The Management Mandate: Work Faster, Work Better (But Only AI Native Will Deliver)

TL;DR: The era of AI experimentation is over. Marketing teams facing mounting pressure to deliver faster, better results can't achieve breakthrough performance by dabbling with AI tools. Success demands becoming AI native… fundamentally restructuring how marketing operates with AI woven into every process, decision and strategy.

Management has spoken: marketing needs to work faster and deliver better results.

Every CMO has heard it. Every marketing director feels it. The pressure is relentless and growing. 89% of marketers report that pressure to perform has significantly increased in the last two years. Yet despite widespread AI adoption, only 22% believe their current strategies are driving fast growth and just 10% say their teams are executing at the speed needed to succeed.

That’s 1 in 10 that AREN’T WORKING at the speed needed.

The disconnect is glaring. Management wants speed and performance (they’ve read the articles and now want to see action). Marketing teams have access to AI tools (they’ve read the articles because management keep sending them). But the results aren't materialising. Why? Because most organisations are still dabbling with AI instead of becoming AI native. It’s not that daunting a task.

The Dabbling Trap: Why AI Tools Aren't Enough

Walk into any marketing department today, and you'll find teams using ChatGPT for content ideas, running social media posts through Jasper, or experimenting with AI-powered analytics dashboards. Around one third of marketers weren't using GenAI for common marketing applications and even those who are often treat it as a sophisticated assistant rather than a fundamental transformation.

This is dabbling. It's the equivalent of buying a Ferrari and using it to go grocery shopping… you're missing the entire point.

Dabbling characteristics:

• AI as an add-on to existing processes

• Isolated tools that don't integrate with core workflows

• Human-first processes with AI assistance

• Reactive decision-making with AI insights as afterthoughts

• Manual handoffs between AI tools and human execution

The result? Marketing teams continue to struggle to deliver real business impact when they are drowning in complexity. They're getting marginal improvements from expensive tools while management demands exponential results.

The AI Native Difference: Transformation, Not Enhancement

An AI-native organisation is one that embeds AI into the core of its operations. AI drives strategic decision-making, optimises critical processes and fuels growth from the ground up. This isn't about using better tools, it's about fundamentally rewiring how marketing operates.

AI Native characteristics:

• AI woven into your entire technical architecture

• Autonomous workflows that adapt in real-time

• AI-first decision making with human strategic oversight

• AI agents that autonomously perform tasks rather than just assist

• Seamless integration where AI and human intelligence compound each other

Why Management Pressure Demands AI Native Transformation

The business case is becoming undeniable. Because AI offers such transformative potential for new operational and business models, those that pull ahead of the pack, whether AI native companies or established companies that reinvent themselves quickly will likely stay there.

Speed: The New Competitive Advantage

Marketing speed is directy tied to business growth. That’s one takeaway observation from my conversations with marketing leaders and management teams. Only 34% of marketers describe their campaign cycles as fast or highly efficient. Yet those with faster cycles are twice as likely to achieve significant revenue growth.

AI native organisations compress traditional marketing timelines:

• Content calendars are adjusting dynamically based on real-time engagement. Budgets are shifting with predictive models. Campaigns are being launched, tested, and optimised within days rather than months

• Decision-making in sales and marketing is shifting from reflective to reflexive, leveraging real-time data and AI to enable immediate, context-aware responses

Scale Without Complexity

Traditional scaling means adding more people, more processes, more complexity. AI native scaling means rather than scaling by adding more people, companies are scaling by enhancing capabilities.

One implementation is expected to save around 800 work hours per month, allowing teams to focus on more creative, value-added tasks. This isn't efficiency, it's transformation.

The Real Barriers (And How AI Native Overcomes Them)

Most marketing teams cite familiar obstacles to AI success. Data security, lack of investment, time … always comes to time. Which is weird when you consider the time saving on offer when you transition to AI Native.

But these barriers exist precisely because organisations approach AI as an addition rather than a foundation. AI native companies solve these challenges by design:

Integration becomes native architecture: Instead of connecting disparate AI tools, everything is built AI-first from the ground up.

Security becomes systematic: Companies will need systematic, transparent approaches to confirming sustained value from their AI investments with built-in governance frameworks.

Expertise becomes organisational capability: Rather than hiring AI specialists, AI native companies develop organisational fluency where human creativity and system design will become more critical than ever.

The Competitive Reality: AI Native Companies Are Already Winning

While traditional marketing teams debate whether to invest in more AI tools, AI native companies are capturing markets. The companies that will dominate the next decade aren't the ones with the best AI today. They're the ones building AI-native cultures, AI-first product experiences, and AI-enabled business models.

The Management Decision: Evolution or Revolution

Here's what management needs to understand: the AI native transformation isn't optional anymore. July 3rd, 2025 marks the time we need to wrap up the era of stalling, of waiting to see in AI.

The choice is binary:

1. Continue dabbling: Keep adding AI tools to existing processes, achieving marginal improvements while competitors transform entirely.

2. Go AI native: Weave AI into your entire technical architecture and fundamentally rewire how marketing operates.

The organisations choosing revolution are the ones that will deliver the speed and performance management demands. As we move through 2025, marketers must embrace AI as an essential tool, not just for efficiency but for delivering meaningful, personalised experiences at scale.

The Roadmap: From Dabbling to AI Native

The transformation requires systematic approach:

1. Foundation First

• Audit current AI usage across all marketing functions

• Identify manual processes that could be autonomously handled

• Assess data architecture for AI-native workflows

2. Workflow Transformation

• Redesign workflows fundamentally as a result of gen AI deployment

• Build AI-first processes rather than AI-enhanced existing ones

• Create autonomous feedback loops that improve without human intervention

3. Cultural Evolution

The real shift AI is driving is more deeply cultural than you might think at first. Generative AI is shifting marketing teams from doing repetitive execution to orchestrating more strategic initiatives.

Teams must evolve from task executors to strategic orchestrators of AI systems.

4. Measurement and Iteration

Determine a set of benchmarks you will use to measure AI's impact. These metrics could include cost savings, response rates for customer inquiries and/or time savings.

AI native organisations don't just measure AI performance, they measure business transformation.

The Deadline Reality

If your team hasn't shipped great AI into production yet, the question isn't whether you need to make changes. The question is whether you have the courage to make them fast enough to matter.

Management's demand for faster, better marketing results isn't unreasonable. It's inevitable. The tools exist. The competitive pressure is real. The only question is whether your organisation will dabble with incremental improvements or commit to the AI native transformation that actually delivers.

The companies that choose transformation now will be the ones still standing when the AI native generation fully arrives. The rest will be asking themselves why their expensive AI tools never delivered the results management expected.

The choice is yours. But the window is closing.

Next week I’ll write a follow up article this time from the progressive marketers’ viewpoint and how traditional management are dismissive of the need to transition to AI Native.