CMSWire TV
The Gist
- The Godfather returns. Scott Brinker joins CMSWire TV’s Dom Nicastro to explore how agentic AI is reshaping marketing technology — and what comes next for martech's most famous landscape.
- Four kinds of agents. Brinker outlines internal AI tools for marketers, customer-facing bots, buyer-controlled agents and human change agents — the unsung heroes driving transformation.
- The buyer’s turn. As AI assistants handle more product research and purchasing, marketers must adapt to a future where buyer-side agents dominate discovery and reshape attribution.
Scott Brinker, creator of the legendary Martech Supergraphic and founder of chiefmartec.com, joins CMSWire Editor-in-Chief Dom Nicastro for an in-depth conversation about the rise of agentic AI systems and their impact on marketing.
In this episode of The Digital Experience Show, Brinker breaks down the four “agents” transforming marketing technology — from workflow-enhancing AI copilots to buyer-controlled assistants reshaping the customer journey.
Together, we unpack how marketers can prepare for a world of AI Engine Optimization, rethink attribution in an era of zero-click interactions and embrace the human “change agents” who make transformation possible.
It’s an insightful, fast-moving conversation with one of marketing’s most respected voices — equal parts practical and provocative, just like the martech world Brinker helped define.
Table of Contents
- 5 Martech Questions Answered by Scott Brinker
- Episode Transcript
- Opening Conversation: The Godfather of MarTech
- Charting AI’s Place on the Hype Cycle
- Inside the Acceleration of AI Adoption
- The Change Management Challenge in Martech
- The Four Agents of AI in MarTech
- When AI Agents Go Too Far
- Buyer-Controlled AI Agents and the Future of Discovery
- Zero-Click Buyers and the Attribution Blackout
- Advertising Inside AI Assistants: The Next Frontier?
- The Most Important Agent: Humans as Change Leaders
- The Four Agents of AI in Marketing
- Preparing for Buyer-Side AI
- The Expanding Martech Universe
- From Brochureware to Agentware
5 Martech Questions Answered by Scott Brinker
Episode Transcript
Editor's note: This transcript was edited for clarity and brevity.
Opening Conversation: The Godfather of MarTech
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Hey everybody, Dom Nicastro here, editor of CMSWire.com, here for another episode of The Digital Experience Show. And we have brought in Marlon Brando — I mean, Scott Brinker — the godfather of marketing technology, MarTech analyst, ChiefMartec.com. What’s up, Scott?
Scott Brinker: It’s great to be here with you, Dom, yes.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: It’s good to be here with you. And let’s get it on the record once again — I like to say this — Dom Nicastro coined you the Godfather of Martech, correct?
Scott Brinker: Yes. You are the Don of Doms.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: The Don of monikers and marketing technology! It’s been a long ride. We’ve gone on the horn like this many times — and this time, shockingly, we’re talking about artificial intelligence in marketing. We’re going to break down four ways these agentic AI masterminds are entering the martech scene — and we’re doing that with you. But first, how have you been? You wrapped an incredible eight-year run at HubSpot. How’s life post-HubSpot?
Scott Brinker: I’m great. It was wonderful to spend eight years building HubSpot’s technology ecosystem. We went from a few dozen integrations to well over 2,000. I’m excited about where it’s going — but after eight years, it’s time for a new entrepreneurial adventure. The world is full of possibility right now — a little overwhelming, but exciting.
Charting AI’s Place on the Hype Cycle
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: You did a great job breaking that down recently on chiefmartec.com. It was about where we are in the hype cycle of AI and marketing — and it’s all over the place. Some of it surprising. Give us the snapshot of that column — what was your main point in breaking down where we are on the hype and innovation cycle?
Scott Brinker: When we talk about AI and hype, there isn’t a single “AI thing.” It’s not just at the peak of inflated expectations or the trough of disillusionment — there are dozens of specific use cases and tools, all at different stages of maturity. The data I used came from a survey conducted by SAS and a research group, and it was fascinating. Some tools — like generative text or data analysis — are quite usable. Others, like generative video, still have a way to go.
