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Ben Cicchetti knows exactly how fast marketing is changing – because he’s helping drive that change. As InfoSum’s SVP, Marketing and Communications, he’s spent the past few years helping brands navigate the new world of AI-powered insights. It’s this work that’s earned Ben industry recognition and a place in Media Leader’s Future 100 Class of 2023, as well as a finalist spot in both AdExchanger’s and ExchangeWire’s 2023 Rising Star Awards.
For Ben, AI is going beyond simply making targeting faster or more efficient, it’s redefining what personalisation means. As he puts it, AI is introducing “speed, scale, and new intelligence in very real ways”. Instead of stitching together identities, marketers can finally focus on behaviours and intent, a shift that Ben believes makes personalisation “more adaptive, more responsible and far more effective”.
Naturally, this advance in data-driven personalisation requires a much greater quantity of personalised information, which comes with real responsibility. As Ben stresses, privacy and security remain “non-negotiable”. However, with more data flowing through more systems, exposure becomes a real threat. That’s why AI must be paired with privacy-enhancing technologies to allow organisations to “collaborate safely… and surface insight without compromising confidentiality”.
When it comes to adopting AI, Ben encourages marketers to think beyond productivity gains. The real value, he says, lies in using AI to create “more meaningful experiences for your customers” and uncover insights at scale. That means treating AI as a collaborative partner, rather than a shortcut.
His message is clear. “AI is not here to replace marketing,” he says, with its greatest strength coming from “understanding people and creating value for them. The sooner teams embrace that, the stronger their marketing will become.”
Given Ben’s position in the industry’s transformation, we wanted to know just how these ideas translate into real-world practice. So we started our conversation by asking how AI has helped Ben deliver that promise of personalisation at scale.
Personalisation starts and ends with data. It is about understanding people and engaging with them in ways that feel relevant, valuable, and timely. Traditionally, marketers have tried to do this by stitching together profiles, patching in more tech, and collecting more signals. That approach was never sustainable, and it certainly was not effective at scale.
AI is changing this dynamic by introducing speed, scale, and new intelligence in very real ways. Large marketing models can analyse millions of signals in seconds, surface patterns humans would never spot, and predict what people might want or need in different moments. AI can also unify insights across channels without requiring a unified underlying data set, removing one of the biggest historical barriers to personalisation.
Instead of chasing identity, marketers can now focus on understanding intent, behaviours, and context. It is a shift from identity-first to intelligence-first. This shift helps brands uncover deeper behavioural insights, discover new high-value audiences, and optimise campaigns in real time. It elevates data strategy to become brand strategy and rebuilds media around behaviour rather than identifiers. That is how personalisation becomes more adaptive, more responsible, and far more effective in the age of AI.
Regardless of whether we’re discussing AI or not, data privacy and security are non-negotiable.
The real issue isn’t AI, it’s the outdated infrastructure the ad industry still relies on. For years, we’ve tried to recognise and track individuals online through cookies, device IDs, and complex identity graphs. That model is breaking down, not only because of regulation, but because it no longer works, if it ever truly did.
AI is enabling a new, privacy-first path. It allows intelligence to be generated without moving, sharing, or exposing underlying data. When combined with Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs), AI helps organisations collaborate safely, analyse patterns securely, and surface insight without compromising confidentiality.
This gives brands, media companies, and technology partners a way to deliver relevant, high-performing experiences while protecting the people behind the data. In short, AI moves the industry away from tracking people and toward understanding behaviour, keeping personalisation and privacy firmly in balance.
I see marketing being elevated, particularly in the role of the CMO. There has been a lot of noise about automation replacing marketing roles or about AI making the CMO redundant. That view misses something fundamental about what marketing actually is. It is about understanding people, shaping meaning, and building trust. None of that can be automated.
AI is an incredible enabler. It brings speed, scale, and new levels of intelligence. It enables marketers to process vast amounts of data, uncover behavioural signals, and respond in real time. But technology alone cannot decide what your brand stands for or how it makes people feel. That is where humans, and specifically marketing leaders, come in.
The rise of AI does not diminish the CMO’s importance. It amplifies it. CMOs now have a broader remit, not just to drive brand growth and customer engagement, but to define how their organisation uses AI responsibly and transparently. They must ensure that technology aligns with purpose, values, and ethical standards.
More than that, CMOs are becoming the change agents within their organisations. Marketing has always been the most adaptable function. It is where new ideas are tested first, where innovation meets execution. So it makes perfect sense that CMOs are leading the charge as businesses adopt and integrate AI.
AI will continue to evolve, but it will never replace the human ability to tell stories, connect emotionally, and build relationships. What it will do is free marketers from manual tasks and give them more time for creative, strategic, and brand-defining work.
The future of marketing is not human or machine. It is the intelligent combination of both.
Start by experimenting, but do it with purpose. Too often, AI adoption begins with efficiency and the question of how to do more with less. That is understandable, but the real opportunity is in how AI can help you create more meaningful experiences for your customers, deepen engagement, and make your marketing more relevant.
Marketers should treat AI as a creative partner, not just a technical one. Use it to explore new ideas, uncover patterns in behaviour, and test and learn at scale. The biggest breakthroughs come from the combination of human creativity and machine intelligence.
There is also a mindset shift required. AI is going to reshape how marketing operates, from team structures to the skills that matter most. That means investing in confidence and fluency across your team. Give people the space to play, experiment, and learn what works.
And most importantly, do not wait. This technology is not on the horizon; it is here. As the saying goes, it is not AI that will take your job, it is the person who knows how to use it. The same applies to marketing teams. Those who learn fast will lead. Those who hesitate will fall behind.
AI is not here to replace marketing. It is here to help us rediscover its core purpose: understanding people and creating value for them. The sooner teams embrace that, the stronger their marketing will become.
Absolutely. In fact, authenticity matters more now than ever. AI can generate content at incredible speed and scale, but it cannot care. It does not understand emotion, nuance, or the small human details that make stories feel real. Authenticity is about being genuine, consistent, and emotionally resonant, and that is a fundamentally human act.
For me, authentic marketing starts with a brand’s core values. You cannot adopt a tone or a trend just because it is popular. You have to be consistent in what you stand for and how you communicate it. That consistency builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust.
Where AI helps is in making that authenticity scalable. It can show you which messages resonate, where engagement is strongest, and how different audiences respond. It can help you deliver the right message at the right moment without losing the voice that makes your brand unique.
But that voice must come from you. The risk is when teams hand too much over to automation and lose the emotional thread. Customers know when content feels overly polished, templated, or disconnected. When that happens, credibility fades.
The most successful brands will be the ones that combine AI’s intelligence with human empathy. Use AI to listen better, learn faster, and deliver smarter, but let people tell the story. Authenticity is not something you generate; it is something you demonstrate through consistency, transparency, and empathy.
In a world where AI threatens to make everything feel the same, authenticity is what sets your brand apart.
