August 7, 2025 • 42 mins
Most companies are implementing AI backwards: they're starting with the technology and hoping their people will figure out how to use it. For the season opener of Unserious recorded live at the Meltwater Summit, J.B. and Molly sit down with Jennifer Kattula, CMO of Microsoft Advertising who revealed why the organizations actually succeeding with generative AI are doing the exact opposite. They're starting with their people.
Follow Jennifer on LinkedIn and check out Microsoft Advertising to revolutionize your ad creation experience with Copilot.
Follow Unserious in your podcast app, at unserious.com, and on Instagram and Threads at @unserious.fun.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Micah (00:00):
Hey everyone.
Producer Micah here Unseriousis back and just a quick note
that we're kicking off theseason a little differently
First video For a few seasonsnow.
You all have been asking forthis, so if you're on a platform
that supports video, likeYouTube or Spotify, you can see
us if you want.
You don't have to.
Secondly, next week, jb andMolly will be back in the studio
(00:21):
, just like they usually are,but today we're sharing our
conversation with Jen Katula,cmo of Microsoft Advertising,
live at the Meltwater Summitback in May.
This is our first live podcastrecording.
It was awesome, we wereterrified and it was super fun,
and massive thanks to Meltwaterand Microsoft for having this
conversation.
J.B. (00:40):
Enjoy enjoy this is Unserious.
Molly (01:01):
Hi everyone.
Micah (01:01):
Hi, hi, so glad you're here.
Molly (01:01):
This is great we're doing a live podcast.
This is crazy.
Yeah, it's so much fun to be uphere with you doing a live
podcast.
J.B. (01:04):
This is crazy.
Yeah, it's so much fun to be uphere with you.
All right, here we go.
Openai's launch of ChatGPT in2022 was the first in a series
of earthquakes that havecontinued to reshape consumer
behavior and the way we interactwith technology.
This brings communicators ahuge new set of tools to the
table, but even as we have a newset of capabilities in front of
(01:27):
us, there's a real challenge infiguring out how to use them
thoughtfully, strategically andwithout losing the human spark
that makes our work meaningful.
I'm JB Skelton.
Live at the Meltwater Summithere in Midtown Manhattan with
my co-host.
(01:48):
Molly McMahon.
Molly (01:50):
Hi, I'm Molly.
J.B. (01:51):
And we are so excited about our guest today.
Jennifer Cotulla has ledmarketing at Meta Polygon Labs
and is currently the CMO ofMicrosoft Advertising.
This is actually her secondtour of duty at Microsoft.
She is a student of advertising, an engineer by training, and
(02:12):
she is one of the mostinfectiously positive leaders
I've ever had the privilege ofworking with.
She is a friend of Unserious, afriend of mine.
Molly (02:21):
She's a new friend of mine.
J.B. (02:23):
Welcome back to the show, Jen Thank you, it's such a
pleasure.
It's so good to be up here withyou.
So Jen and I go way back, andabout 15 years ago we were
walking.
We were like little youngmarketers walking around the
streets of Paris in the rain,imagining and wish casting what
(02:44):
our lives would be in the futureand what our careers might
bring us.
I never imagined that we wouldbe on stage together at a
conference 15 years later, butwe probably did?
Jennifer (02:57):
We manifested it.
J.B. (02:58):
So here we are talking about generator of AI today and
all the implications it has formarketing.
Microsoft, of course, is aleader in this space, but you're
also client zero for using itto transform your business.
How much of your own capacityas a leader is spent managing
(03:23):
this shift internally?
Jennifer (03:31):
leader is spent managing this shift internally.
Wow, I love this question.
I also started using generativeAI back in 2022 when ChatGPT
launched.
I was making images in aDiscord server at that point in
time and I was really justplaying around, and it's really
been over this last year, Iwould say, where the intensity
has just skyrocketed, totallyramped up exactly, and I made a
(03:55):
commitment to myself, like I,the first line of my LinkedIn
profile.
It says I am a builder, so Ilike to tinker, I like to make
things.
I was an engineer, I used tocode, so I made a commitment to
myself about a year ago aroundI'm going to learn this, and it
(04:15):
took me a really long time toget over the learning curve.
I think we're all adults here.
We all went to college.
I think we forget sometimes howhard it is to learn new things.
I have a six-year-old who'slearning basketball and he
misses like 90% of the shots,and that's what it felt like
(04:37):
when I was missing 90% of myprompts because they just didn't
land and I didn't get a goodresult.
But over the last year, I'vereally seen.
You know, I'm using it formyself in my daily work and I am
leading a team of marketersthat I am encouraging to really
(05:01):
adopt these tools because ourworkflows will change.
J.B. (05:08):
How has that?
Jennifer (05:08):
urgency changed over the last year.
You know, I think it'severywhere.
If you spend even a second onLinkedIn, you're seeing GPT
prompts all over the place.
Everyone's talking about vibecoding, which I have yet to try,
but I think it sounds prettycool.
(05:29):
So it's just, it's genuinelyeverywhere and I will say it is
absolutely the thing that keepsme up at night because I am
reading more and more about AI.
First, companies that have 10employees and they're doing $100
million in ARR, yep, and so youknow we have to transform.
(05:52):
So I feel that sense of urgencyas a human being to learn and I
am very much motivated bylearning the tools and then, as
an organization, I spend a lotof time thinking about what does
the marketing organization ofthe future look like?
J.B. (06:08):
so transformation, an organizational transformation,
can be a big abstraction.
Define that I will.
Jennifer (06:18):
Yes, I am a huge proponent of uh, of writing, so
huge proponent of writing.
So I'm just going to sort ofsidebar here with my writing.
I write visions on the regular.
So I write visions for mypersonal life.
(06:39):
I write them every year and theway I do it is a retrospective.
So if I was writing a visionright now, which I'm about to
very soon what does my marketingorganization look like in 2026,
in May 2026, I would say here'sall the things we accomplished
and here's how different itlooks.
So it can be very abstract ifyou just use these big sort of
(07:03):
words like transformation andyou have to get into the details
.
And the way I like to get intothe details is around what does
a day in the life of a marketerlook like?
And I am a strong believer inempowerment of people and
employees and you know, as apractitioner myself, I say the
(07:27):
most annoying thing in the worldis when you can't get something
done on your own.
Maybe you have to fill out aticket and then it goes to this
person and then there's afive-day turnaround time.
I know every single person inthis room like that's annoying
and you want to be able to dothe things on your own and feel
like this sense of confidenceand pride in the work that
(07:50):
you're doing.
So, to back up to your questionon transformation, this vision
doc will be a retrospective oflike what does a day in the life
of my team look like and whatdo we need to do to get there?
Is it upskilling, is ittraining?
Is it new tools that we need?
And plug for the Meltwatertools that they just shared.
(08:12):
They're really cool and they'revery empowering.
J.B. (08:18):
What is the role?
And so you're sort of gettingat this what is the role of
leaders in empowering thischange and how do you approach
this in a practical sense?
Jennifer (08:37):
Yeah, I think that is such a poignant question right
now.
We're all navigating ittogether, as individuals and as
leaders, and I think AI literacyis very, very top of mind for
me, and some of the things thatI have done with my team are
training, finding time I thinkone of the biggest things that I
(08:59):
hear from people I work with is.
Micah (09:01):
I don't have time for this.
Jennifer (09:04):
And I liken that statement to when you have an
open role on your team and youdon't have time to interview and
you're never going to get offthat hamster wheel of doing
things.
So the things that I do is Iactually block 30 to 60 minutes
every day to have thispurposeful play, and I will get
(09:27):
in there and I will experimentand I have, you know, a whole
handful of agents that I'mexperimenting with building
right now, and I can't get itall done in an hour, but I can
play or I read.
So there's those things.
And then, in terms of of youknow if you're running a team, I
think the other piece of it isyou have individuals using it
(09:49):
for different things atdifferent paces at different
times.
So, taking a step back andmapping out your team workflow
and again, like what are theareas of the business that may
benefit from AI, from automation?
And you know, a lot of timeswhat we say in our team is like
(10:11):
what's just like a time suck,because everyone in this room is
super creative and we get ourjoy and our purpose, I think,
from being able to produce, likereally interesting, creative
work.