Scott Brinker: People got excited about generative video a year ago, and it wasn’t quite ready to live up to that promise. Adoption dipped, but the technology keeps improving. Soon, we’ll see it work for specific use cases — that’s the pattern. It’s not one hype curve; it’s many overlapping ones. We’re seeing iterative generations of AI emerge — text, multimodal, now agentic workflows — each moving at its own speed.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Right — and it’s fascinating how you show that something can be both peaking and maturing simultaneously. AI is diverse and multifaceted. A CMS can’t drive a car, but AI probably could someday — and it can generate copy today. That SAS report really underscored how variable the maturity levels are.
Related Article: How AI Reasoning Turns DX Stacks Into Intelligent Orchestrators
Inside the Acceleration of AI Adoption
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: What’s going up — video’s going down, customer journey mapping’s down a bit, but trend analysis, chatbots, customer interactions, and content generation are all climbing. Those use cases are fascinating. We’ve even seen it firsthand at CMSWire. Early on, we were like, “This is great for headlines and subject lines.” But now we’ve built an internal system that can scan a decade of CMSWire content, find patterns, and cite specific articles. It’s incredible to see the same technology move up and down that hype curve.
Scott Brinker: Hmm. What continues to surprise, challenge, and excite me is just the speed of evolution through these hype cycles. I remember when they used to unfold over five to 10 years — now it’s one or two. Something seems overhyped, then suddenly it’s mainstream. Think about it: three years ago we were just getting our first real ChatGPT. Back then, people wondered if it would have any practical value. Now, it’s everywhere.
The Change Management Challenge in Martech
Scott Brinker: This pace of change is exciting, but it’s also challenging — especially for organizations. Change management, adaptation, cultural readiness — these are tough skills to master. You have to work at it constantly.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Totally. I’ve been traveling and talking to marketers since ChatGPT came out. It feels like the big wins so far have been internal — automating workflows, making processes easier, improving content production. But I’m not seeing massive customer experience turnarounds yet. So far, AI seems to be helping the marketers more than it’s helping the customers.
The Four Agents of AI in MarTech
Scott Brinker: That’s the perfect setup for my four kinds of agents. Even the term “AI agent” can mean a lot of different things. As you know from my Martech Landscape Supergraphic, I love to categorize things — to find buckets and patterns that make sense.
So, here’s how I see it: one category is internal tools, like the ones you just mentioned. These are behind-the-scenes systems that help marketers brainstorm, produce and analyze content more efficiently. They let us create things that used to be out of reach due to cost or skill gaps.
Scott Brinker: That’s one class of agents. Then we have the agents that engage with customers directly — the customer-facing bots and assistants. Think of customer service chatbots, which, for years, were mostly terrible.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Right — that’s why we tucked them into the bottom-right corner of every website. We didn’t want people to actually see them!
Scott Brinker: Exactly! But plug in a large language model (LLM), connect it to your knowledge base, your ticketing system, your CRM data — and suddenly those same bots can deliver real conversational engagement. Tools like Intercom’s Fin, HubSpot’s customer agent, or Sierra are seeing resolution rates as high as 70–80%. And if a bot can’t resolve the issue, it hands off seamlessly to a human — which is exactly how it should be. Those resolution rates were unheard of just a few years ago.
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When AI Agents Go Too Far
Scott Brinker: Then there’s a third type of agent — one that’s a little more controversial: the AI sales or SDR (sales development representative) agents. These are the ones engaging in outbound motions, especially in B2B. I have to say, as an actual buyer myself, I’m not sure that having AI agents increase the number of outbound emails I get is a feature. I’m dubious about that trend.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Ha! Yeah, same here. The idea of bots flooding inboxes with automated outreach — that’s a little terrifying.
Related Article: AI in the Contact Center: The Human Touch Still Matters
Buyer-Controlled AI Agents and the Future of Discovery
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, and I don’t know if a bot’s ever going to sell a Department of Defense machine, but it’s wild to think about AI woven into those B2B sales cycles. If it helps, it helps — but it’s definitely unsettling.
