns

• Sales leads who deploy AI for forecasting

• Customer service managers running bot-assisted workflows

The market wants one thing:
AI-literate operators with business context.

Why it matters for marketers

AI is becoming a talent multiplier, not a job cutter.

Companies that lean in are:

• Executing faster

• Running leaner

• Paying more for high-impact, AI-native talent

If you're leading a marketing team, here’s what’s coming:

• Campaign output per head will go way up

• Top performers will expect to use AI and expect to be paid for it

• Teams that treat AI like a core skill will outpace teams that treat it like a “nice-to-have”

There’s also a career angle:
Marketers with AI fluency are getting promoted faster.
The career ladder just got an upgrade — it now comes with a jetpack.

Inside the 2025 CMO Report

GenAI adoption outpacing governance

Modern CMOs need data, stories and AI fluency - according to the latest CMO Report from CMO Circle.

The latest State of the CMO by CMSWire surveyed 500+ marketing leaders, and the message is clear: CMOs today must be triple threats: technologists, data analysts, and storytellers, all connected by AI.

What jumped out from the report:

• Essential skill expansion: CMOs' top skills now include data integration, martech mastery, GenAI fluency, and storytelling.

• ROI under fire: 69% of CMOs face increasing demands from leadership to show measurable impact, especially in new AI adoption.

• GenAI adoption > governance: Nearly 70% are using GenAI, but only a third have formal policies in place.

Why it matters for marketers

Multidimensional leadership is now table stakes. DIY flair doesn’t cut it. You must blend data, tech, and storytelling while delivering real business outcomes.

ROI demands aren’t going away. Your team’s survival—and your seat in the C-suite—depends on your ability to connect spend to impact with precision.

AI strategy must catch up to AI use. When adoption runs ahead of guardrails, you expose your brand to risk. Governance isn’t optional—it’s essential.

ChatGPT Now Attends Your Meetings

And it just got access to your company files

OpenAI is slowly turning ChatGPT into your ops team.

The latest upgrades give it real teeth:

• It can access Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box

• It joins meetings in “record” mode, generates timestamped notes, and pulls out action items

• It can reference your files when answering business questions

Still missing: native Zoom or Calendar integration.
Still obvious: this is a wedge into operational AI, not just chat.

Why it matters for marketers

We’re entering the “ask once, get the answer” phase.

Execs no longer need to wait on updates, ask for slide decks, or chase performance summaries.
You can now say:

“What was the ROI of our Q1 campaigns based on the latest slide deck?”
“Summarize the key decisions from the GTM team’s last two meetings.”

The AI connects the dots between meetings, decks, and docs. When it works, it:

• Speeds up decision-making

• Reduces update churn

• Frees up team capacity

It’s not perfect. But it’s improving fast.
And once it works reliably, the bottleneck shifts from information access to strategic clarity.

Inside the Perplexity Fellowship

How CMOs Are Actually Using AI

As part of the Perplexity Business Fellowship Program, we joined two working sessions with the team behind one of the fastest-growing AI tools in the world.

• Jenny Sung (Product Marketing, Perplexity)

• Jannetta Tabakov (Enterprise Growth, Perplexity)

• Patrick Summers (Founding Growth Lead, Perplexity)

Together, they walked through how GTM teams—from CMOs to sales leads—are using Perplexity for answers and acceleration.

Here are our 10 takeaways from the workshops — and what marketers should be doing now:

1. Perplexity replaces Googling with strategy briefs
Forget vague answers. CMOs now ask: “What’s the ICP evolution for mid-market HR tech?” Perplexity delivers a 2-minute brief with sources, frameworks, and market signals.

» What marketers can learn:
Stop delegating research. Start using AI to write your first draft of strategy.

2. Battle cards and competitor tear-downs in minutes
Upload a deck, PDF, or URL—get feature gaps, SWOTs, or side-by-sides instantly.
Sales enablement doesn’t have to wait for product marketing anymore.

» What marketers can learn:
If your reps still ask, “What makes us better than X?” - build a battle card pipeline today.

3. GTM research that’s actually scaled
Need to resegment ICP or explore a new vertical? Perplexity pulls buyers, TAM, channels, and even pricing in one ask. GTM snapshots from 100+ sources. No analyst required.

»  What marketers can learn:
Make market research a weekly habit, not a quarterly sprint.

4. Simulated buyer objections, rebuttals, and talk tracks
Using reasoning mode, teams simulate what a skeptical buyer might say—and generate persona-level responses backed by proof points.