Molly (10:26):
A hundred percent, and I love that you are thinking about
like the day in the life of amarketer.
So, like many of you here inthe room, I am a marketer as
well, in my yeah, when I'm noton the Unserious podcast and
with all of you, and when Ithink about marketing today.
We have to be highly adaptive.
(10:46):
Our industries are changing ata rapid pace, our functions and
our roles are shifting all thetime, and so I I really do
believe that, like marketingteams are very ai ready.
But the question that I ask ishow do you move from the
possible to the practical?
How how do you actually bringit into your everyday life?
(11:08):
And a question that I've beenasking is when we talk about AI
and its purpose, is it reallyaround being efficient and
productive, or are we startingto see some impact on top line
revenue, customer engagement,pipeline growth?
Are we there yet?
Jennifer (11:27):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that question.
Last week I was with a group ofabout 50 CMOs and the most
interesting takeaway for me isthat AI implementation in an
organization is often led by themarketing organization, by the
CMO, because all of the usecases that we're seeing are
(11:51):
starting in marketing.
It's content creation, it'sinsights, it's research.
It can be creative as well.
So there is a ton of possible.
And to get to the practical,honestly, it's a start by
starting thing.
You got to get in there, yougot to start playing around and
um and experimenting and makingit a daily habit.
(12:14):
I actually changed the homescreen of my phone, so copilot
is right in the center and thatis now my entry point into the
internet.
Now it doesn't mean that I'mnot going to a browser or to an
app, but if that is my startingpoint, like that is a massive
shift in engagement, rightexactly I'm curious, like so you
(12:37):
talked about experimenting,like setting up your time every
day to experiment and creatingthat daily habit you talked
about actually like shiftingco-pilots.
Molly (12:45):
It's the first thing that you look at what might be some
first principles that you wouldgive marketing teams who really
are like the first entry of AIinto the business.
What kind of first principleswould you give those teams?
Jennifer (13:00):
I think it comes down to mapping out your particular
workflow, and in a marketingteam you can have people that
work on brand, that work oncommunications, that maybe run
events, and even withinmarketing.
I think there are some silosand specialties.
What I am noticing with AI isthere's a breakdown in those
(13:23):
silos.
They're coming kind of comingtogether, even a little bit more
.
So I think the first step iswhat is the work to be done and
how do you sort of break downthose steps?
And then where can AI play arole in it?
So my team actually, next weekwe are hosting our own hackathon
(13:44):
.
Oh cool, and usually it's likeengineers that are hosting
hackathons.
But the fact is that thesetools are low code or they're no
code, and we can make a lot ofstuff on our own.
So the whole point is we'vereally pulled the team.
Where do we need to sort ofcreate automation?
(14:06):
Where can we get productivitygains?
What annoying tasks can we takeout of the system, and where
can we potentially like make thequality better, so like getting
richer insights?
I think that's the whole pointof it.
We're not producing forproduction's sake.
Molly (14:30):
You could have infinite amounts of creative, but there
still is a point around qualityover quantity, so we need to
make that happen as well, whenyou think about quality over
quantity and this hackathon, doyou have any best practices for
being able to evaluate what goodis, what it looks like, what it
feels like, how it's being used?
Do you use things like designprinciples?
(14:52):
Do you have success criteria?
Do you have councils that areadvising?
I'm just sort of curious howthat works.
Well, this is our firsthackathon, oh hey, so
experimenting.
Jennifer (15:03):
So we are absolutely like this.
We are shooting for proofs ofconcepts at the end, and if they
are useful and helpful to ourteam, we will look to see.
What does productizing theselook like?
And maybe they're just for ourteam, but I think there's going
to be a lot of reallyinteresting learnings for us to
take away and potentially thenbuild on more.
(15:27):
The thing I will say and I'llshare this from my own
experience, but it's also fromtalking to people that are in
the tools is, once you buildsomething on your own, you have
this major unlock and the usecases that will come up in your
head of how you can use thistechnology.
Your mind will explode withthose use cases.
(15:49):
So I that's also what I want tosee happen with this hackathon
is like we're going to learn alot and then we're going to be
able to apply it and as a team,we're going to grow.
Molly (15:58):
Yeah, what I really so many of you don't know me yet,
but I have a background as ahuman-centered designer and when
I think about design, one ofthe key principles is learn by
doing, and that's what builds agrowth mindset.
That's what helps you overcomethrough failures, it helps you
accelerate your experimentation.
(16:19):
And I'm curious because,particularly in marketing, there
are so many different tasks.
It's very tactical, it's verydetail-oriented at each one of
the touch points across thecustomer journey, and I'm
wondering if you had any protips for how you might automate
one task or a task inside of thecustomer journey.
Jennifer (16:43):
Yeah, that is interesting.
I think for us it's probablyaround.
Where can the technology beapplied?
One example I can share is notreally with our marketing team,
(17:05):
but with the products that wehave, yep.
So we have the MicrosoftAdvertising Platform and we've
built Copilot right inside of it.
That's cool and it can makecreatives, it can change
backgrounds, it can provideinsights and diagnostics and
that is so powerful for ourcustomers Yep.
(17:25):
So in terms of the customerjourney these customers are
coming in, especially thinkabout a small business that
might not have a creative team.
How empowering is that fortheir own journey?
They don't have time.
They're looking at their returnon time spent, yep.
So I think finding like thework we all do as marketers, and
(17:47):
understanding customer behaviorand customer insights that
doesn't change.
That doesn't change.
I think it's about how can wemake their experiences that much
more personalized and valuable.
Yeah, you know, I read a statrecently that when you walk in a
store, you have about a 30%likelihood of purchasing
(18:10):
something, but when you're on awebsite, it's about a 2% chance
of buying something.
So there's a real opportunityfor improvement in customer
experience and getting people towhere they need to go faster,
better and happier too.
Molly (18:25):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that, and I love that being like
extremely customer focused, asyou're testing out, designing,
trying new things aroundautomating, automating work.
That's awesome.
I want to talk about creativity.
Yeah, I like.
I think creativity and AI is alittle tricky, and I don't think
(18:46):
I'm alone in this one.
I honestly don't know what tomake of it.
I bring it up because there wasa Friday afternoon and on that
Friday afternoon, all of asudden, my LinkedIn was
inundated with everybody makingaction dolls with the new
ChatGPT functionality.
(19:06):
There were thousands of themand I couldn't figure out if I
needed to jump in and make myown action doll, like I was like
is this cool, or do they alllook exactly the same?
And so that weirded me out alittle bit.
And then, on the other side oflike creativity and AI, jb and
Micah know this.
I really love these AIgenerated videos of giant squids
(19:28):
and big marine life gettingshampooed by oceanographers.
If you haven't seen them checkit out, Anybody know this.
I had to double check, Bizarre.
I had to double check if theywere real or not.
I was like are there squidsthis big in the ocean?
J.B. (19:41):
She just really wants to believe that there are these
marine life teams that are outthere shampooing dolphins and
things I do.
Molly (19:49):
I do, I'm a magical thinker.
J.B. (19:50):
They just need a good scrub.
Molly (19:51):
I'm a magical thinker.
No doubt about that.
J.B. (19:54):
But I agree with you that knowledge workers make really
boring action figures.
Molly (19:59):
Yes.
J.B. (20:00):
We're not excited.
Molly (20:01):
I wanted them to make giant squids.
So, in all of that, I'mwondering, giant squids.
So in all of that I'm wonderinghave you seen any like great
creative partnerships between AIand people making beautiful
things?
Jennifer (20:14):
Yeah, well, I'll just share.
I had a very similar reactionwhen I saw the action figures
and I thought, wow, there's somuch adoption.
I think OpenAI had like 10million new users every single
day when that was going on.
So great for adoption.
Molly (20:30):
Good marketing tactic.
Jennifer (20:32):
Yeah, but they all do sort of go to the mean.
Right, there's this averagethat you end up getting.
So I think AI can be extremelyhelpful in pushing your thinking
as a collaborator on your briefwriting, your concepting,
(20:53):
competitive intelligence, what'shappening out there.
So when you're thinking aboutit and really using even when
you're sometimes using the deepreasoning capabilities of AI,
you can go quite deep.
