The AI Edge Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to Episode 1 of The AI Edge Podcast! Hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger kick off the show with guest Krish Raja, AI expert and founder of AI Literacy, to break down the biggest AI stories shaking up marketing and advertising right now. This week: Coca-Cola doubles down on their controversial AI-generated holiday ad (yes, the one with the sloths), Sam Altman hints (again) that ChatGPT ads are inevitable, and Amazon and Shopify reveal drastically different strategies for AI in e-commerce, with huge implications for how we'll all shop and advertise in the future. The conversation gets real about job security, the risks of making big AI bets too early, and why marketers need to think critically about their relationship with AI tools. (Spoiler: if you're not improving yourself with AI, you're just improving AI.) Whether you're trying to keep up with the AI revolution or just want to cut through the hype, this episode gives you the clarity you need to navigate what's next. New episodes every Monday. Let's get you your AI edge.

Amazon just killed Rufus. The upfronts just tried to sell data like it was primetime inventory. And every streaming platform announced an AI tool that sounds exactly like every other streaming platform's AI tool. Meanwhile, the industry is barreling toward agentic commerce built on data that excludes half the world — and most marketers haven't noticed yet.

This week, Shiv and Miles welcome two guests who are doing something about it. Stefanie Beach is the founder and CEO of The Marketeer Group and host of the Digital Marketeer Podcast. Nadia Koski is a 15-year ad tech and publishing veteran, American expat living in Florence, and the founder of a new podcast launching this week. Together, they're producing a panel at Cannes Lions focused on AI bias, inclusive data, and what the industry needs to do before it's too late.

They break down why Amazon sunsetting Rufus in favor of Alexa is actually a smart long game — and why agentic commerce will cannibalize commerce media in the process. They also get into why the upfronts are in their awkward teenage years, why selling data on an upfront timeline is a structural contradiction, and why every streamer announcing an "AI personalization tool" this week needs to actually show who's buying it and why.

Then the conversation gets more serious. Only 52% of the world's data is represented in today's AI systems. An AI crop app built for African farmers failed female farmers entirely because the training photos were all taken by men. Roughly 1 in 4 women feel that using AI at work is cheating — men simply don't carry that hesitation. And if agentic commerce gets built on this foundation, brands risk alienating Gen Z and Gen Alpha — the largest spending generation of the next decade — before they ever get a chance to reach them.

🎙 Check out Stefanie's podcast: The Digital Marketeer Podcast https://bit.ly/4uhs5oj

🎙 Nadia's new podcast launches Tuesday, May 19th — Still Human: Real Talk in the Age of AI Listen to the trailer here: https://bit.ly/3RMqCrJ

The MarTech landscape just flatlined for the first time in 15 years. Not because AI killed it — but because the companies that were always going to lose finally ran out of time. Meanwhile, marketers are building software without knowing they're building software, SaaS platforms are going headless, and the new constraint isn't data or budget or creative. It's context.

This week, Shiv and Miles sit down with Scott Brinker — aka Chief MarTech, founder of the Chief MarTech blog, former HubSpot ecosystem lead, and the person who has been tracking the MarTech landscape since it had 150 companies on it. Scott just dropped his annual State of MarTech report — 125 pages, a decade and a half of pattern recognition, and one central thesis: we are in the chrysalis stage. Things have dissolved. The butterfly hasn't formed yet. And anyone who tells you they've figured it all out is lying.

Scott breaks down why peak MarTech finally arrived — and why the companies exiting aren't the AI wrappers everyone expected but the legacy 2010s players that never won their categories and have been on life support for years. He also explains why the build-versus-buy question has exploded into build-and-buy-and-build-some-more, why marketers are creating software without realizing it, and why the entire order of operations most marketing teams are using with AI is exactly backwards.

They also get into why context is the new constraint — and what it means that human bridges between company context and customer context are disappearing as agents start talking to agents, why SaaS platforms that go headless are making the smartest long-term bet in the industry, and why the data layer players like Snowflake and Databricks are quietly racing up the stack.