Scott Brinker: Right — and that brings us to what I think is the most interesting kind of agent: those not controlled by sellers or marketers, but by buyers.
Scott Brinker: We’re seeing this now with tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. A buyer can just say, “Find me the top products that do X, Y, and Z,” and get a neatly organized spreadsheet of pros and cons. People love it. This is where the shift from search engine optimization to AI engine optimization comes in. These AI assistants are changing how buyers discover and evaluate products. From a B2B standpoint, the deep-research capability is already transforming buying journeys.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Right — and soon your agent could be talking to the buyer’s agent. How does that work? That’s got to be top of mind for marketers right now — AEO, GEO, SEO — whatever you call it. We’re trying to figure it out ourselves.
Scott Brinker: Exactly — have your agent MCP my agent! But really, it’s a new kind of optimization problem. Like SEO used to be — you test, you adjust, sometimes nothing works, and you start again. We’re in that same experimental phase for AI engines.
Zero-Click Buyers and the Attribution Blackout
Scott Brinker: Here’s the key thing: buyer research activity isn’t dropping. People are still learning about products, categories and solutions. What’s changed is *how* they’re doing it. The classic Google model gave marketers visibility — you could track clicks, downloads, white papers. Those metrics built our attribution models.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Right, heat maps, click-throughs — the good stuff.
Scott Brinker: Exactly. Now AI can synthesize all that information and present it conversationally — and users love it. They can ask follow-ups, compare vendors, refine results. Buyers are actually *more engaged* than ever; we just can’t see them. That’s the paradox: high engagement, zero visibility.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, we don’t know what the heck they’re doing! Zero-click behavior. Maybe they saw your brand in an AI overview and used that info internally, but you’d never know. They didn’t need to click through — the AI delivered everything they needed. I try to follow the links myself, but I doubt most buyers do.
Related Article: AI Overviews and Zero-Click Search: What Marketers Should Do Now
Advertising Inside AI Assistants: The Next Frontier?
Scott Brinker: It’s definitely shifting. What’s going to be really interesting — and this is still speculative — is how AI assistants will eventually introduce advertising. It’s widely expected. When Google introduced ads, it was a new form of advertising — purpose-built for the search experience. I think we’ll see something similar here.
Scott Brinker: Now, there’s concern that inserting ads into AI experiences could ruin them — and that’s valid. As Cory Doctorow says, “enshittification” is real. But I’m cautiously optimistic. The smartest companies might find ways to integrate ads that actually add value instead of destroying the experience. If they succeed, it could give marketers back something they’ve been losing: visibility.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Attribution — yeah. When Google came up with advertising, they hid it well. It blended into the experience of finding organic content. It’s still that way. Sure, it’s labeled, but most consumers don’t notice. If AI can make content discovery seamless and natural, I could see it working — maybe by prompting: “Want to check out a related product?” Click yes, or keep chatting. That feels natural.
Scott Brinker: Exactly. We’ll see how it plays out. You’ve got a lot of top-tier design talent — people like Jony Ive types — joining AI companies. They might actually figure out elegant ways to integrate monetization without breaking the user flow. I’m optimistic we’ll see some novel approaches here.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, or it could turn into a Snickers ad popping into the chat — “Hungry, Dom?” But seriously, let’s sum this up. We talked about the first three kinds of agents. There’s one left — the human kind.
The Most Important Agent: Humans as Change Leaders
Scott Brinker: Right — the last one’s a bit of a play on words: the “change agent.” With how fast everything’s evolving, change management is the hardest part — not the tech. Some people get paralyzed by it. But the ones who step up, experiment and help guide their teams through uncertainty — those are the unsung heroes. Sometimes it’s senior leaders, but often it’s people deep in the trenches who take the small, brave steps that help the organization move forward. Those are the most valuable agents right now.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Totally. And change management with AI infusion is critical. I even wrote an article calling out OpenAI’s poor change management when they rolled out GPT-5 — they just yanked 4.0 away for many users. That didn’t sit well, and they quickly reversed it after the internet backlash. Maybe CMSWire helped apply some pressure there too, you never know!