And then when you need to domass amounts of sort of creative
production.
So I was speaking to a clientrecently who was using AI and
(21:16):
you know they managed a hundredmarkets in the world and they
had a team of about 11 creativesthat were producing producing
all of their video, all of theirimagery, all of their content
for their advertising, and theyyou know the things like
translation that makes it somuch easier things like changing
(21:37):
the background, changing theweather, like in a particular
image or what have you.
Yep, so that kind of creativeproduction, so you can get to
personalization, makes a ton ofsense when it comes to true
excellence in craft.
Please treat AI as acollaborator and somebody that
will push somebody, a tool thatwill push your thinking.
(22:00):
Look it, I'm already treatingit like it's human, but I think
that the moat really for thework that we all do that's quite
creative is around the tastetastemakers is around curation
is around craft and like theexcellence that you get from
(22:20):
doing what you're doing 10,000hours in your lifetime to become
an expert in it.
Molly (22:28):
So I do think that will become quite the moat in terms
of you know where this is goingcreativity wise, yeah, and as
like a maker person myself, isthat I definitely use AI to get
my briefs out faster, synthesizea whole lot faster with all my
insights, so I can drive so wecan like ship even quicker.
I am going to switch gears.
(22:49):
Baby you ready for this?
J.B. (22:51):
I'm ready for this.
Molly (22:52):
Jen, are you ready for this?
Actually, jen, are you readyfor this?
I don't know if I'm ready forthis.
Okay, so many of you areprobably new listeners to
Unserious, but we have a gamethat we like to play in each one
of our episodes, and the gameis called hire, fire, boss.
You can imagine what this gameis about.
(23:12):
Um, so the rules of the game?
There aren't many, butbasically we give our guests a
hypothetical task and we givethem a dream team that they have
to hire someone, they have tofire someone and they have to
select someone to be their boss.
Micah (23:28):
So, I invite all of you to play.
Molly (23:31):
We're going to set this up for Jen, but please play
along with all of us and Jen,you ready for this?
I'm ready.
Okay, your task.
Because we know that you areMichigan Blue through and
through sorry, my Ohio Statefans, this is about to happen,
Go blue but because we know thatyou're this huge Michigan fan.
J.B. (23:53):
Are there any other Wolverines in the room?
Molly (23:57):
Okay nice we knew you were here.
We knew you were here, we gotyou.
J.B. (24:03):
We knew you were here.
Molly (24:05):
We got you too.
We knew you were here, so okay.
So the task that we have foryou is how might we reimagine
school spirit at the Universityof Michigan for the modern age?
We selected this task becausewe know you've already done this
job before and your dream teamis a bunch of divas from the
(24:26):
great state of Michigan.
So dream team member number oneis the queen of pop herself,
madonna.
Okay, our second divo is SlimShady, eminem.
And our third dream team memberis the mother of Motown, is
(24:51):
Diana Ross.
You guys can think about this?
J.B. (24:55):
Are you going to hire a fire boss?
Fire one, and one's got to beyour boss.
Molly (25:00):
Yeah, I know JB's been thinking about this a little bit
.
I've definitely got my dreamteam, so Jen and it's
instinctual, it's instinctual.
I know.
Jennifer (25:12):
Yeah, the body knows.
So I'm going to choose DianaRoss as my boss.
Molly (25:27):
Oh yeah, I mean, she's a godmother of all of us, and I'm
going to hire Madonna.
Jennifer (25:34):
Oh yeah, and I'm sorry , slim Shady, eminem, you're
fired.
Molly (25:40):
Oh, Slim Shady.
Slim Shady is hitting it.
That's okay.
He's an entrepreneur, he'sgoing to be just fine.
Yeah, I think so.
Jennifer (25:45):
What do you say?
J.B. (25:47):
I hired Eminem.
Jennifer (25:48):
You hired Eminem.
Yeah, alright, I was gonna workalongside him.
J.B. (25:52):
Madonna's my boss.
Love her Like the gays loveMadonna.
I can't not.
I can't not.
And Diana Ross, like she, justshe can go do whatever.
I just released her to theworld and I love her too, but
(26:13):
she's off to do her things.
Molly (26:16):
Well, I am on Jen's side.
I have Diana Ross as my boss.
J.B. (26:19):
Okay.
Molly (26:20):
Because I think she's been our boss, been the boss
since before I was born.
Jennifer (26:24):
That's true so.
Molly (26:25):
I will continue to take all her wisdom and I also hired
wanna work side by side withEminem.
I think the guy's anentrepreneur, love his music.
I'm into it and I am a hugeMadonna fan and I feel like
she's bigger.
She's too much for this.
J.B. (26:42):
And she would want to be out in the world.
That's the way I felt aboutDiana Ross.
Molly (26:45):
Yeah.
Jennifer (26:46):
Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome.
I was very nervous about that.
Molly (26:49):
You did great, you did great, you did great.
Actually, this is a funicebreaker if you ever had you
know on your team calls.
J.B. (27:00):
Jen was worried that I was going to ask about like French
philosophers or something thatwould be cruel.
Yeah, that would be really mean.
So you have described thefuture as conversational,
personalized and agentic.
I have.
What do you mean by that?
Jennifer (27:19):
Well, we'll start with conversational.
We're seeing this majorconsumer shift to the
conversational interfaces likeCopilot, like ChatGPT and the
entry point there, what you'retyping in, has completely
(27:41):
changed.
You're not just saying wherecan I go for spring break, or
what kind of hiking shoes shouldI buy Best hiking shoes You're
literally putting in an entirestory into this prompt box and
including so much color, so muchcontext.
(28:05):
You know, I am going hiking inthe state of Washington and it's
going to be March so it mightbe wet outside but I still want
to be cute.
Like you're putting all thiscontext in and we're finding
with our own research that theprompts are about twice as long.
(28:25):
The prompts are about twice aslong and the user is getting to
their decision in about a thirdof the time.
So this context is reallyvaluable.
And then these conversationaltools they have memory, so they
start to get to know you andthey have empathy, so they
become, like you know, truly acompanion.
(28:49):
And we're even seeing there wasa recent HBR article that
showed that people are usingthese conversational tools for
things like mental well-beingand that is really increasing.
J.B. (29:01):
That's the number one use case actually is for therapy.
Jennifer (29:05):
Totally so, like you're having a conversation and
it's private.
It's personal and there's nojudgment in there.
So that's this real shift inconsumer behavior that I think
we're all watching and we're allpaying attention to.
Personalized is it's the samething we've probably been
(29:25):
talking about for a really longtime, and I think AI can
actually deliver on the promiseof personalization around you
know, knowing who you are,knowing the context and the
situation that you are in, sothat, so that you're getting
content, that is what you needat that moment.
And then agentic is really likethese personal chatbots that
(29:50):
you're using.
That's your personal agent, andbrands are going to have agents
that are going to be reallysmart.
They're going to know all theproduct SKUs that you have.
They're going to have all theanswers to the customer service
questions.
J.B. (30:03):
So let's break it down with what actually is an agent.
I think there's a lot of peoplein this room that know what an
agent is, but our listenersonline might not so help us
understand what an agent is.
Jennifer (30:17):
Define an agent, absolutely so.
An agent really is a customizedversion of your conversational
tool that you're using.
So say so.
It's like a customized versionof your conversational tool that
you're using, so say so.
It's like a customized versionof your Co-Pilot.
And I will start with anexample, because I think that's
the easiest thing to do.
I made an agent about six monthsago and I called it the 2025
(30:41):
Trend Report Explorer.
So who here has read a trendreport for 2025?
I think we all have.
I had about 250 of those and Ididn't have time to read all of
them, so I dropped them all in aSharePoint and I built an agent
around that particular use caseand I used natural language to
(31:05):
say I wanna understand consumerinsights, business insights, I
want them to be actionable, andI sort of trained the agent.
But it was just on this amountof information, so it was very
finite, and I was able to promptthat agent and ask questions
and I use it all the time Like Irun a marketing team.
I use it all the time Like Irun a marketing team.
(31:26):
So you know, when I'm lookingfor insights for a keynote or
something like that, I can go.
What's happening in the autoindustry?
