How Modern CMOs Pilot AI‐Driven Marketing Without Losing Control

Direction is more important than speed. – Paulo Coelho

Planes, Algorithms, and Marketing Chaos

If you live near Newark Liberty Airport, you’ve probably noticed that aviation’s been a mess lately. 

Fewer air traffic controllers + More reliance on algorithms = Delays, reroutes, and angry passengers.

And here’s the thing: planes still mostly fly themselves. Autopilot handles about 95% of the flight. Humans just handle the parts where things get tricky: takeoff, landing, and emergencies.

Believe it or not, marketing is becoming the same.

Tools like Google Performance Max and Meta Advantage+ promise autopilot campaigns. Just give them a target and a budget, and the machine handles everything else.  

It’s fast and it’s tempting, but it’s also a black box.  If you’re not careful, it’ll take you somewhere you didn’t mean to go.

AI Moves Fast. Bad Inputs Just Get You Lost Faster.

Here’s what Myles Udland from U of Digital said in Snowflake’s Modern Marketing Data Stack 2025:

“Google Ads is kind of a bewildering NASA command center... and Performance Max wipes all of that away. Just give me a target and sit back.”

Sounds great. Less button-pushing = More time thinking.

But there’s a catch: when you can’t see the controls, the only thing you can manage is what you feed into the machine.

When you feed garbage into a black box,  you get garbage back – faster, cheaper, and at scale.

Metrics Lie When You Stare at Them Too Long

Most marketers don’t realize they’ve been tricked into optimizing for the wrong thing.

You ask for more clicks? You get click farms. 

Ask for more leads? You get junk contacts who never answer the phone.

Goodhart’s Law sums it up: When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.

So does Charlie Munger: “Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.”

The fix? Aim for outcomes that actually move your business – pipeline, revenue, lifetime value. Not soft metrics that look good on a dashboard but don’t pay the bills.

AI Flips the Funnel. You Just Need Better Questions.

Before, marketing was about mastering tools. Now it’s about asking better questions.

Generative AI lets marketers get answers from their data in minutes, not quarters. It handles the heavy lifting so you can move fast without getting bogged down in menus and dashboards.

As Hubspot Vice President Scott Brinker put it:

“In Jaws they said the shark is the perfect eating machine. The best marketers are perfect question-generating machines.”

That’s your edge now: focus and vision. And, it’s key to know where the runway is. Otherwise, the algorithm will optimize you straight into a mountain.

Treat AI Like an Intern–Because That’s What It Is

AI isn’t your boss. 

It’s not your replacement.  

It’s your intern.

Sure, a fast one and a cheap one. But still an intern.

So treat it like one:

• Be clear about what you want

• Give it the right materials

• Check its work

• Course-correct fast

Do that well and you unlock leverage. 

Do it poorly, and you just scale bad decisions faster.

The PILOT Framework

Want to stay in control while flying at full speed? Use the PILOT checklist:

P = Purpose

Ask: What real business outcome are we driving?
Trap: Vanity metrics that look great but don’t help the P&L.
Do: Tie every campaign to revenue, profit, or payback period. No soft goals.

I = Inputs

Ask: Are our audiences, creatives, and data clean and targeted?
Trap: “We’ll fix it later” thinking.
Do: Pre-flight check for creative quality, data hygiene, and ideal signal clarity.

L = Learnings

Ask: How fast can we extract signals and adapt?
Trap: “Set-it-and-forget-it” campaigns.
Do: Track micro-conversions, review models frequently, and pivot with purpose.

O = Orchestration

Ask: Are we syncing with product, sales, and finance?
Trap: Channel silos optimizing locally, hurting org wide outcomes.
Do: Share dashboards. Hold cross-functional standups. Align on one goal.

T = Talent

Ask: Who’s owning the prompts, reviews, and strategy?
Trap: One overworked “tool jockey.”
Do: Appoint an AI lead, teach prompt engineering, and turn marketers into managers.

Why This Matters

Miles Davis once said: “You have to be able to play the music, but you have to be able to understand the music as well.”

AI lowers the barrier to playing the music. But understanding what drives growth? That’s still all you.

If you just hand over the controls, your budget will hit turbulence fast.

But if you know the destination, manage your tools like a team, and stay locked on outcomes, not activities, your marketing turns into a flywheel instead of a black hole.

So keep your headset on. Watch your inputs. And remember:  Speed is only good if you're headed in the right direction. 

Safe travels!