From Crawl to Run: A Practical Guide to AI Maturity in Marketing

In this episode of Future Proofed, Ryane Bohm and Nathan Thompson break down the stages of AI adoption in marketing, exploring how companies move from basic chat tools to full-scale AI integration, and what it really takes to operationalize AI for messaging, workflows, and strategy. They share hands-on advice, candid pitfalls, and a future vision for AI as the marketer’s ultimate assistant.

Key Themes & Takeaways:

1. AI Marketing Maturity: From Crawl to Run

• Companies typically move from using basic chat tools (“crawl”), to building workflows and agents (“walk”), to aiming for near-full automation (“run”).
• Most teams are still in the early “chat tool” stage, with few reaching advanced integration.
• “I thought it would be a little bit further along by now… I think we're still seeing people in figuring out how to do things with tools like chat.”

2. The Documentation Dilemma

• Implementing AI reveals how many workflows are undocumented or based on intuition.
• Codifying processes is essential before scaling with AI.
• “People have been doing their jobs a lot more intuitively than they've understood or admitted, and now they have to put all that on paper.”

3. Small vs. Large Companies: Speed and Scale

• Small companies can rapidly design new AI processes without red tape, gaining agility.
• Larger organizations benefit from resources and formal documentation but move slower.
• “You have so much more freedom in designing the pipes… If it doesn't work, do it different next time.”

4. Automation Needs a Human Touch

• Full automation is not the goal—humans must own strategy, final decisions, and quality control.
• AI should augment, not replace, human judgment.
• “I don't think there should ever be full automation on strategy… AI is not the one pushing publish. The poor content problem is a human problem.”

5. Messaging & Brand Consistency Risks

• AI can scale the right message—or misinformation—very quickly.
• Unified messaging and oversight are critical as teams scale AI-generated content.
• “Then you're scaling either misinformation or incorrect positioning 10 times faster.”

6. The Future: AI as Proactive Assistant

• Envision AI dashboards that proactively deliver insights, competitive research, and content ideas—before marketers even ask.
• “I have this dream… AI has synthesized everything the competition is doing and suggested next best content.”
• AI as an “invisible assistant with a photographic memory that makes me look awesome.”