Molly (31:36):
I'm not totally an auto industry expert, but I can get
there and the industries areshifting so quickly as well as
you know our customers and sobeing able to just like keep
pace with that rate of change ispretty cool.
To have an agent help you dothat.
Jennifer (31:46):
Absolutely.
And once I made that, Irealized oh wow, I can do this
for a lot of things.
I can put you know our customerresearch or survey data, things
like that, our brand healthreports in here and I can prompt
it and I can get reallyinteresting insights.
Yep, you know, we havesomething else.
(32:07):
That's an internal tool wherewe collect all of our support
tickets and it's called Voice360.
And we're able to see what arethe, where are customers having
the biggest issues?
Yep, and that can go right intothe product team as a
prioritized feature request.
So there's a lot of thesethings can be very.
(32:30):
You can sort of like box themin with the, what you're
training and what you'regrounding them on.
And when I said before, there'slow code tools and no code
tools to do it, I'm not coding,I'm using natural language to
build these.
J.B. (32:46):
So what's the agentic future?
Jennifer (32:48):
Well, the agentic future is you have your own
personal agent that has memoryso my personal co-pilot has
memory from everything I'mprompted and that agent can talk
to essentially a brand agent oranother personal agent and over
time, will be able to takeaction on my behalf.
(33:10):
Now, the big thing here that wehave to remember is that trust
is so paramount to this workingand working well.
You have to be able to trustthat your information is private
, that it's secure.
So that's very, very important.
And same thing on the brandside.
You might have an account witha particular brand and, I don't
(33:35):
know, maybe your groceryshopping list will be taken care
of without you even doinganything in the future.
But that trust has to be there.
So these agents will talk toone another.
I think in a marketing scenarioor in a business workflow, you
can string these things togetherto take to take action on your
behalf wow, I mean, I feel likethat's pretty amazing it is like
(33:56):
what does this mean for thefuture of our work culture?
Yeah, I mean it's interesting.
I think our work will change alittle.
You know, like if you have acouple agents that you're
working with for the particularthings that you're doing, you
can imagine you might have likethree or four that help you do
your job.
Maybe you'll become a managerof these agents.
(34:19):
Microsoft recently came outwith a work trend index that
kind of showed this evolution ofyou have agents that you work
with as collaborators.
You might have a few of them inthe future and then over time
you might be a manager of a teamof agents.
Yeah, you know, I don't knowexactly how we're gonna get
there, but I think we're seeing,like, if you really go back to
(34:42):
that workflow, the workflow isgetting broken down and it's
starting to get strung togetherand and, as business leaders, we
need to think about where do wehave human intervention?
very intentionally, yeah, yeah.
And and where do we want tomake sure that there are eyes on
the work?
Yeah, so that you know beforeit sees a customer or gets out
(35:07):
into the world.
We need to make sure that we'reoperating with responsible AI
principles in mind.
How does this?
J.B. (35:14):
I mean, how does this as a CMO, how do you now think about
man like evaluating humanperformance, when so much of it
is is being supported by agents?
It's a really different.
Jennifer (35:33):
It's really interesting.
I think honestly, like I think,about what Microsoft values.
We are a growth culture with agrowth mindset, and I don't want
to say this like repeatedstatement over and over again,
but it's so true.
The pace of change is crazy andit's the only thing that's
(35:54):
constant.
So, having people on the teamthat are embracing a growth
mindset because what I justdescribed like I don't know,
know is that in a year, is it infive years?
But the reality is is thatwe're going to be navigating
this change so having a team ofpeople that can embrace it, play
(36:16):
with the tools, be open to them, you know, continuously
reimagine the work that needs tobe done and and keep our north
Stars in mind too.
Like it's not technology fortechnology sake, it's technology
in service of the mission thatyou have as a business, the
purpose you have in the world.
It's in service of yourcustomers.
Molly (36:36):
At the end of the day, yep, yeah, and I think, when I
think about that, also like thehuman intervention I did
recently just watch, watchJurassic Park.
You guys are all going to getto know me real well, but the
question in it was, like youknow, just because you could
make dinosaurs, could you makedinosaurs?
(36:57):
Right you know, and so I thinkeven in that, like human
intervention piece, it's beingable to consequence scan, it's
being able to like understandwhat the impact is that you're
having, um being and and lookingout um in those decisions.
J.B. (37:11):
So absolutely cool, absolutely so, jen, I want to
shift gears a bit now again, um,and talk a little bit more
about you and your leadership,because you're you're an
extraordinary leader and youbring spirit and you build
culture wherever you go and, asyou say, you describe yourself
(37:34):
as a builder.
You grew up in Michigan.
You're a Wolverine twice over.
Can you share the story of thebus?
Can?
Jennifer (37:44):
you share the story of the bus?
I sure can.
So for the few Michigan peoplehere.
If you have been at theUniversity of Michigan in the
last 20 years, you've probablyseen the Ross Business School
school bus.
My friends and I, as businessschool students, do.
We were a little entrepreneurialand decided we needed a better
(38:10):
way to tailgate.
So we pooled our money togetherand we bought a school bus.
We ripped out all the seats, wepainted it to look like the
Michigan helmet, we built a deckon top, we found a parking spot
for it between campus and thestadium and we parked it there
every week and everyone had ajob.
(38:31):
My job was to order the kegs,somebody else was in charge of
the music, somebody else was incharge of finance, somebody else
was the driver.
We all had a role and that busserved us for the season.
It was so much fun.
We took it on the road and thenwe sold it to the next class,
and then the next class sold itto the next class and we
(38:53):
graduated in 2004 as foundingmembers, and that bus is still
going on.
J.B. (38:58):
That's awesome.
Jennifer (38:59):
So it's a pretty cool story.
J.B. (39:02):
How does that like?
What are the lessons from thatthat you still have and build
into your team?
Jennifer (39:11):
I think I'm you know, I'm an optimist at heart.
I see the good and thepotential in individuals and
with that I'm very much astrengths-based leader.
So even back to the bus, like Iwas good at buying the kegs, I
guess.
So that's what I did, and so Isee the potential.
(39:33):
And then I sort of also see thepotential in our team together,
because I don't things don'tslow, like obstacles are
sometimes exciting to me versusslowing me down or stopping me.
So I think that optimism issomething I really bring to the
(39:54):
team and something that is adeep value of mine.
Another deep value is generosity, and now that I'm more senior
in my career, I literally wantto give as much as I can to
people that reach out orcoaching or mentoring sessions,
(40:14):
you know, even like sharing asmuch knowledge as I can.
I just want to.
I hope it's useful with all ofyou and you know, I think the
other thing is just that growthmindset and really putting your
best foot out there, like tryingand practicing and caring and
(40:35):
having pride in the work thatyou do.
So those are things that Ireally value, obviously, like
excellence and being data drivenand all this stuff.
Like I love that and I'm supercompetitive, but, like in terms
of leading, leading a team in aculture, like you know, we're
people are the biggest assetthat we have, so we have to, we
(40:59):
have to nurture and grow thepeople we have and learn from
everyone.
I learn from people on my teamevery single day.
I learn from every singleinteraction, so I think that's
the other thing, too is justlike how much are are we
learning and how can you bringthose insights in?
J.B. (41:14):
I think there's something to the act of building something
physical as well.
Yeah, like this, likecollective creative act.
Jennifer (41:22):
Yep, I've seen it in your events as well, yeah well,
I definitely am feeling theinspiration here with this event
.
I get really jazzed and youknow like people don't get
together in real life.
That as much anymore.
So it's, it feels good to behere interacting with a great
group of people, yep.
Molly (41:43):
Okay, well, jen, thank you so much.
We are at the end of our show.
It's been a pleasure to learnso much from you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, and that's the show.
J.B. (41:57):
Special thanks to our producer, micah Vono, to TJ,
lori and Rob for making us looklike we know what we're doing
here today, to Dino, jessica andSkyler and the whole Meltwater
crew for trusting us with thisopportunity, and to the amazing
live audience.
Thank you, you guys are awesome.
If you like this episode, dropus a rating and review and share
(42:19):
it with someone else.
If you have questions or ideasfor future episodes, drop us a
line at hello at unseriouscom.
