I spend most of my days talking with brand marketers, and ANA Masters of Marketing is where many of them gather every year. Walking around the event in Orlando felt a bit like having all my client meetings in one place. Between sessions, hallway chats, and lots of coffee, I kept hearing some version of the same question. Now that AI can do so much, where do people fit?

The brands on stage had a pretty clear answer. Leaders from P&G, Verizon, Clorox, and more described AI as a way to amplify human insight and creative work, while their teams continue to own strategy, intuition, and judgment. They also shared practical ways they are chasing growth right now. Here are the six that stuck with me.

1. Marketing Leadership Reaches Across the Entire Business

Marketing’s influence is expanding into product, customer experience, culture, and technology, and AI is accelerating that shift by blurring the lines between departments. 

Our CMO Justine Frostad spoke to this on The Female Quotient’s Leading Beyond Marketing panel. Her point was that as marketing’s role grows, imagination is the thing marketers most need to protect.

“I don’t want our next generation of marketers to lose the imagination that drove us to this industry in the first place,” she said. “This era won’t only be defined by what we teach machines to do, but by all the extraordinary things we free humans to imagine, create, and achieve.”

2. AI Amplifies Human Insight

Across nearly every session, AI showed up as an accelerant for brainstorming, analysis, and production, while people decide which insights matter and what fits the brand. 

For example, brands like P&G and Verizon treat AI as a brainstorming partner that helps bring ideas to life faster, and the measure of success—business growth—has not changed.

3. Efficiency Only Matters When It Fuels Growth

Fewer brands are making bet-the-farm media commitments. Instead, CMOs are asking teams to drive outcomes on leaner budgets and to mine non-paid channels for insights that shape paid strategy. 

Brands doing this well, like American Family Insurance and USPS, anchor their investment in one clear consumer insight and judge every tactic, AI included, by how it strengthens the full channel mix.

4. Growth Starts with Changing Consumer Needs

The strongest growth stories started with a shift in how people live.

Rising GLP-1 adoption, the move toward moderation, and a broader view of hydration are opening new occasions and audiences for brands like Haleon, AB InBev, and PepsiCo. 

The opportunity is to look past the category to the need underneath it, then show up where the brand genuinely helps.

5. Cultural Relevance Gives People a Reason to Care

When a product is not a functional necessity, interest has to be earned. 

LEGO, Verizon, and AB InBev are tapping into what audiences already love, from Pokémon to entertainment to live music, to give people a reason to engage. 

Harley-Davidson offered one of the most memorable framings of the week, moving the brand from intimidation to invitation, a reminder that tone is a strategic choice.

6. Marketing Needs Systems That Keep Learning

The shift from episodic campaigns to always-on learning may be the clearest way AI is changing the marketing process itself. 

Clorox showed how social listening and organic response can feed paid activity, with AI helping teams adapt creative quickly. With guardrails set up front, teams can run smaller experiments and move faster, while people still make the final call.

What This Means for Advertisers

The brand leaders I heard from in Orlando want sharper insight, faster learning, and more growth from every dollar, and they want it without handing judgment over to a machine.

That is exactly where deep learning earns its place. Cognitiv’s models are built to find the signals that traditional targeting misses, so brands can reach the people most likely to act and spend less to get there. The strategy, the story, and the final call remain where the ANA stage said they belong, with the people who know the brand best.

If any of these themes sound like the conversations happening on your team, I would love to compare notes. Reach out to connect via email or LinkedIn.

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