» What marketers can learn:
Use AI to stress-test your messaging. If it breaks in simulation, it’ll break in the field.

5. From prompts to pitch decks
Turn your research query into an executive brief or presentation in one click. For internal alignment or client-facing materials, speed = leverage.

» What marketers can learn:
Turn strategy into slides while the insight is still warm. Don’t let momentum stall.

6. Content ops that don’t lose the plot
Turn webinar transcripts, roadmap notes, or call summaries into blog outlines, nurture sequences, and campaign ideas—grounded in your context.

» What marketers can learn:
Use AI for ideation, not just automation. Keep the signal, lose the grunt work.

7. AI that knows your brand, not just the internet
With Drive, Notion, and CRM integrations, Perplexity fuses internal knowledge with web results, giving answers that reflect your POV.

» What marketers can learn:
If your AI sounds generic, that’s on you. Ground it in your assets to make it strategic.

8. Enterprise-grade security and compliance
No data retention, file-level permissions, full audit logs. Designed for companies that care about roadmap leaks, pricing confidentiality, or M&A hygiene.

» What marketers can learn:
Don’t stall your AI adoption over security fears. The enterprise-safe options are already here.

9. Spaces = repeatable GTM workflows
Create and reuse templates for ICP deep dives, RFP prep, and market monitoring. Think of it as “Notion, but for marketing AI.”

» What marketers can learn:
Build a workspace that scales knowledge across your team. If it works once, templatize it.

10. Insight to execution—compressed
The real value isn’t research. It’s removing the delay between knowing and acting.
Perplexity lets you go from idea → campaign faster than most teams can book a sync.

» What marketers can learn:
Speed wins. Stop waiting on meetings. Let AI collapse the gap between insight and launch.

Want to watch the full workshops? No worries, you can do so.

• AI Workflows for Business Development Teams - watch it here.

• Putting AI to Work for Marketing Teams - watch it here.

Rapid-Fire News

AI News You Need to Know

What Just Happened in AI (That You Should Actually Care About)

1. Samsung + Perplexity Could Reshape Search
Samsung is in talks to preload Perplexity AI on Galaxy phones — potentially unseating Google Gemini as the default mobile search experience.
» For marketers: SEO now includes LLMs. You’ll need content that ranks in AI-native search, not just on Google.

2. Janus Adds QA for AI Agents
Janus released a full stress-test suite for AI customer service agents, simulating edge cases, conversation loops, and complex user behaviors.
» For marketers: This brings software-grade QA to your AI bots. Test before launch or risk customer trust.

3. WPP CEO Mark Read to Step Down
WPP CEO Mark Read is stepping down by the end of 2025, closing a chapter on traditional agency models as AI and Big Tech reshape ad spend. Business Insider calls it “The End of the Madison Avenue Era.”
» For marketers: The agency reset is here. Bet on AI-native partners who move fast and build smarter.

4. EY Launches Studio+ to Champion Customer‑First AI Growth
EY’s new Studio+ merges 37 firms into one CX and AI powerhouse, aiming to reinvent customer growth end-to-end.
» For marketers: Big consultancies are coming for your brand strategy. Studio+ is built for AI-native GTM.

5. Phonely Voice Agents Hit 99% Accuracy
Phonely’s new AI agents now respond in under 200ms and are indistinguishable from real humans in support calls.
» For marketers: AI-first call centers are no longer aspirational — they’re a near-future CX advantage.

6. Atom Bank CEO Endorses 4-Day Work Week with AI
The CEO of Atom Bank called a 4-day workweek “bloody logical” in an AI-enhanced workplace.
» For marketers: If you’re hiring, flexibility is now a differentiator — and AI is how you afford it.

7. Gemini 2.5 Pro Gets a Performance Boost
Google’s flagship model just got smarter. Devs report major improvements in code, reasoning, and long-form generation.
» For marketers: If you’re in the Google ecosystem, this is your cue to experiment with deeper creative automation.

That’s it for this week.

The takeaway? AI is no longer an experiment. It’s the execution layer.

Whether scaling campaigns, generating content, or answering business questions before you ask them.

The smartest GTM teams aren’t replacing humans. They’re compounding their impact.

Use this week’s tools and ideas to:

• Reclaim time

• Push your strategy higher up the stack

• And make your team impossible to compete with

» Forward this to someone still building campaigns like it’s 2019.
» Ready to rethink your stack, strategy, or team? We help B2B companies do exactly that.

Until next week,
Peter and Torsten