Ready to level up your AI skills? Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator. Use code EARLYBIRDSLEARNAI for 20% off https://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/ Sponsored by Hightouch

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

Meta wants to turn its AI chatbot into a shopping engine — but what happens when a chunk of the catalog is fake? OpenAI just partnered with Criteo to inject ads into ChatGPT, and agencies are vibe-coding their own GEO platforms while unicorns raise $100 million to do the same thing. The commerce media land grab is on, and nobody's quite sure who wins.

This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger bring the conversation inside the house. Their guest is Tameka Kee, U of Digital's new Head of AI Enablement and Strategy — a 20-year ad tech veteran with stints at Rubicon Project, Magnite, and CIMM, who spent her first two weeks on the job going through the AI Accelerator herself.

Tameka breaks down why Meta's AI shopping tool could supercharge the drop-shipper problem and usher in a new era of AI product slop, why OpenAI partnering with Criteo is smarter than it looks (hint: it's as much a data play as a monetization play), and why Google's ecosystem — Maps, Wallet, Chrome, Translate, YouTube, Gmail — is still the greatest monetization machine ever built and ChatGPT has a long way to go. They also get into whether agency AI platforms will survive to 2029, what Stagwell's GEO build is really signaling, and why throwing money at AI adoption without understanding your team almost never works.

Ready to level up your AI skills? Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator. Starts March 9, 2026 | Use code PROCRASTINATOR for 25% off https://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/ Sponsored by Yahoo DSP

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

Everyone thought AI would kill the consultancies. Instead, OpenAI just partnered with Accenture, McKinsey, and BCG to form the Frontier Alliance — bringing enterprise AI to the brands that need help figuring out where to start. Turns out, the awkward phase of a new technology wave is exactly when consultancies earn their keep.

This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Linda Bethea, Chief Marketing Officer at Danone North America, to talk about what brands are actually doing with AI, why efficiency isn't the same as effectiveness, and what happens when you send your entire C-suite to Seattle to learn about AI from Microsoft.

Linda breaks down how Danone built an AI task force before most companies understood what was coming, why the physical shelf gave way to the digital shelf — and why marketers now need to think about the AI shelf, and the three things every CMO should tackle first when getting started with AI (spoiler: always start with people). They also get into Profound's $96 million raise and unicorn status, a $20 million bet on injecting ads into LLMs, and why Anthropic is pushing back hard on government demands for access to its models and data.

Ready to level up your AI skills? Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator. Starts March 9, 2026 | Use code PROCRASTINATOR for 25% off https://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

ChatGPT ads are live, and the real danger isn't ad load—it's the business model. When platforms get paid for engagement instead of answers, everything changes. Facebook proved that. Now OpenAI is walking the same path, and marketers need to understand what happens when AI stops prioritizing truth and starts optimizing for clicks.

This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Ken Rona, Chief AI Officer at JWX (formerly JW Player), to talk about what's actually happening with ChatGPT ads, why Meta and Apple's AI wearables might finally matter, and how AI traffic is converting at rates that should terrify traditional search.

Ken breaks down why ChatGPT might intentionally get worse once ads take over, whether AI wearables will replace your phone or just clutter your desk, and what happens when AI-driven shoppers convert 3x higher than search traffic. They also discuss OpenClaw's billion-dollar one-person acquisition, vibe coding that isn't vibes anymore, and how Ken's team built a programmatic bidder in an afternoon that would normally take months.

Ready to level up your AI skills? Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator Bootcamp Starts March 9, 2026 | 20% off with code at checkout https://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/ Sponsored by Yahoo DSP

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

The Super Bowl ads are still being dissected, and the backlash is real. AI fatigue is hitting advertising, brands are questioning whether anyone cares about their AI-powered campaigns, and marketers are caught between innovation theater and what consumers actually want.

