Google’s UK VP of marketing: ‘It’s not too late to be early’ with AI

Under increasing pressure to deliver value for the business, the expectations of marketers are high, but McKinsey research shows that only half of CEOs see marketing as a top growth driver. AI is an opportunity for both CMOs and practitioners to reframe marketing as a profit center, not a cost center.

“AI is improving every aspect of marketing; it’s not changing one or two functions, but all of them, at a scale that was not possible even a year ago,” says Mannion. “A combination of familiar and newer challenges requires marketing leaders to stay grounded in the marketing fundamentals of measurement, media and creative, while being nimble enough to experiment and evolve as fresh opportunities unfold.”

Mastering new tools

Marketing has always been an art and a science; creativity is inspired by data-driven insights. Laying the measurement foundations for AI-powered advertising doesn’t just create the conditions for greater marketing and performance efficiencies, but it can also empower marketing leaders by freeing up time and energy to enable right brain thinking and creativity.

Mannion is a marketing leader who is “passionate about tech that empowers”. She says: “AI has the potential to create opportunities - from the extraordinary to the everyday - for everyone. But despite all of the incredible power that AI can deliver, AI is an enabler, not a marketer. You don’t need an AI strategy, you need AI to run your strategy. Our understanding of people, and how to connect with them, is key to putting AI to work for your business.”

“The most important role CMOs can play is to create the space for experimentation and innovation,” adds Mannion. “We shape technology by using it. The future is still being written, and we all have a role to play.”

A shift in mindset

Each time a new technology goes mainstream, this ups the demand for creativity. AI brings more automation, but at the same time more demand for people skills. It takes time to get used to and master new tools, “but the reward is already tangible,” says Mannion. “Personally I’m excited by what AI can do for marketers. From AI-powered content creation and data-driven insights to personalized customer experiences and optimized campaigns, we are seeing incredibly promising green shoots.”

Reflecting on the early days of her career at Google, 20 years ago, Mannion believes it’s important to experiment and learn early. “A long list of tech breakthroughs before this helped us increase the time marketeers spent on strategy and creativity rather than on administrative tasks. When I started at Google, we didn’t have Google Workspace. Version control was a total nightmare. Everyone who worked at that time will remember just how time consuming it was (version.15.final.final.final anyone?) It stumped collaboration and creativity.”

“Learning new tools requires a shift in mindset and a lot of practice,” she adds. “We all need to experiment with it, to build muscle and improve the tech. Because we can really see a future of it all coming together as a flywheel of growth, creativity and efficiency.”

The AI accelerator

Marketers are now at a critical inflection point that will redefine how they work moving forward. But the core role of marketing remains the same: to build brands and drive business growth. The difference now, with AI, “is that marketers have more tools to supercharge everything from creativity to productivity to performance,” says Mannion.

The media buying process is being transformed with AI. It’s freeing up time for marketers to apply key insights to strategies to be able to differentiate competitively, providing the tools to be able to flex traditional approaches to budget allocation in line with where user demand is.

It’s enhancing the creative process too, resulting in lower production costs and time taken to get campaigns off the ground, opening up new creative opportunities that may not have been possible before. Take Google’s #BestPhoneForever campaign, which used generative AI to pool ideas from social media suggestions to create a fun set of stories about two phones talking to each other. By leveraging Gemini and Imagen models, the team was able to generate and reply with hundreds of custom videos over 16+ hours, taking production of each new episode from weeks and months to less than 10 minutes, re-imagining social-first marketing in the AI era.

“The heart of this system is not AI, it’s the people,” says Mannion.“These tools can unleash a creative force across your whole team. Our creators and writers bring taste and curation, and AI brings speed and scale, helping us co-create with our users in real-time. Now, we’re seeing marketers of all backgrounds spark new ideas and get moving quicker at the speed of culture.”

Mannion references tools like Trends and Insights Assistant (which analyzes trends from multiple sources like Google Trends and Reddit conversations), Idea Generator (which is trained on past ideas and award-winning work from across the globe to help teams generate thought starters), ImageFX for storyboarding ideas, GenType (a new tool from Google Labs that makes an alphabet out of any object, infusing creativity into slide decks), and Help Me Write, which helps spare even the best creatives the horror of staring at a blank sheet of paper.

Putting AI to work for you

AI will shape the businesses of the future. Leading marketers are seizing the opportunity right now by meeting this moment to shape the future trajectory of business - rather than being idle and waiting to see what will happen.

“The possibilities are endless, and so are the opportunities,” says Mannion. “For marketers who meet this moment, you will be able to not only keep up with the speed of consumer changes, but also uncover new opportunities and have confidence that every pound spent is optimized and can maximize growth for your business.”

“Now is the time to put AI – the same technology that’s revolutionizing the marketing industry – to work to revolutionize how you practice marketing day-to-day. It’s not too late to be early on this,” concludes Mannion, before closing with three pieces of advice for marketing leaders to embrace this AI-powered moment:

1. Never stop learning: Now is an opportunity to learn new things, embrace the art and science of AI and set measurement foundations to drive creativity and growth. Courses like Google AI Essentials are designed to help marketers master these in-demand skills.
2. Build your AI muscle: Get your data organized. AI can’t work effectively with disparate analytics tools, unconnected data sources or data that is low quality.
3. Be optimistic and experiment: This is a tremendous time to be a marketer - see where this new tech can take you. Test new ideas and strategies, and get creative. AI is a tool and, like any other tool, how we use it is what matters.