We're also on LinkedIn, onInstagram at unseriousfun, or on
our website, unseriouscom,where you can find all of our
previous episodes and show notesAt Unserious.
We make work play.
(42:43):
Thank you, thank you, we did it.
Woo-hoo work.
Thank you, thank you, we did it.
Woohoo.
Jen was worried that I wasgoing to ask about like French
philosophers or something.
Hey everyone.
Producer Micah here Unseriousis back and just a quick note
that we're kicking off theseason a little differently
First video For a few seasonsnow.
You all have been asking forthis, so if you're on a platform
that supports video, likeYouTube or Spotify, you can see
us if you want.
You don't have to.
Secondly, next week, jb andMolly will be back in the studio
(00:21):
, just like they usually are,but today we're sharing our
conversation with Jen Katula,cmo of Microsoft Advertising,
live at the Meltwater Summitback in May.
This is our first live podcastrecording.
It was awesome, we wereterrified and it was super fun,
and massive thanks to Meltwaterand Microsoft for having this
conversation.
J.B. (00:40):
Enjoy enjoy this is Unserious.
Molly (01:01):
Hi everyone.
Micah (01:01):
Hi, hi, so glad you're here.
Molly (01:01):
This is great we're doing a live podcast.
This is crazy.
Yeah, it's so much fun to be uphere with you doing a live
podcast.
J.B. (01:04):
This is crazy.
Yeah, it's so much fun to be uphere with you.
All right, here we go.
Openai's launch of ChatGPT in2022 was the first in a series
of earthquakes that havecontinued to reshape consumer
behavior and the way we interactwith technology.
This brings communicators ahuge new set of tools to the
table, but even as we have a newset of capabilities in front of
(01:27):
us, there's a real challenge infiguring out how to use them
thoughtfully, strategically andwithout losing the human spark
that makes our work meaningful.
I'm JB Skelton.
Live at the Meltwater Summithere in Midtown Manhattan with
my co-host.
(01:48):
Molly McMahon.
Molly (01:50):
Hi, I'm Molly.
J.B. (01:51):
And we are so excited about our guest today.
Jennifer Cotulla has ledmarketing at Meta Polygon Labs
and is currently the CMO ofMicrosoft Advertising.
This is actually her secondtour of duty at Microsoft.
She is a student of advertising, an engineer by training, and
(02:12):
she is one of the mostinfectiously positive leaders
I've ever had the privilege ofworking with.
She is a friend of Unserious, afriend of mine.
Molly (02:21):
She's a new friend of mine.
J.B. (02:23):
Welcome back to the show, Jen Thank you, it's such a
pleasure.
It's so good to be up here withyou.
So Jen and I go way back, andabout 15 years ago we were
walking.
We were like little youngmarketers walking around the
streets of Paris in the rain,imagining and wish casting what
(02:44):
our lives would be in the futureand what our careers might
bring us.
I never imagined that we wouldbe on stage together at a
conference 15 years later, butwe probably did?
Jennifer (02:57):
We manifested it.
J.B. (02:58):
So here we are talking about generator of AI today and
all the implications it has formarketing.
Microsoft, of course, is aleader in this space, but you're
also client zero for using itto transform your business.
How much of your own capacityas a leader is spent managing
(03:23):
this shift internally?
Jennifer (03:31):
leader is spent managing this shift internally.
Wow, I love this question.
I also started using generativeAI back in 2022 when ChatGPT
launched.
I was making images in aDiscord server at that point in
time and I was really justplaying around, and it's really
been over this last year, Iwould say, where the intensity
has just skyrocketed, totallyramped up exactly, and I made a
(03:55):
commitment to myself, like I,the first line of my LinkedIn
profile.
It says I am a builder, so Ilike to tinker, I like to make
things.
I was an engineer, I used tocode, so I made a commitment to
myself about a year ago aroundI'm going to learn this, and it
(04:15):
took me a really long time toget over the learning curve.
I think we're all adults here.
We all went to college.
I think we forget sometimes howhard it is to learn new things.
I have a six-year-old who'slearning basketball and he
misses like 90% of the shots,and that's what it felt like
(04:37):
when I was missing 90% of myprompts because they just didn't
land and I didn't get a goodresult.
But over the last year, I'vereally seen.
You know, I'm using it formyself in my daily work and I am
leading a team of marketersthat I am encouraging to really
(05:01):
adopt these tools because ourworkflows will change.
J.B. (05:08):
How has that?
Jennifer (05:08):
urgency changed over the last year.
You know, I think it'severywhere.
If you spend even a second onLinkedIn, you're seeing GPT
prompts all over the place.
Everyone's talking about vibecoding, which I have yet to try,
but I think it sounds prettycool.
(05:29):
So it's just, it's genuinelyeverywhere and I will say it is
absolutely the thing that keepsme up at night because I am
reading more and more about AI.
First, companies that have 10employees and they're doing $100
million in ARR, yep, and so youknow we have to transform.
(05:52):
So I feel that sense of urgencyas a human being to learn and I
am very much motivated bylearning the tools and then, as
an organization, I spend a lotof time thinking about what does
the marketing organization ofthe future look like?
J.B. (06:08):
so transformation, an organizational transformation,
can be a big abstraction.
Define that I will.
Jennifer (06:18):
Yes, I am a huge proponent of uh, of writing, so
huge proponent of writing.
So I'm just going to sort ofsidebar here with my writing.
I write visions on the regular.
So I write visions for mypersonal life.
(06:39):
I write them every year and theway I do it is a retrospective.
So if I was writing a visionright now, which I'm about to
very soon what does my marketingorganization look like in 2026,
in May 2026, I would say here'sall the things we accomplished
and here's how different itlooks.
So it can be very abstract ifyou just use these big sort of
(07:03):
words like transformation andyou have to get into the details
.
And the way I like to get intothe details is around what does
a day in the life of a marketerlook like?
And I am a strong believer inempowerment of people and
employees and you know, as apractitioner myself, I say the
(07:27):
most annoying thing in the worldis when you can't get something
done on your own.
Maybe you have to fill out aticket and then it goes to this
person and then there's afive-day turnaround time.
I know every single person inthis room like that's annoying
and you want to be able to dothe things on your own and feel
like this sense of confidenceand pride in the work that
(07:50):
you're doing.
So, to back up to your questionon transformation, this vision
doc will be a retrospective oflike what does a day in the life
of my team look like and whatdo we need to do to get there?
Is it upskilling, is ittraining?
Is it new tools that we need?
And plug for the Meltwatertools that they just shared.
(08:12):
They're really cool and they'revery empowering.
J.B. (08:18):
What is the role?
And so you're sort of gettingat this what is the role of
leaders in empowering thischange and how do you approach
this in a practical sense?
Jennifer (08:37):
Yeah, I think that is such a poignant question right
now.
We're all navigating ittogether, as individuals and as
leaders, and I think AI literacyis very, very top of mind for
me, and some of the things thatI have done with my team are
training, finding time I thinkone of the biggest things that I
(08:59):
hear from people I work with is.
Micah (09:01):
I don't have time for this.
Jennifer (09:04):
And I liken that statement to when you have an
open role on your team and youdon't have time to interview and
you're never going to get offthat hamster wheel of doing
things.
So the things that I do is Iactually block 30 to 60 minutes
every day to have thispurposeful play, and I will get
(09:27):
in there and I will experimentand I have, you know, a whole
handful of agents that I'mexperimenting with building
right now, and I can't get itall done in an hour, but I can
play or I read.
So there's those things.
And then, in terms of of youknow if you're running a team, I
think the other piece of it isyou have individuals using it
(09:49):
for different things atdifferent paces at different
times.
So, taking a step back andmapping out your team workflow
and again, like what are theareas of the business that may
benefit from AI, from automation?
And you know, a lot of timeswhat we say in our team is like
(10:11):
what's just like a time suck,because everyone in this room is
super creative and we get ourjoy and our purpose, I think,
from being able to produce, likereally interesting, creative
work.
Molly (10:26):
A hundred percent, and I love that you are thinking about
like the day in the life of amarketer.
So, like many of you here inthe room, I am a marketer as
well, in my yeah, when I'm noton the Unserious podcast and
with all of you, and when Ithink about marketing today.
We have to be highly adaptive.
