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Wednesday already. Coffee first.
You know the agency review. Weeks of decks, a procurement scorecard, a room full of holding companies doing their best startup impression, and you in the middle with the pen.
Publicis would like to skip that part, and skip you. "We are increasingly seeing CEOs involved in what we do," CEO Arthur Sadoun told analysts on last week's third-quarter call, per Digiday, because CEOs "understand that if they want to continue to lead their company, they need to understand AI." Digiday headlined it as Publicis selling directly to AI-anxious CEOs.
The quarter gave him cover. Organic growth of 5%, up on the first half, with full-year guidance confirmed at 4.5% to 5%. In the release, Sadoun says the marketing transformation business "benefited from the growing demand from clients for our AI-powered products and services."
On the call he went further: much of the underlying growth, he said, came from clients spending to stay ahead of customers using AI to find and buy things.
Sapient, the tech arm, was "instrumental," he said, in winning the year's two biggest accounts without a pitch, plus three AI-led transformation assignments outside the usual reviews. He didn't name the clients. PepsiCo moved to Publicis without a pitch last month.
Clients, he says, are ready to "commit budgets faster because moving too slowly could mean losing market share." Havas, a day later, posted 2.4% organic growth, 7.5% in the US, and listed its Converged.AI Operating System first among its priorities.
Brian Wieser at Madison and Wall traces Publicis's growth to its core business and principal media, and says spend only really rises with "a change in competitive intensity in a category." I'd side with him on the accounting.
It barely matters, though. The conversation about your agency, your stack and your AI plan is now happening one floor up, and a CEO who's been told there's no time to lose doesn't wait for the marketing offsite.
If the CMO doesn't have a written AI plan, I'd expect the holdco to happily hand the CEO one.
If your CEO took a call from a holding company tomorrow, would they ask what you think before the meeting, or after?
Today’s sponsor:
Yes, that Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He has a newsletter on beehiiv. So do Codie Sanchez, Jay Shetty, David Begnaud, Colin & Samir, and Joanna Stern.
They could publish just about anywhere. They chose beehiiv to build a direct connection with the people who want to hear from them most. And you can do the same, whether you’re world-famous or just at the start of your plan for world domination.
TALK ON THE MARKET
Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr, on who CEOs want to hire:
SaaStr is a B2B SaaS community, so he'd know a few of those CEOs. "AI-pilled" still has no job description.
Want to see case studies of AI-powered campaigns? We publish a daily edition on the most creative use cases of AI in advertising.
Interested in AI innovation across Europe? We publish a weekly round-up on AI-Ready Europe:
NUMBERS MATTER
7.4%. Four of the biggest tech companies, Alphabet and Microsoft among them, spent that share of their combined revenue on ads in 2025, down from 13.0% in 2019, in WARC Media's Global Ad Trends. Six brand owners, Nike and Procter & Gamble included, went the other way: ad spend up 36% over the decade, revenue up 29%.
The companies selling you ads now put a smaller share of their own revenue into them.
DAILY PROMPT
Our Board-Ready AI Strategy Presentation prompt, for the plan your CEO is about to ask for:
Build a board-ready AI strategy presentation for a CMO that demonstrates clear ROI and addresses executive concerns. Work through the analysis independently: read the files I attach, research external benchmarks on the web, run the ROI math, and tell me which numbers are grounded in my data and which are assumptions.
## Context
The CMO needs to move beyond "AI is important" to a concrete, measurable strategy. The board wants to see: (1) where AI creates real revenue impact, (2) how operational debt is being reduced, (3) risk mitigation, and (4) a realistic timeline with milestones.
## Your Task
Create a presentation structure with talking points for each section. Focus on business outcomes, not technology features. Show your calculations for every financial claim so I can audit them.
## Input Information
- Attached source material: [ATTACHED FILES, e.g., budget model, ops audit, pipeline report, headcount plan]
- Current marketing team size: [NUMBER]
- Annual marketing budget: [AMOUNT]
- Primary operational bottlenecks: [LIST 2-3 SPECIFIC PAIN POINTS, e.g., "content creation cycles take 3 weeks", "lead qualification requires 40% manual review"]
- Revenue-critical workflow to optimize first: [SPECIFIC WORKFLOW]
- Current AI maturity level: [None/Experimental/Piloting/Scaling]
- Board risk tolerance: [Conservative/Moderate/Aggressive]
- Timeline for ROI proof: [3/6/12 months]
## Presentation Structure Required
### 1. The Problem Statement (1 slide)
Articulate the operational debt tax: coordination overhead, approval delays, tool sprawl, broken handoffs. Quantify time and revenue leakage in the [REVENUE-CRITICAL WORKFLOW] using the attached data.
