martech - Martech Therapy (Page 7)

Agentic AI in Martech: The new org chart

Part 4: Roles that emerge when AI handles execution

A friend recently asked me what a marketing ops manager actually does when AI agents are handling campaign execution, optimization, and conflict resolution. It's a fair question. If systems are making billions of decisions autonomously, what's left for us mortal humans?

My first instinct was to give the standard consultant answer about "strategic oversight" and "creative direction." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that's probably wrong. The interesting human roles in an agentic world are likely to be things we haven't fully invented, yet.

Beyond the "Human in the Loop" fiction

Most discussions about AI

Humans, not tools - A Martech podcast about the real stuff

Phil Gamache on podcasting as therapy, measuring what matters, and why being opinionated at 4am might just land you a guest slot.

Phil Gamache said, “I ask questions like an analyst, but I listen like an operator.” And that’s exactly why I invited him onto Couch Confidentials, for quotes like that. At the end of the day we are all trying to achieve the same.

He doesn’t just host Humans of Martech, he’s built a platform that holds up a mirror to the way we actually work. The late-night migrations. The marketing ops arguments. The tools that break quietly while no one’s watching. His podcast is not about frameworks or vendor checklists, it’s about people trying to

Shopify isn’t enough

…and deep down, you already know that.

There’s a moment that creeps in somewhere between “should I try another email pop-up plugin?” and “why don’t my reports ever answer real questions?” It’s a quiet realization. The platform that made it beautifully easy to launch your store might not be built to help you scale your marketing or understand your customers beyond last Tuesday’s sale.

Shopify does many things well. It’s clean, manageable, and doesn’t ask you to learn code or bribe a developer friend. It’s perfect for what it is: a commerce platform. Not a data platform. Not a campaign

Agentic AI in Martech: When agents disagree

Part 3: The inevitable conflicts in multi-agent systems

Picture this scenario: your personalization AI decides that Sarah (Conner? 😅), a loyal customer, should receive a premium upgrade offer because her engagement scores have been climbing. Simultaneously, your churn prevention AI flags Sarah as a retention risk and recommends a discount promotion to keep her engaged. Meanwhile, your email frequency optimization AI determines Sarah is approaching communication fatigue and suggests suppressing all promotional messages for the next week.

Three different systems, three different conclusions, one very confused customer experience.

Thanks for reading Martech Therapy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is the multi-agent conflict

The evolution of Omni-Man

From debugging eVars to preaching composable gospel -> Adam Greco's 25-year journey through martech's identity crisis

I finally sat down with Adam Greco for what turned into one of those conversations that explains how we got to this beautiful disaster we call modern martech.

Adam earned the nickname "Omni-Man" back when he was basically Adobe Analytics incarnate, the guy who could fix your broken implementations and somehow make eVars seem less like a cruel joke played on marketers by bored engineers. For years, he was the poster child for mastering one platform completely.

Which makes his current crusade for composable CDPs either beautifully ironic or perfectly logical, depending on whether you've had your coffee yet.

His

Agentic AI in Martech: From complicated to complex

Part 2: What happens when your Martech stack becomes a rainforest?

Last week I wrote about the scale problem with agentic AI, how systems making billions of decisions weekly break traditional governance models. But there's another dimension to this. One that goes beyond just volume.

It's about predictability. Or rather, the slow erosion of it.

Your Martech stack used to be a Ferrari. Now it's a rainforest.

Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma used this metaphor in the State of Martech 2025 report to explain how AI is changing martech systems from "complicated" to "complex." They were focused on the technical implications. I want to explore what this means for governance and

Posts tagged with martech

Beyond the "Human in the Loop" fiction