(10:46):
Our industries are changing ata rapid pace, our functions and
our roles are shifting all thetime, and so I I really do
believe that, like marketingteams are very ai ready.
But the question that I ask ishow do you move from the
possible to the practical?
How how do you actually bringit into your everyday life?
(11:08):
And a question that I've beenasking is when we talk about AI
and its purpose, is it reallyaround being efficient and
productive, or are we startingto see some impact on top line
revenue, customer engagement,pipeline growth?
Are we there yet?
Jennifer (11:27):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that question.
Last week I was with a group ofabout 50 CMOs and the most
interesting takeaway for me isthat AI implementation in an
organization is often led by themarketing organization, by the
CMO, because all of the usecases that we're seeing are
(11:51):
starting in marketing.
It's content creation, it'sinsights, it's research.
It can be creative as well.
So there is a ton of possible.
And to get to the practical,honestly, it's a start by
starting thing.
You got to get in there, yougot to start playing around and
um and experimenting and makingit a daily habit.
(12:14):
I actually changed the homescreen of my phone, so copilot
is right in the center and thatis now my entry point into the
internet.
Now it doesn't mean that I'mnot going to a browser or to an
app, but if that is my startingpoint, like that is a massive
shift in engagement, rightexactly I'm curious, like so you
(12:37):
talked about experimenting,like setting up your time every
day to experiment and creatingthat daily habit you talked
about actually like shiftingco-pilots.
Molly (12:45):
It's the first thing that you look at what might be some
first principles that you wouldgive marketing teams who really
are like the first entry of AIinto the business.
What kind of first principleswould you give those teams?
Jennifer (13:00):
I think it comes down to mapping out your particular
workflow, and in a marketingteam you can have people that
work on brand, that work oncommunications, that maybe run
events, and even withinmarketing.
I think there are some silosand specialties.
What I am noticing with AI isthere's a breakdown in those
(13:23):
silos.
They're coming kind of comingtogether, even a little bit more
.
So I think the first step iswhat is the work to be done and
how do you sort of break downthose steps?
And then where can AI play arole in it?
So my team actually, next weekwe are hosting our own hackathon
(13:44):
.
Oh cool, and usually it's likeengineers that are hosting
hackathons.
But the fact is that thesetools are low code or they're no
code, and we can make a lot ofstuff on our own.
So the whole point is we'vereally pulled the team.
Where do we need to sort ofcreate automation?
(14:06):
Where can we get productivitygains?
What annoying tasks can we takeout of the system, and where
can we potentially like make thequality better, so like getting
richer insights?
I think that's the whole pointof it.
We're not producing forproduction's sake.
Molly (14:30):
You could have infinite amounts of creative, but there
still is a point around qualityover quantity, so we need to
make that happen as well, whenyou think about quality over
quantity and this hackathon, doyou have any best practices for
being able to evaluate what goodis, what it looks like, what it
feels like, how it's being used?
Do you use things like designprinciples?
(14:52):
Do you have success criteria?
Do you have councils that areadvising?
I'm just sort of curious howthat works.
Well, this is our firsthackathon, oh hey, so
experimenting.
Jennifer (15:03):
So we are absolutely like this.
We are shooting for proofs ofconcepts at the end, and if they
are useful and helpful to ourteam, we will look to see.
What does productizing theselook like?
And maybe they're just for ourteam, but I think there's going
to be a lot of reallyinteresting learnings for us to
take away and potentially thenbuild on more.
(15:27):
The thing I will say and I'llshare this from my own
experience, but it's also fromtalking to people that are in
the tools is, once you buildsomething on your own, you have
this major unlock and the usecases that will come up in your
head of how you can use thistechnology.
Your mind will explode withthose use cases.
(15:49):
So I that's also what I want tosee happen with this hackathon
is like we're going to learn alot and then we're going to be
able to apply it and as a team,we're going to grow.
Molly (15:58):
Yeah, what I really so many of you don't know me yet,
but I have a background as ahuman-centered designer and when
I think about design, one ofthe key principles is learn by
doing, and that's what builds agrowth mindset.
That's what helps you overcomethrough failures, it helps you
accelerate your experimentation.
(16:19):
And I'm curious because,particularly in marketing, there
are so many different tasks.
It's very tactical, it's verydetail-oriented at each one of
the touch points across thecustomer journey, and I'm
wondering if you had any protips for how you might automate
one task or a task inside of thecustomer journey.
Jennifer (16:43):
Yeah, that is interesting.
I think for us it's probablyaround.
Where can the technology beapplied?
One example I can share is notreally with our marketing team,
(17:05):
but with the products that wehave, yep.
So we have the MicrosoftAdvertising Platform and we've
built Copilot right inside of it.
That's cool and it can makecreatives, it can change
backgrounds, it can provideinsights and diagnostics and
that is so powerful for ourcustomers Yep.
(17:25):
So in terms of the customerjourney these customers are
coming in, especially thinkabout a small business that
might not have a creative team.
How empowering is that fortheir own journey?
They don't have time.
They're looking at their returnon time spent, yep.
So I think finding like thework we all do as marketers, and
(17:47):
understanding customer behaviorand customer insights that
doesn't change.
That doesn't change.
I think it's about how can wemake their experiences that much
more personalized and valuable.
Yeah, you know, I read a statrecently that when you walk in a
store, you have about a 30%likelihood of purchasing
(18:10):
something, but when you're on awebsite, it's about a 2% chance
of buying something.
So there's a real opportunityfor improvement in customer
experience and getting people towhere they need to go faster,
better and happier too.
Molly (18:25):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that, and I love that being like
extremely customer focused, asyou're testing out, designing,
trying new things aroundautomating, automating work.
That's awesome.
I want to talk about creativity.
Yeah, I like.
I think creativity and AI is alittle tricky, and I don't think
(18:46):
I'm alone in this one.
I honestly don't know what tomake of it.
I bring it up because there wasa Friday afternoon and on that
Friday afternoon, all of asudden, my LinkedIn was
inundated with everybody makingaction dolls with the new
ChatGPT functionality.
(19:06):
There were thousands of themand I couldn't figure out if I
needed to jump in and make myown action doll, like I was like
is this cool, or do they alllook exactly the same?
And so that weirded me out alittle bit.
And then, on the other side oflike creativity and AI, jb and
Micah know this.
I really love these AIgenerated videos of giant squids
(19:28):
and big marine life gettingshampooed by oceanographers.
If you haven't seen them checkit out, Anybody know this.
I had to double check, Bizarre.
I had to double check if theywere real or not.
I was like are there squidsthis big in the ocean?
J.B. (19:41):
She just really wants to believe that there are these
marine life teams that are outthere shampooing dolphins and
things I do.
Molly (19:49):
I do, I'm a magical thinker.
J.B. (19:50):
They just need a good scrub.
Molly (19:51):
I'm a magical thinker.
No doubt about that.
J.B. (19:54):
But I agree with you that knowledge workers make really
boring action figures.
Molly (19:59):
Yes.
J.B. (20:00):
We're not excited.
Molly (20:01):
I wanted them to make giant squids.
So, in all of that, I'mwondering, giant squids.
So in all of that I'm wonderinghave you seen any like great
creative partnerships between AIand people making beautiful
things?
Jennifer (20:14):
Yeah, well, I'll just share.
I had a very similar reactionwhen I saw the action figures
and I thought, wow, there's somuch adoption.
I think OpenAI had like 10million new users every single
day when that was going on.
So great for adoption.
Molly (20:30):
Good marketing tactic.
Jennifer (20:32):
Yeah, but they all do sort of go to the mean.
Right, there's this averagethat you end up getting.
So I think AI can be extremelyhelpful in pushing your thinking
as a collaborator on your briefwriting, your concepting,
(20:53):
competitive intelligence, what'shappening out there.
So when you're thinking aboutit and really using even when
you're sometimes using the deepreasoning capabilities of AI,
you can go quite deep.
And then when you need to domass amounts of sort of creative
production.
So I was speaking to a clientrecently who was using AI and
(21:16):
you know they managed a hundredmarkets in the world and they
had a team of about 11 creativesthat were producing producing
all of their video, all of theirimagery, all of their content
for their advertising, and theyyou know the things like
translation that makes it somuch easier things like changing
(21:37):
the background, changing theweather, like in a particular
image or what have you.