This week, host Myles Younger sits down with Jeremy Bloom and Sam Khoury from Marketecture Media to unpack what went wrong with Super Bowl advertising, why AI hype is backfiring, and what happens when brands forget the basic rule: give consumers control, not spectacle.

Jeremy and Sam break down where AI fits (and doesn't fit) in entertainment, why authenticity beats automation, and why consumer control is the most underrated strategy in marketing. They also explain what Marketecture Live is building—a space where marketers can actually talk about what's working instead of what's being sold (with incredible food!).

Marketecture Live NYC | March 10-11, 2026 https://2026.marketecturelive.com/ Use code UOFD30 for 30% off

Ready to level up your AI skills? Join the U of Digital AI Accelerator Bootcamp https://uof.digital/ai/accelerator/

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

The Super Bowl LX became the AI Bowl. Anthropic ran ads calling out OpenAI for putting ads in ChatGPT, Sam Altman fired back on Twitter, and the marketing world had a meltdown about whether any of this even matters. Not to mention Svedka's fully AI-generated Super Bowl spot that took 300+ iterations, OpenAI asking brands for $200K to test ChatGPT ads, and AI agents autonomously creating their own religion called the Church of Molt.

This week is a big one. Hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Babs Rangaiah, industry thought leader and former marketing exec at Unilever, IBM, and Paramount+, now CEO of cc:babs, to talk through what just happened and what marketers should actually be doing about AI right now.

Babs breaks down why Anthropic's controversial Super Bowl play was actually genius, whether brands should test OpenAI's $200K ad program, and what he's seeing as he coaches Fortune 500 CMOs navigating AI. They also talk about AI agents creating their own religions, why some marketing teams still aren't discussing AI in 2026 planning meetings, and when we'll finally see the breakthrough AI case studies that force everyone to pay attention.

Plus, thoughts on AI-generated Super Bowl creative, why peer pressure drives adoption faster than anything else, and whether Meta will end up creating most of your ads for you.

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

YouTube just overtook Reddit as the most-cited source in AI search results. Meta's ad revenue is funding a $135 billion AI spending spree. And marketers are about to see a wave of AI ads during the Super Bowl. But here's the question nobody's answering: should advertisers have to disclose when they use AI?

This week, hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Caroline Giegerich, VP of AI & Marketing Innovation at the IAB, to discuss the AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework: the industry's first attempt to answer when, how, and why marketers should label AI-generated advertising.

Caroline breaks down the core questions: Do we disclose AI use in advertising? In what circumstances? Who's responsible: the brand, agency, or platform? What's the threshold for requiring a label? 

Caroline walks through what the IAB is building, why it matters, and shares some surprising research: turns out advertisers think consumers love AI ads way more than they actually do. They also dig into Meta's massive earnings, why YouTube citations are changing content strategy overnight, and what marketers should be watching during the Super Bowl.

New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.

Links to IAB's research and framework discussed in this episode: 

Research: https://www.iab.com/insights/the-ai-gap-widens/ Framework: https://www.iab.com/guidelines/ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework/

It finally happened. OpenAI announced ads are coming to ChatGPT in February at $60 CPMs with under-$1M spending commitments. The entire advertising industry is about to change overnight.

Hosts Shiv Gupta and Myles Younger sit down with Patrick O'Shea and Kevin O'Malley, co-founders of AdDaptive Intelligence, to break down what this means for marketers. Patrick and Kevin have been business partners for 20 years, deep in B2B marketing automation since the programmatic days, and they're here to cut through the noise.

They discuss why this isn't just search ads 2.0, OpenAI's 4% commerce fee (while Google and Microsoft charge nothing), Google's "we'll never do ads in Gemini" response, and why B2B marketers are uniquely positioned for this shift. Plus, the new cottage industry of AI ad services about to explode, and why the best advice is simple: start testing now.

Every other LLM will rush to launch ads. Budgets are being carved out. The AI ad ecosystem is emerging overnight. Let's dig into it. New episodes every Monday. Get your AI Edge here.