The most successful marketing leaders are taking control of their AI destiny. Here’s how to build a comprehensive skills strategy from the top down:

Establish Marketing Leadership

Marketing must lead its own AI transformation. As Pete Markey emphasises: “Marketers have to be the masters of their own destiny.” Collaboration across teams is essential but you don’t have to outsource to begin strategising with AI.

Action step: Appoint AI champions within your organisation. Own the narrative and the strategy.

Audit Your Current AI Landscape

Before you can bridge the gap, you need to understand where you are. This means honest assessment of things like current AI tools, skill level and possible use cases for AI impact.

Start with Pilot Programs

Rather than organisation-wide transformation, begin with focused pilots. 52% of CMOs have already implemented GenAI trials. Be sure to measure both the efficiency gains and quality outcomes of those programs.

Focus on Mindset, Not Just Tools

The most critical shift isn’t technical, it’s psychological. Your team needs to evolve from tool users to strategic partners with AI. This means consistent learning and development, data-driven decision making and skill building in prompt creation.

Leverage Your Network

Don’t reinvent the wheel. As marketing leaders are discovering, “it’s leaning into existing relationships and saying, ‘within the network of who we work with, who can we start to work with?'”