Scott Brinker: I’m sure you did, Dom.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: The point is, marketing teams need strong change agents — not just for the tech stack, but for customers, too. That human adaptability is what keeps everything grounded while AI accelerates everything else.
Related Article: OpenAI Forgot the Golden Rule of CX: Don't Yank Away What Customers Love
The Four Agents of AI in Marketing
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: All right, let’s sum it up. The four kinds of AI agents you outlined — internal agents that help with production and analysis, customer-facing agents like chatbots or email engagement, buyer-side agents operating on behalf of consumers and human change agents — which of these is most impactful right now for marketing teams?
Scott Brinker: Let’s set the human change agents aside for a moment. From a technology standpoint, the most productive use we’re seeing right now is with internal agents. There’s just so much work that marketers need to do — content creation, analysis, campaign optimization — it’s time-intensive and requires many skills. AI is streamlining all of that.
So in the short term, that’s where the greatest value lies. Long term, the real disruption will come from the buyer-side agents. Once they mature, they’ll change how marketers engage with buyers entirely.
Preparing for Buyer-Side AI
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Yeah, and that means marketing teams need to get ready now — to make sure their content is visible to those buyer agents. We’re still trying to figure out how to “get into the AI party.”
Scott Brinker: Exactly. AI Engine Optimization (AEO) is still a black art, but it’s starting to take shape. For instance, companies can expose APIs for inventory or pricing so buyer agents can pull in real-time data. Think of it as treating AI engagement as a data integration opportunity — we can make our systems more accessible to these agents, enabling them to represent buyers more effectively. It’s a new kind of marketing infrastructure.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: So a year or two from now, will marketers still obsess over their websites? Is that still the gateway into the buyer journey?
Scott Brinker: Great question. I don’t think websites are going away, but they’re evolving. We’re starting to see AEO solutions that create a “dual layer” — one version of a page for humans, one optimized for AI engines. Google used to frown on that, but AI engines actually prefer it. They want structured, machine-readable formats they can easily parse. So yes, we’ll still have human-facing sites, but we’ll also maintain an AI-facing version for discoverability and interaction. When those AI handoffs happen, the human-facing version needs to deliver a seamless, high-context experience.
The Expanding Martech Universe
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Love it. So, what’s next? You’ve got over 15,000 tools on the Martech Supergraphic. Are we expecting a 2026 version that’s even bigger?
Scott Brinker: Absolutely. We’re still tracking the data, and it’s almost certain to keep growing. But that massive chart — while fun to look at — doesn’t fully represent reality. It’s really a long-tail market. You’ve got a few dozen public companies dominating the head of the curve — Adobe, Salesforce, HubSpot — and then a mid-tier of category leaders with $100–200 million ARR. Below that, there’s a vast tail of small, specialized vendors. Many of them don’t aspire to be billion-dollar companies; they’re just building great niche solutions. AI is lowering barriers to entry even further, so that long tail will keep stretching.
From Brochureware to Agentware
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: It’s amazing to think that back in 2011, the Supergraphic started with 150 logos. That must’ve been hard to fit into one image!
Scott Brinker: It really was — and now it’s 100x that size. If AI can parse an image of the landscape and automatically list every company on it, I’ll be impressed. Honestly, it’s not far off. The tools are getting close to that level of capability.
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: We’ll be looking forward to the next one — the “brochureware” landscape of 2026! You and Frans Riemersma do great work over at chiefmartec.com. Thanks for joining us, Scott — the Godfather of MarTech himself.
Scott Brinker: Always a pleasure, Dom. What an incredible time to be in marketing technology. I haven't been this excited since yesterday!
Dom Nicastro, CMSWire: Perfect ending. We’ll see you next time on CMSWire TV’s The Digital Experience.
