Conversations with MarTech

AI is making its way into online retail for both consumers and sellers.

Consumers are increasingly using AI tools for product discovery, while retailers are deploying AI-powered agents to help with the customer experience.

But true AI shopping agents are still rare to find, at least for now.

In this episode we’re talking to Grant Deken, director of product at Klaviyo, about how consumers use AI in their shopping; what stands between AI-assisted shopping experiences and AI agents that do the shopping for us; and how brands are keeping pace with consumers’ AI use and advances in the technology itself. 

Episode guide

0:36: Meet Grant Deken
0:50: How are shoppers using AI and how do they feel about the experience?
3:15: How does the way shoppers use AI for research differ from the way they used traditional search?
7:50: What has to happen for agentic commerce to become a reality?
11:01: What do brands have to do to keep pace with consumer AI usage?
This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

Consumers jumped on the AI search bandwagon soon after ChatGPT launched. More than half of shoppers use AI as a research supplement, and nearly 20% are moving to AI-powered LLMs for all or most of their search needs.

Brands, on the other hand, are focusing on AI to power chat and customer experiences. That creates a gap between consumers and brands when it comes to how they’re adopting AI.

While the use of AI agents to do your holiday shopping for you is still quite a ways off for many people, AI will still create significant disruption in the online retail space.

In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Doug Straton, CMO of Bazaarvoice, about how consumers and brands are using AI for visibility, discovery, research and — ultimately – purchasing.

Episode guide

0:44: Meet Doug Straton
1:22: How consumers use AI in commerce
4:55: How large is the gap between consumer use of AI and brands’ use of AI?
8:05: Are brands using GEO or following “Good SEO is AEO?”
12:20: How well do marketers understand the shifts in product discovery yet to come?
15:39: Insights on ChatGPT ads
This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

Did you know technical debt costs global enterprises approximately $400 million annually?

It’s a staggering amount of money, and that debt arises from — among other things —  a cultural resistance to change or budgetary limitations, which lead organizations to add new applications rather than replacing outdated systems.

Technical debt can accumulate practically anywhere in an organization, and the martech stack is no exception.

In this episode, we’re talking with Tara DeZao, senior product marketing director at Pegasystems, about technical debt, whether AI can help solve the problem and how all of this plays into customer data and customer experience.

Episode guide

0:36: Meet Tara DeZao
0:57: How does technical debt accumulate to such levels?
2:48: What role does AI play in helping address technical debt?
4:38: How will agentic AI help with legacy systems and technical debt?
6:50: Do legacy systems stay in place because organizations trust them?
9:50: How do marketing teams feel about AI in their organizations?
14:07: What will happen with technical debt and AI adoption in the coming year?
This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

Marketers who are building campaigns and thinking about the customer experience probably don’t often think about the data layer of their martech applications.

But the data layer is the key to customer relationships, and according to Mike Anderson, co-founder and CTO at Tealium, we’re now in the fifth era of the data layer.

Anderson says the data layer’s evolution goes back to early web analytics data, and it’s continued to evolve to real-time data and now an AI-powered data layer that helps deliver real-time conversations to customers.

In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Anderson discusses the data layer as the foundation to customer experience, what it takes to succeed in a data and AI-driven world and more.

Episode guide

0:35: Meet Mike Anderson
1:49: What do we mean when we discuss “the data layer?”
2:40: What is the “fifth era” of the data layer and how did we get here?
7:05: The importance of context in the data layer
9:15: What separates the company that will win with data and AI from those who will struggle?
11:24: Why it’s easier to lose a customer than ever before
12:01: What will be the dominant data themes in the year ahead?
14:04: “The world has moved to conversations.”
This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

Measurement poses a challenge for many marketers thanks to the explosion in marketing channels, the overwhelming amount of data in marketing today and the complicated relationships between marketing leaders and other C-suite executives.

But how do marketers feel about their measurement?

Research says many marketers are happy with their measurement, but that there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Matt Spiegel, EVP of growth for TransUnion’s TruAudience business, about the state of marketing measurement, the role of AI and what’s ahead.

Episode guide

0:34: Meet Jason Ing
1:10: What are marketing are excited and frustrated with AI
3:41: What can AI do for campaign creation workflows?
6:45: How will Typeface differentiate its AI capabilities from competitors?
9:20: What will be the hot topics around AI one year from now?
This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.