Guides for working with an AI CMO

What an AI CMO does, and what it doesn't

A chief marketing officer's job is to decide where marketing effort goes, make sure the work happens and judge whether it paid off. Most of that job is research, planning, production and reporting, which software can now do well and quickly.

What it shouldn't do alone is make calls that depend on things it can't see: a conversation with your biggest customer, a shift in company strategy, a brand risk only a person would notice. That's why Vonn works inside rules you set and brings those calls to you.

A useful way to split the work

• Let Vonn own: research, plans, drafts, routine campaigns, budget shifts within limits and reporting.
• Keep for people: brand direction, big creative bets, partnerships, pricing and anything legal.

Setting approval rules that don't slow you down

Too many approvals and you become the bottleneck. Too few and you'll be surprised by something you didn't want. Start strict, then loosen rules as you see Vonn's judgement.

1. Set a weekly limit for budget shifts that you'd be comfortable with if you never checked. For many small companies that's 5–10% of monthly spend.
2. Require approval for any email to more than about a fifth of your list.
3. Review the first ten blog posts, then allow publishing without review if you've had no corrections.
4. Keep approval on for any new channel or new campaign type.

Every rule can be changed at any time. Changes take effect for the next action Vonn takes.

Your first 30 days

Week one is about access and the audit. Expect a list of tracking problems; almost every account has them, and fixing them makes every later decision better.

Week two is the strategy and the 90-day plan. Push back on anything that doesn't match what you know about your customers. Vonn would rather be corrected now than later.

Weeks three and four are the first live campaigns and content. Judge Vonn on whether its decisions are well reasoned, not on results yet. Results from most channels need four to eight weeks to be reliable.