Yep, so that kind of creativeproduction, so you can get to
personalization, makes a ton ofsense when it comes to true
excellence in craft.
Please treat AI as acollaborator and somebody that
will push somebody, a tool thatwill push your thinking.
(22:00):
Look it, I'm already treatingit like it's human, but I think
that the moat really for thework that we all do that's quite
creative is around the tastetastemakers is around curation
is around craft and like theexcellence that you get from
(22:20):
doing what you're doing 10,000hours in your lifetime to become
an expert in it.
Molly (22:28):
So I do think that will become quite the moat in terms
of you know where this is goingcreativity wise, yeah, and as
like a maker person myself, isthat I definitely use AI to get
my briefs out faster, synthesizea whole lot faster with all my
insights, so I can drive so wecan like ship even quicker.
I am going to switch gears.
(22:49):
Baby you ready for this?
J.B. (22:51):
I'm ready for this.
Molly (22:52):
Jen, are you ready for this?
Actually, jen, are you readyfor this?
I don't know if I'm ready forthis.
Okay, so many of you areprobably new listeners to
Unserious, but we have a gamethat we like to play in each one
of our episodes, and the gameis called hire, fire, boss.
You can imagine what this gameis about.
(23:12):
Um, so the rules of the game?
There aren't many, butbasically we give our guests a
hypothetical task and we givethem a dream team that they have
to hire someone, they have tofire someone and they have to
select someone to be their boss.
Micah (23:28):
So, I invite all of you to play.
Molly (23:31):
We're going to set this up for Jen, but please play
along with all of us and Jen,you ready for this?
I'm ready.
Okay, your task.
Because we know that you areMichigan Blue through and
through sorry, my Ohio Statefans, this is about to happen,
Go blue but because we know thatyou're this huge Michigan fan.
J.B. (23:53):
Are there any other Wolverines in the room?
Molly (23:57):
Okay nice we knew you were here.
We knew you were here, we gotyou.
J.B. (24:03):
We knew you were here.
Molly (24:05):
We got you too.
We knew you were here, so okay.
So the task that we have foryou is how might we reimagine
school spirit at the Universityof Michigan for the modern age?
We selected this task becausewe know you've already done this
job before and your dream teamis a bunch of divas from the
(24:26):
great state of Michigan.
So dream team member number oneis the queen of pop herself,
madonna.
Okay, our second divo is SlimShady, eminem.
And our third dream team memberis the mother of Motown, is
(24:51):
Diana Ross.
You guys can think about this?
J.B. (24:55):
Are you going to hire a fire boss?
Fire one, and one's got to beyour boss.
Molly (25:00):
Yeah, I know JB's been thinking about this a little bit
.
I've definitely got my dreamteam, so Jen and it's
instinctual, it's instinctual.
I know.
Jennifer (25:12):
Yeah, the body knows.
So I'm going to choose DianaRoss as my boss.
Molly (25:27):
Oh yeah, I mean, she's a godmother of all of us, and I'm
going to hire Madonna.
Jennifer (25:34):
Oh yeah, and I'm sorry , slim Shady, eminem, you're
fired.
Molly (25:40):
Oh, Slim Shady.
Slim Shady is hitting it.
That's okay.
He's an entrepreneur, he'sgoing to be just fine.
Yeah, I think so.
Jennifer (25:45):
What do you say?
J.B. (25:47):
I hired Eminem.
Jennifer (25:48):
You hired Eminem.
Yeah, alright, I was gonna workalongside him.
J.B. (25:52):
Madonna's my boss.
Love her Like the gays loveMadonna.
I can't not.
I can't not.
And Diana Ross, like she, justshe can go do whatever.
I just released her to theworld and I love her too, but
(26:13):
she's off to do her things.
Molly (26:16):
Well, I am on Jen's side.
I have Diana Ross as my boss.
J.B. (26:19):
Okay.
Molly (26:20):
Because I think she's been our boss, been the boss
since before I was born.
Jennifer (26:24):
That's true so.
Molly (26:25):
I will continue to take all her wisdom and I also hired
wanna work side by side withEminem.
I think the guy's anentrepreneur, love his music.
I'm into it and I am a hugeMadonna fan and I feel like
she's bigger.
She's too much for this.
J.B. (26:42):
And she would want to be out in the world.
That's the way I felt aboutDiana Ross.
Molly (26:45):
Yeah.
Jennifer (26:46):
Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome.
I was very nervous about that.
Molly (26:49):
You did great, you did great, you did great.
Actually, this is a funicebreaker if you ever had you
know on your team calls.
J.B. (27:00):
Jen was worried that I was going to ask about like French
philosophers or something thatwould be cruel.
Yeah, that would be really mean.
So you have described thefuture as conversational,
personalized and agentic.
I have.
What do you mean by that?
Jennifer (27:19):
Well, we'll start with conversational.
We're seeing this majorconsumer shift to the
conversational interfaces likeCopilot, like ChatGPT and the
entry point there, what you'retyping in, has completely
(27:41):
changed.
You're not just saying wherecan I go for spring break, or
what kind of hiking shoes shouldI buy Best hiking shoes You're
literally putting in an entirestory into this prompt box and
including so much color, so muchcontext.
(28:05):
You know, I am going hiking inthe state of Washington and it's
going to be March so it mightbe wet outside but I still want
to be cute.
Like you're putting all thiscontext in and we're finding
with our own research that theprompts are about twice as long.
(28:25):
The prompts are about twice aslong and the user is getting to
their decision in about a thirdof the time.
So this context is reallyvaluable.
And then these conversationaltools they have memory, so they
start to get to know you andthey have empathy, so they
become, like you know, truly acompanion.
(28:49):
And we're even seeing there wasa recent HBR article that
showed that people are usingthese conversational tools for
things like mental well-beingand that is really increasing.
J.B. (29:01):
That's the number one use case actually is for therapy.
Jennifer (29:05):
Totally so, like you're having a conversation and
it's private.
It's personal and there's nojudgment in there.
So that's this real shift inconsumer behavior that I think
we're all watching and we're allpaying attention to.
Personalized is it's the samething we've probably been
(29:25):
talking about for a really longtime, and I think AI can
actually deliver on the promiseof personalization around you
know, knowing who you are,knowing the context and the
situation that you are in, sothat, so that you're getting
content, that is what you needat that moment.
And then agentic is really likethese personal chatbots that
(29:50):
you're using.
That's your personal agent, andbrands are going to have agents
that are going to be reallysmart.
They're going to know all theproduct SKUs that you have.
They're going to have all theanswers to the customer service
questions.
J.B. (30:03):
So let's break it down with what actually is an agent.
I think there's a lot of peoplein this room that know what an
agent is, but our listenersonline might not so help us
understand what an agent is.
Jennifer (30:17):
Define an agent, absolutely so.
An agent really is a customizedversion of your conversational
tool that you're using.
So say so.
It's like a customized versionof your conversational tool that
you're using, so say so.
It's like a customized versionof your Co-Pilot.
And I will start with anexample, because I think that's
the easiest thing to do.
I made an agent about six monthsago and I called it the 2025
(30:41):
Trend Report Explorer.
So who here has read a trendreport for 2025?
I think we all have.
I had about 250 of those and Ididn't have time to read all of
them, so I dropped them all in aSharePoint and I built an agent
around that particular use caseand I used natural language to
(31:05):
say I wanna understand consumerinsights, business insights, I
want them to be actionable, andI sort of trained the agent.
But it was just on this amountof information, so it was very
finite, and I was able to promptthat agent and ask questions
and I use it all the time Like Irun a marketing team.
I use it all the time Like Irun a marketing team.
(31:26):
So you know, when I'm lookingfor insights for a keynote or
something like that, I can go.
What's happening in the autoindustry?
Molly (31:36):
I'm not totally an auto industry expert, but I can get
there and the industries areshifting so quickly as well as
you know our customers and sobeing able to just like keep
pace with that rate of change ispretty cool.
To have an agent help you dothat.
Jennifer (31:46):
Absolutely.
And once I made that, Irealized oh wow, I can do this
for a lot of things.