### 2. The AI Opportunity (1 slide)
Show where AI directly impacts the revenue funnel. Not "AI helps marketing". Show the specific lever: faster [WORKFLOW OUTPUT], better [QUALITY METRIC], reduced [TIME/COST].
### 3. The Focused Approach (1 slide)
Explain why you are NOT implementing AI everywhere. Show the single high-friction workflow you are optimizing first. Explain the compounding effect: prove lift, then scale.
### 4. Implementation Roadmap (1 slide)
Phase 1 (Weeks 1-4): Audit and lightweight governance setup
Phase 2 (Weeks 5-12): Pilot in [WORKFLOW] with [SPECIFIC TOOL/APPROACH]
Phase 3 (Weeks 13+): Measure, refine, scale to adjacent workflows
### 5. ROI Metrics & Proof Points (1 slide)
Define what success looks like:
- Time savings: [SPECIFIC METRIC, e.g., "reduce content cycle from 3 weeks to 5 days"]
- Quality improvement: [METRIC, e.g., "increase lead qualification accuracy by 25%"]
- Revenue impact: [METRIC, e.g., "accelerate pipeline by $X or reduce CAC by Y%"]
- Cost avoidance: [METRIC, e.g., "eliminate need for 2 FTEs in [ROLE]"]
### 6. Risk & Governance (1 slide)
Address: data security, brand consistency, compliance, shadow AI prevention. Show lightweight guardrails, not bureaucracy.
### 7. Investment & Timeline (1 slide)
Total investment: [AMOUNT]
ROI payback: [TIMELINE]
Full-year impact: [PROJECTED OUTCOME]
## Output Format
Provide:
1. A concise talking point (2-3 sentences) for each slide
2. 2-3 supporting data points or examples for each section, sourced from my files or cited web research
3. 2-3 anticipated board questions with answers
4. A one-page executive summary the CMO can send in advance
5. A short list of assumptions and the sensitivity of the ROI case to each one
## Tone
Confident but realistic. Data-driven. Focused on business outcomes, not technology hype. Acknowledge risks and show mitigation, not false certainty.Attach your real budget, then send the one-page executive summary upstairs.
CMO CORNER
Leadership is designing value flows, not proving your value.
Map how AI money and work move through marketing, then let the team run it. A CEO can read that without you.
We provide consulting services for CMOs on AI strategy for marketing teams through our Teamless offering.
TOOL UPGRADE
Three AI jobs your team can ship without a transformation assignment:
CustomGPT — best for teams that want a chatbot trained on their own business data, answering only from uploaded sources, with citations. Try CustomGPT here →
Fillout — best for teams that want to describe a form and let AI build it, connected to Airtable, Notion and Stripe. Try Fillout here →
Jace AI — best for leaders whose inbox runs the day: it drafts replies in your voice and handles scheduling. Try Jace AI here →
→ We have 300+ curated, filtered, and categorized AI tools in our directory. Browse to find the best ones that help your marketing team.
LEARN THIS
The long version of that plan: the AI CMO Course. Written CMO to CMO, following one composite leader from finding where the team leaks time to scaling and leadership.
→ We publish workshops, courses, guides, manuals, and more on AI marketing for free. Browse our learning resources for free.
BRAND SLOP
Sportsbet, the AFL's official wagering partner, made AI videos of star players reciting famous lines. Lachie Neale got Snoop Dogg's Walk of Fame speech: "Last but not least, I want to thank me."
The players' union said that breached their bargaining agreement. "AI-generated player imagery is not permitted without the players' approval," its Alex Taverner said, per Guardian Australia. The AFL told Sportsbet to delete them.
That agreement makes no mention of AI. I'd guess somebody read the silence as a yes. How old is the oldest talent contract your social team works from?
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