I can put you know our customerresearch or survey data, things
like that, our brand healthreports in here and I can prompt
it and I can get reallyinteresting insights.
Yep, you know, we havesomething else.
(32:07):
That's an internal tool wherewe collect all of our support
tickets and it's called Voice360.
And we're able to see what arethe, where are customers having
the biggest issues?
Yep, and that can go right intothe product team as a
prioritized feature request.
So there's a lot of thesethings can be very.
(32:30):
You can sort of like box themin with the, what you're
training and what you'regrounding them on.
And when I said before, there'slow code tools and no code
tools to do it, I'm not coding,I'm using natural language to
build these.
J.B. (32:46):
So what's the agentic future?
Jennifer (32:48):
Well, the agentic future is you have your own
personal agent that has memoryso my personal co-pilot has
memory from everything I'mprompted and that agent can talk
to essentially a brand agent oranother personal agent and over
time, will be able to takeaction on my behalf.
(33:10):
Now, the big thing here that wehave to remember is that trust
is so paramount to this workingand working well.
You have to be able to trustthat your information is private
, that it's secure.
So that's very, very important.
And same thing on the brandside.
You might have an account witha particular brand and, I don't
(33:35):
know, maybe your groceryshopping list will be taken care
of without you even doinganything in the future.
But that trust has to be there.
So these agents will talk toone another.
I think in a marketing scenarioor in a business workflow, you
can string these things togetherto take to take action on your
behalf wow, I mean, I feel likethat's pretty amazing it is like
(33:56):
what does this mean for thefuture of our work culture?
Yeah, I mean it's interesting.
I think our work will change alittle.
You know, like if you have acouple agents that you're
working with for the particularthings that you're doing, you
can imagine you might have likethree or four that help you do
your job.
Maybe you'll become a managerof these agents.
(34:19):
Microsoft recently came outwith a work trend index that
kind of showed this evolution ofyou have agents that you work
with as collaborators.
You might have a few of them inthe future and then over time
you might be a manager of a teamof agents.
Yeah, you know, I don't knowexactly how we're gonna get
there, but I think we're seeing,like, if you really go back to
(34:42):
that workflow, the workflow isgetting broken down and it's
starting to get strung togetherand and, as business leaders, we
need to think about where do wehave human intervention?
very intentionally, yeah, yeah.
And and where do we want tomake sure that there are eyes on
the work?
Yeah, so that you know beforeit sees a customer or gets out
(35:07):
into the world.
We need to make sure that we'reoperating with responsible AI
principles in mind.
How does this?
J.B. (35:14):
I mean, how does this as a CMO, how do you now think about
man like evaluating humanperformance, when so much of it
is is being supported by agents?
It's a really different.
Jennifer (35:33):
It's really interesting.
I think honestly, like I think,about what Microsoft values.
We are a growth culture with agrowth mindset, and I don't want
to say this like repeatedstatement over and over again,
but it's so true.
The pace of change is crazy andit's the only thing that's
(35:54):
constant.
So, having people on the teamthat are embracing a growth
mindset because what I justdescribed like I don't know,
know is that in a year, is it infive years?
But the reality is is thatwe're going to be navigating
this change so having a team ofpeople that can embrace it, play
(36:16):
with the tools, be open to them, you know, continuously
reimagine the work that needs tobe done and and keep our north
Stars in mind too.
Like it's not technology fortechnology sake, it's technology
in service of the mission thatyou have as a business, the
purpose you have in the world.
It's in service of yourcustomers.
Molly (36:36):
At the end of the day, yep, yeah, and I think, when I
think about that, also like thehuman intervention I did
recently just watch, watchJurassic Park.
You guys are all going to getto know me real well, but the
question in it was, like youknow, just because you could
make dinosaurs, could you makedinosaurs?
(36:57):
Right you know, and so I thinkeven in that, like human
intervention piece, it's beingable to consequence scan, it's
being able to like understandwhat the impact is that you're
having, um being and and lookingout um in those decisions.
J.B. (37:11):
So absolutely cool, absolutely so, jen, I want to
shift gears a bit now again, um,and talk a little bit more
about you and your leadership,because you're you're an
extraordinary leader and youbring spirit and you build
culture wherever you go and, asyou say, you describe yourself
(37:34):
as a builder.
You grew up in Michigan.
You're a Wolverine twice over.
Can you share the story of thebus?
Can?
Jennifer (37:44):
you share the story of the bus?
I sure can.
So for the few Michigan peoplehere.
If you have been at theUniversity of Michigan in the
last 20 years, you've probablyseen the Ross Business School
school bus.
My friends and I, as businessschool students, do.
We were a little entrepreneurialand decided we needed a better
(38:10):
way to tailgate.
So we pooled our money togetherand we bought a school bus.
We ripped out all the seats, wepainted it to look like the
Michigan helmet, we built a deckon top, we found a parking spot
for it between campus and thestadium and we parked it there
every week and everyone had ajob.
(38:31):
My job was to order the kegs,somebody else was in charge of
the music, somebody else was incharge of finance, somebody else
was the driver.
We all had a role and that busserved us for the season.
It was so much fun.
We took it on the road and thenwe sold it to the next class,
and then the next class sold itto the next class and we
(38:53):
graduated in 2004 as foundingmembers, and that bus is still
going on.
J.B. (38:58):
That's awesome.
Jennifer (38:59):
So it's a pretty cool story.
J.B. (39:02):
How does that like?
What are the lessons from thatthat you still have and build
into your team?
Jennifer (39:11):
I think I'm you know, I'm an optimist at heart.
I see the good and thepotential in individuals and
with that I'm very much astrengths-based leader.
So even back to the bus, like Iwas good at buying the kegs, I
guess.
So that's what I did, and so Isee the potential.
(39:33):
And then I sort of also see thepotential in our team together,
because I don't things don'tslow, like obstacles are
sometimes exciting to me versusslowing me down or stopping me.
So I think that optimism issomething I really bring to the
(39:54):
team and something that is adeep value of mine.
Another deep value is generosity, and now that I'm more senior
in my career, I literally wantto give as much as I can to
people that reach out orcoaching or mentoring sessions,
(40:14):
you know, even like sharing asmuch knowledge as I can.
I just want to.
I hope it's useful with all ofyou and you know, I think the
other thing is just that growthmindset and really putting your
best foot out there, like tryingand practicing and caring and
(40:35):
having pride in the work thatyou do.
So those are things that Ireally value, obviously, like
excellence and being data drivenand all this stuff.
Like I love that and I'm supercompetitive, but, like in terms
of leading, leading a team in aculture, like you know, we're
people are the biggest assetthat we have, so we have to, we
(40:59):
have to nurture and grow thepeople we have and learn from
everyone.
I learn from people on my teamevery single day.
I learn from every singleinteraction, so I think that's
the other thing, too is justlike how much are are we
learning and how can you bringthose insights in?
J.B. (41:14):
I think there's something to the act of building something
physical as well.
Yeah, like this, likecollective creative act.
Jennifer (41:22):
Yep, I've seen it in your events as well, yeah well,
I definitely am feeling theinspiration here with this event
.
I get really jazzed and youknow like people don't get
together in real life.
That as much anymore.
So it's, it feels good to behere interacting with a great
group of people, yep.
Molly (41:43):
Okay, well, jen, thank you so much.
We are at the end of our show.
It's been a pleasure to learnso much from you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, and that's the show.
J.B. (41:57):
Special thanks to our producer, micah Vono, to TJ,
lori and Rob for making us looklike we know what we're doing
here today, to Dino, jessica andSkyler and the whole Meltwater
crew for trusting us with thisopportunity, and to the amazing
live audience.
Thank you, you guys are awesome.
If you like this episode, dropus a rating and review and share
(42:19):
it with someone else.
If you have questions or ideasfor future episodes, drop us a
line at hello at unseriouscom.
We're also on LinkedIn, onInstagram at unseriousfun, or on
our website, unseriouscom,where you can find all of our
previous episodes and show notesAt Unserious.
We make work play.
(42:43):
Thank you, thank you, we did it.
Woo-hoo work.
Thank you, thank you, we did it.
Woohoo.
Jen was worried that I wasgoing to ask about like French
philosophers or something.
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